Oct.22

electoral-vote.com

Dem 51

   

GOP 49

Jordan Gets Rivered

In Texas Hold 'em poker, a player can have a strong hand after the first three community cards (the flop) are revealed. And they can still have a pretty strong hand after the fourth community card (the turn) is revealed. And then, it can all fall apart when the fifth community card (the river) is revealed. When everything falls apart after the third round of reveals, that's called "getting rivered." And it also describes pretty well what just happened to no-longer-speaker-designate Jim Jordan (R-OH).

When it became clear that Jordan was 20-30 votes from winning the speaker's gavel, Plan A was to try to strongarm the holdouts. And Plan B was to keep holding floor votes in hopes that the holdouts would be shamed/scared into falling in line. Consistent with that, there was a third floor vote Friday morning. And, as with the second floor vote, the number of "no" votes grew. Here's a list of every Republican member who failed to cast a vote for Jordan at least one time across the three rounds:

Besides Jordan, at least one vote across the three rounds has gone to former speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA); House Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-LA); Speaker Pro Tempore Patrick McHenry (R-NC); Reps. Byron Donalds (R-FL), Tom Emmer (R-MN), Mike Garcia (R-CA), Tom Cole (R-OK), Kay Granger (R-TX), Thomas Massie (R-KY) and Bruce Westerman (R-AR); former speaker John Boehner (R-OH) and former representatives Candace Miller (R-MI) and Lee Zeldin (R-NY).

The final tally on Friday was 210 votes for House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY), 194 votes for Jordan and 25 votes for other Republicans. Jeffries' total was down two from previous rounds, not due to defections, but because Vicente Gonzalez (D-TX) and Donald M. Payne Jr. (D-NJ) were absent. Jordan's tally, meanwhile, declined from 200 in round one to 199 in round two to 194 in round three. And the clear theme of round three was moderate members growing weary of putting the team above their own needs. As you can see from the table, the three members who voted for Jordan in rounds one and two, but for someone else in round three (Fitzpatrick, Kean and Molinaro), are all members of the Biden 18.

After the third floor vote, Jordan knew full well that his bid for the speakership had one foot in the grave and the other on a banana peel. So, he tried a Hail Mary, and asked the House Republican Conference to vote, via secret ballot, whether he should continue as speaker-designate. It is not known what the tally was, since it was a secret ballot. But it is known that Jordan lost the vote, unable to claim a majority even among members of his own party. And so, he is no longer speaker-designate.

With the decline and fall of McCarthy, followed by the decline and fall of Scalise, followed by the decline and fall of Jordan, just about every ambitious member of the Republican Conference looked in the mirror and said "Why not me?" And so, as of this moment, there are no fewer than seven declared candidates for the speakership, as well as three others who say they are thinking about it. The filing deadline is noon today. Here's a rundown ("FC" means "Freedom Caucuser" and "ED" means "Election Denier"; we have no comment on their status in relation to anything else "ED" might indicate):

Sometime this week, probably on Monday or Tuesday, the Republican Conference will hold a vote, and one of these individuals will become the new speaker-designate, very possibly with less than 20% of their colleagues' votes. There's never been a situation quite like this before, and so no real basis for predicting what will happen. If ever there were a time for ranked-choice voting, this is it, but it's not going to happen. That said, we can see three potential ways that this list allows Republicans to move forward and install an actual speaker:

1. The Conference, weary of this ongoing embarrassment, simply falls into line behind speaker-designate #3, figuring there's no real path to seating someone better.
   
   
2. Donalds wins, and some sizable number of the Jordan "no" voters support Donalds, either because he hasn't threatened their families or because they see political benefit in becoming the first party to seat a Black speaker.
   
   
3. Sessions wins, and that lays the groundwork for reaching across the aisle to get some Democratic votes.

We're not saying any of these three outcomes is likely, mind you, merely that they are conceivable. If you're going to lay a bet, the smart money, of course, is on "more chaos." (Z)