WASHINGTON (CN) — After a disastrous week for Congress which saw Republicans fail twice to coalesce around their chosen candidate for the vacant House speakership, the caucus is considering stopgap measures to buy some time — but not all GOP lawmakers are on board.
Last week, House Republicans nominated Ohio Congressman Jim Jordan to become the lower chamber’s next speaker, a position left empty for nearly a month after the GOP ousted former Speaker Kevin McCarthy in a right-wing mutiny. Despite earning the approval of most congressional Republicans, however, Jordan has struggled to win over enough of his colleagues to clinch the speakership.
During a pair of floor votes this week, the Ohio congressman fell well short of the 217 GOP votes needed to become House speaker, earning 200 on Tuesday and just 197 in a second try Wednesday. Jordan garnered less support in his two floor votes than former Speaker McCarthy had in January, during an election which took a stunning 15 rounds of polling to resolve.
On Thursday, Jordan signaled that he would not seek to convene lawmakers for a third vote, instead choosing to back a contingency plan kicked around by some House Republicans which would see the House’s temporary speaker, North Carolina Congressman Patrick McHenry, given full leadership authority through the end of the year.
Under the stopgap measure, McHenry would remain in place as speaker pro tempore until January. Jordan would continue as Republicans’ speaker-designee and would likely use the extra time to whip the necessary votes to secure the speakership.
The plan appears aimed at thawing the House — which has been effectively paralyzed all month thanks to the GOP leadership crisis — to allow lawmakers to tackle a backlog of legislative issues, such as the federal budget and foreign aid for Ukraine and Israel.
In order to extend McHenry’s authority, congressional Republicans would need the support of Democrats, who have expressed willingness to cosign such a plan.
Democratic aid will be especially important, as some Republican lawmakers came out Thursday against the gambit to empower the North Carolina congressman.
Georgia Representative Mike Collins, writing in a post on X, formerly Twitter, called the plan “ridiculous” and said that the GOP caucus should continue to vote on Jordan’s nomination.
“If people want to change their minds, then change them,” Collins said. “We don’t need an interim anything.”
The Georgia Republican took a shot at his colleagues who have been in Congress for years and “have personal grievances with each other,” saying that the infighting is preventing the GOP from following through on its policy goals.
“We need to get it together and stop kicking the can,” Collins wrote.
Virginia Congressman Bob Good went so far as to argue that it would be unconstitutional to elevate the unelected McHenry as temporary speaker, and bashed the plan as a “highly dangerous coalition government arrangement with Democrats.”
Florida Representative Anna Paulina Luna agreed, arguing that Jordan’s decision to back a temporary speaker was “a massive mistake.”
“This resolution is really dangerous,” Luna said. “We need to have a normal election for speaker.”
The House Republican caucus, which met Thursday morning, is expected to consider the resolution to empower McHenry. The measure, proposed by Ohio Congressman Dave Joyce, may still have the support of enough GOP lawmakers to survive a conference vote, but it is unclear whether it would pass on the House floor.
As of Thursday afternoon, the results of any vote from the Republican caucus had yet to be made public.
The House GOP has struggled to find a replacement for former Speaker McCarthy that satisfies a majority of their conference. After McCarthy’s ouster, Republicans first nominated Louisiana Congressman Steve Scalise to take his place — but, hemorrhaging support, the lawmaker stepped away from his bid after only a couple of days.
McCarthy, who has backed Jordan’s ascent to the speakership, was removed from the House’s top job amid a maelstrom from right-wing Republicans, who accused the California congressman of going back on policy commitments made in January while he was campaigning for the speakership.
The move to oust McCarthy gained steam at the end of September, when the then-speaker negotiated a short-term spending patch with House Democrats to avert a government shutdown.
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