HE DOESN’T HAVE THE VOTES … YET Jim Jordan wants to be the next speaker. But like Steve Scalise (and Kevin McCarthy) before him, the Ohio Republican is still far short of a majority on the floor. It would be hard to understate the frustration and resentment among House Republicans right now – at the end of a week that broke their conference’s chaos meter. GOP leadership sent members home for the weekend with plans to reassess on Monday after Jordan beat Rep. Austin Scott (R-Ga.) with 124 votes, then picked up less than 30 more votes when Republicans were pressed whether they’d support him on the floor. Let us state it plainly: That’s not great. Scott jumped in without a lick of campaigning and got more than 80 supporters. Even when the choice was Jordan or no one on the floor, the ultraconservative Ohioan remained more than five dozen votes short. Of course, secret ballots are easy to stand strong on – it’s another thing to stand up on the floor to oppose Jordan, particularly when our Olivia Beavers reported that his allies in and out of the Freedom Caucus are putting serious pressure on holdouts. But generally speaking, Jordan has a “big hill,†to quote former Speaker McCarthy’s words about Scalise’s doomed bid. Jordan “should be afforded 24 hours or the weekend or whatever … to see if he can get the votes and if he can’t get the votes, roll on,†Rep. Greg Murphy (R-N.C.) told reporters after the vote. The eventual speaker, he added, “may be somebody who is tolerable for everybody.†Jordan, who told reporters he felt “good†after the vote, is expected to meet with holdouts as well as his backers over the weekend ahead of a potential Monday meeting to revisit whether he has enough support for a floor vote. “I’ve been working it for 10 days,†Jordan added. “We’ll keep up. … We want to go to the floor as soon as possible, but we’re missing like eight members who aren’t in town. So we’ve got to wait for them to get back … I think we’re going to get 217.†Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.), a Jordan ally, said he expects a floor vote next week so that members can lay out where they stand before finally supporting a speaker. Massie projected that “we go to the floor†when Jordan has closer to 180 votes.â€Which isn't to 217 yet, but I believe what's going to happen is – people in the first round may vote for McCarthy, they may vote for Scalise, Donald Trump may get a vote,†Massie said. “But after everybody gets that out of their system, you know, fulfills their commitments … by the second or third round, I think we're going to be over 200." That assumes, of course, that more time helps Jordan. The longer Scalise’s victory sat without the support it needed, the worse it got for his speakership hopes. Here’s a fun thought experiment: How exactly would a Speaker Jordan work with a Majority Leader Scalise (R-La.) after the tense events of the past week? Bigger-picture reminder: Acting Speaker Patrick McHenry (R-N.C.) doesn’t have the power to move bills on the floor. But some Democrats, privately and publicly, are floating ideas to empower McHenry so that – at least for a short amount of time – the House can move must-pass legislation like government funding and aid to Israel. That could mean interpreting the House rules differently to empower McHenry now, or moving a privileged resolution on the floor to make him temporary speaker with powers for a certain amount of time. But if Democrats help achieve that, they have made clear it wouldn’t be for free. Speaking of Dems… keep on reading. — Daniella Diaz, with assists from Katherine Tully-McManus, Jennifer Scholtes and Anthony Adragna
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