On Wednesday, House Republicans revealed that they’d nominated Louisiana Rep. Steve Scalise, a moderate, to be the next House speaker after Rep. Kevin McCarthy’s ouster. On a secret ballot, the GOP lawmakers reportedly voted 113-99 for Scalise over Ohio Rep. Jim Jordan.
The Louisiana congressman, who is battling blood cancer, gained goodwill after surviving an Antifa-inspired assassination attempt on Republican lawmakers at a congressional baseball game practice in 2017.
To become House speaker, Scalise must win a simple majority of the whole House, not just the House Republicans. A floor vote of the whole House could come as soon as Wednesday afternoon. “We have a lot of work to do,” Scalise said after the secret ballot.
In January, the Democrats voted in lockstep against McCarthy in January. Across all 15 rounds of voting, they voted for New York Rep. Hakeem Jeffries, the House minority leader. Earlier this month, every Democrat in the room voted to oust McCarthy.
Given the GOP’s razor-thin majority, the House is heading for a very close vote.
It’s unclear whether Scalise can amass the votes that would be needed from almost all Republicans to overcome the Democratic opposition.
“I don’t know how the hell you get to 218,” said Rep. Troy Nehls, R-Texas, referring to the majority vote typically needed in the 435-member House to become speaker. “It could be a long week.”
Usually, the majority needed would be 218 votes, but there are currently two vacant seats, dropping the threshold to 217.
The coalition of eight Republicans that voted to oust McCarthy has revealed the potential for a few lawmakers to exercise an outsize role in choosing a House speaker.
“I am not thrilled with either choice right now,” said Rep. Ken Buck, R-Colo., who voted to oust McCarthy.
Many Republicans want to prevent the spectacle of a messy House floor fight like the grueling January brawl when McCarthy became speaker.
“People are not comfortable going to the floor with a simple majority and then having C-SPAN and the rest of the world watch as we have this fight,” said Rep. Kat Cammack, R-Fla. “We want to have this family fight behind closed doors.”
Behind closed doors, the Republicans voted to set aside a proposed a rule change that would have required the nominee to whip his or her 217 votes before the floor vote. Without the rules change, the Republican lawmakers would be expected to agree to a majority-wins process for nominating their candidate for the speakership. Republicans reportedly voted 135-88 to send back the rule change.
Neither Scalise nor Jordan was seen as the heir apparent to McCarthy. Plus, all three men have been here before. In 2018, they were similarly vying for leadership, with McCarthy and Scalise extending the rivalry to this day.
Scalise was in line for the job, but faced a challenge from Jordan, who chairs the Judiciary Committee and helped to found the Freedom Caucus.
A staffer for Jordan told the Washington Post that Jordan plans to endorse Scalise.
Several lawmakers, including Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., who engineered McCarthy’s ouster, said they would be willing to support either Scalise or Jordan.
“Long live Speaker Scalise,” Gaetz said after the vote.
For now, Rep. Patrick McHenry, R-N.C., who was named as the speaker pro-tempore, is effectively in charge. He has shown little interest in expanding his power beyond the role he was assigned — an interim leader tasked with ensuring the election of the next speaker.
Minnesota Rep. Tom Emmer, the House majority whip, told the Wall Street Journal that the House may hold a floor vote as early as 3 p.m.
The new speaker will face a stacked docket. The House Republicans seem likely to push for further spending cuts before the current spending bill’s expiration date in November. Plus, Congress looks likely to debate the proper response to the wars in Israel and Ukraine.
The Horn editorial team and the Associated Press contributed to this article.