Some House Republicans try to change the rules so losers become winners
House Republicans live in a world where math is upside down.
In this fantasy land, five can be as powerful as 217; eight as big as 433; and, in a new twist this past week, 99 out of 223 can somehow be turned into a strong majority.
This latest example came Friday, when Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) claimed the nomination for GOP House speaker, despite a clear majority of the full House not wanting him to be their pick.
On Wednesday, Jordan lost the nomination, running a competitive race but only getting 99 votes — about 44 percent of the 223 ballots cast. He offered a tepid endorsement, at best, to the winner, Rep. Steve Scalise (R-La.), and then sat back as his allies sabotaged the front-runner.
They told Scalise that they would re-create the drama of January when Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) failed on the first 14 ballots because about 20 hard-right conservatives voted for someone else, forcing him to make key concessions until they let him win on the 15th roll call.
After enduring about 30 hours of this torture, Scalise said no thanks. He will stay put as majority leader and watch as Jordan now faces the same struggles.
McCarthy, Jordan and Scalise’s long history seeps into speaker fight
Before Friday’s new vote, Jordan’s allies, including McCarthy, who was deposed earlier this month, hyped his candidacy enough that expectations were set for him to blow past Scalise’s initial tally. Instead, a last-minute entrant, Rep. Austin Scott (R-Ga.), a backbencher focused on national security issues who never sought a leadership post, embarrassed Jordan with a strong second-place showing.
Jordan received only 124 votes, claiming about 10 of the protest votes from Wednesday that went to write-in candidates or simply stated “present.” He flipped only about 15 of Scalise’s initial supporters. In a second secret ballot that asked Republicans how they would vote in the required public roll call for speaker, 55 doubled down and said they would not support Jordan.
This sets up the same conundrum that felled McCarthy and prompted Scalise to abandon the race: With 221 on their side, Republicans have just four votes to spare if all 212 Democrats vote the other way.
Jordan’s allies have signaled a political-roughshod campaign that will dare his opponents to vote against the far-right Republican in the public, alphabetical roll call on the House floor. They hope they will crumble from fear of retribution from conservative primary voters.
“I think there’s a clear path to get him to 217. But as long as you’re doing secret ballots, it’s a lot harder to get 217. We’ve got to break cover,” Rep. Dusty Johnson (R-S.D.), a leader of a mainstream conservative caucus, told reporters Friday.
But Jordan’s staunchest opponents warned that a pressure campaign would backfire. “Look, when you’re doing it in a positive way, you can usually get a lot,” Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart (R-Fla.), a staunch Scalise backer, told reporters....
Diaz-Balart, who said he would never vote for Jordan, said it would be an arrogant mistake to ignore the adage about catching more flies with honey than vinegar.
“Usually you do it at your own peril,” he said.
After nine months of watching their hard-right flank essentially extort McCarthy, this band of establishment Republicans has declared that it’s time to stop rewarding the hostage-takers. Instead of giving in to Jordan, they want to adopt the very same strategy: minority-rule tactics to sabotage him....
So now the Diaz-Balart wing plans to force Jordan to swallow some of the same medicine he has delivered throughout the years.
All these minority-rule moments turn the tables on a GOP conference that used to assert the “Hastert rule,” an unofficial standard often imposed by J. Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.), the House speaker from 1999 into 2007. It said legislation that did not have the support of “the majority of the majority” would not get a vote on the House floor.
Now, the majority of the majority no longer rules, given that both McCarthy and Scalise had such support, as Jordan now does.
Instead, a small bloc — sometimes five, sometimes eight, sometimes 20, perhaps 99 — has turned the math upside down.
With the new “Jordan rule,” it’s the minority of the majority that matters most.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2023/10/14/jim-jordan-speaker-minority-rule/
