Republican House speaker candidate Rep. Steve Scalise (R-La.) held a closed-door meeting of the GOP conference to address lingering concerns about his candidacy among party members.
The three-hour Oct. 12 session produced no result.
Members reported that as many as 15 to 20 Republicans haven’t yet committed to supporting the party’s nominee, more than enough to block his election.
Another listening session was expected to take place that evening, in which members would meet in smaller groups and Mr. Scalise would speak individually with holdout members.
Rushed Election
Mr. Scalise had hoped for a quick speaker election after winning the GOP nomination 113–99 over Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) on Oct. 11.
A vote in the House was scheduled for 3 p.m. on Oct. 11, less than two hours after the nominating conference.
That didn’t sit well with some Republicans.
Even some of Mr. Scalise’s strong supporters were surprised that the nominating conference was adjourned so quickly, short-circuiting any attempt to bring the group to unanimity before proceeding to a floor vote.
“So I think a lot of people ... found it odd, like, ‘We’re adjourning right now? We’re not going to get to some level of confidence that we are going out with 217?’” Rep. Warren Davidson (R-Ohio) said, referring to the minimum number of votes needed to win the House election.
Others balked at the timing of the House election.
“I will not be voting for Steve Scalise on the floor this afternoon,” Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas) wrote on X on Oct. 11.
“The House GOP should not have called a vote at 3 p.m. after finishing the [nominating] vote at 1:30 p.m. in conference. That is unacceptable and purposeful.”
The complaints point to a larger, underlying concern of some Republican members, especially those newer to Washington, who want to ensure that their voices are heard and that all members have some say in the legislative process.
To them, the hurried pace of the election undermined trust in the process.
“It seems different from when we came in,” freshman Rep. Rich McCormick (R-Ga.) said on Oct. 12. “We had our initial agreement on how we’re going to disseminate power to the body. And it seems like we’re kind of going backward a little bit.”
Mr. Jordan has said that he now supports Mr. Scalise and offered to make his nomination speech on the House floor.
Urgency to Fill the Chair
Many members are eager to elect a speaker quickly and get the House back to work, casting the stakes in near-apocalyptic terms.“It’s a dangerous game that we’re playing,” Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Michael McCaul (R-Texas) said. “It just proves our adversaries right, that democracy doesn’t work. Our adversaries are watching us.”
Rep. Paulina Luna (R-Fla.) said, “We have to find someone to lead the country. We have no speaker, we have a war that just broke out in the Middle East, we have our appropriations bills due soon, and we have a country that is in chaos.”
Others downplayed the urgency, pointing out that the president is already empowered to deal with emergencies.
“The whole universe doesn’t revolve around this building,” Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas) said. “If something happens, we can act.”
Other Possibilities
Some members who aren’t opposed to Mr. Scalise believe that he can’t get the 217 votes needed to win the election.“There are people from all ranges of ideology across the conference saying, ‘I can’t yet vote for Steve,’ and some are saying outright, ‘There’s no way I will,” Mr. Davidson said.
Objections to Mr. Scalise range from the uncertainty of his health, as he’s currently fighting multiple myeloma, to his history in leadership during a time when the national debt grew rapidly to his having spoken to a white supremacist group in 2002.
Mr. Scalise has said that he didn’t know the group’s affiliation before accepting the invitation.
“The reality is that if it’s not going to be Steve Scalise, we need to figure out who it is,” Nicole Malliotakis (R-N.Y.) said. “At the end of the day, I would be happy to support Jim Jordan or Steve Scalise—or maybe there’s another person—but we just need to get it done.”
Several members told The Epoch Times that giving Speaker Pro Tempore Patrick McHenry (R-N.C.) additional powers wasn’t under consideration.
“That’s not facilitated in the Constitution,” Rep. John Duarte (R-Calif.) said.
Members were reluctant to predict how long the selection process would take, but some told The Epoch Times that they’re prepared to remain in Washington over the weekend, indicating that a GOP consensus could be days away.
