What should happen now that there is no House Speaker?

The Throat in the House: Reply to Rep. Dan Bacon, R-Neb., Rep. Ken Buck, Rev. J.B. Jeffries

If no one succeeds in meeting that threshold, the House simply continues to hold elections until someone does. Typically, a speaker has been elected after one floor vote. If that is not possible the process can drag on indefinitely. Mr. McCarthy only prevailed after five days and 15 votes.

Ken Buck said he won’t support Jordan on the floor. Buck believes that Jordan’s role in fueling conspiracy theories that the election was stolen from Trump is cause for concern.

Mr. Jeffries has pitched the idea of forming a coalition government that he describes as an “enlightened arrangement.” But the idea is a long shot. And given that he has more votes than any Republican seeking the speakership, it is highly unlikely that Mr. Jeffries would agree to cede to a G.O.P. candidate without substantial concessions.

Mr. Jeffries said Democrats would team with Republicans to elect a speaker only if they agreed to change House rules to allow “governance by consensus”; in other words, allowing bills with bipartisan support to come to the floor. The Rules Committee, which decides what legislation is allowed to be voted on, has been changed so that Republicans have complete control of the bills the House considers. That means that Democratic priorities are almost always blocked and the hard right effectively has veto power on what is considered and what is not.

There is concern among members that Jordan has a long history of opposing spending bills. The next speaker will immediately face decisions about military aid to Ukraine and Israel, funding for border security and an upcoming deadline to fund the government by November, 17.

House Republicans are planning a public vote on Tuesday to choose Jim Jordan as Speaker of the House, ending weeks of infighting and chaos.

Jordan spent the hours leading up to the vote continuing a sweeping campaign to convince 217 Republicans to back him. Jordan has spent the past several days working with his allies to convince skeptics that he can return to being an outsider once more and lead the splintered party in a consequential election year.

“The American people deserve to have their Congress, the House of Representatives working,” Jordan told reporters in the Capitol on Monday night. We can’t have that until we have a speaker.

Rep. Don Bacon, R-Neb., told reporters he plans to vote for the ousted former Speaker Kevin McCarthy on the floor Tuesday, saying it’s “unacceptable” for a small minority of the majority dictating actions of the conference.

“It’s about Kevin McCarthy and how they were treated and not about Jim, it’s about how they were treated,” he said. “I respect people have different opinions on this. We need someone to speak. We’ve got a world on fire. I didn’t put us there. The small group of people who took out Kevin put us in this spot.

The Biden Democratic Party Is Not Mystified, but I’m Proud to Keep the Voting Propaganda Private

“I do think that the the 20 Republicans who are in Biden districts have a problem if everybody in leadership is saying the election is stolen,” Buck told reporters Monday.