If Kevin McCarthy couldn’t unite Republicans, there was little chance that someone even further to the right would do it.
Thus it’s no surprise that Jim Jordan’s bid to be the next speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives appears doomed.
Jordan, the ultraconservative congressman from Ohio, has failed to get the necessary majority in votes taken Tuesday and Wednesday. It’s telling that rather than gain ground, the Donald Trump acolyte lost votes during the 24 hours Jordan and his supporters had to twist arms.
Jordan years ago threw his lot in with the former president, not just defending him through two impeachments but also joining Trump in spreading the lie that the 2020 election was stolen from the incumbent. Obviously there are enough Republicans who are cowed neither by Trump nor the far-right fringe in the GOP. They are not going to put Jordan in charge, no matter what.
He should give it up, just as Steve Scalise, the first option to replace the ousted McCarthy, did last week when he saw that he lacked the votes to win.
The question is whether the Republicans, with their slim majority and deep intraparty fissures, can settle on a compromise candidate. Some in the House don’t think so, and a bipartisan group of them have floated the idea of giving more power to the temporary speaker, Patrick McHenry, and calling a truce until the politics settle down.
The political intrigue would be very interesting if not that the impasse is keeping Congress from addressing some crucial concerns. Among them are providing weapons and other assistance to U.S. allies in Ukraine and Israel, both engulfed in war, and forging a budget deal to avoid next month yet another threat of a government shutdown.
A temporary arrangement for the speaker’s chair may be the best solution if it can command sufficient bipartisan support. On a strict party-line vote, which is how speaker’s elections almost always run, the Republicans don’t have the unity to win, and the Democrats don’t have the numbers.
The voters could fix the situation. They could either award more House seats to pragmatic Republicans, so they aren’t held hostage by the far-right fringe, or they can return the majority to the Democrats.
But the voters can’t fix it until next year, when all House seats will be on the ballot.
