October 17, 2023
Welp – we won’t get a House Speaker tonight.
That’s because House Republican leadership has decided there will be no more votes tonight.
I have told you repeatedly the GOP’s pick for Speaker, Representative Jim Jordan has a serious math problem and at this point he does not have the 217 votes he needs to win the majority and win the gavel.
I told you in the video right before this one – on the House floor Jordan received only 200 votes. Which is certainly not 217. But what you may not realize is that Jordan lost 20 Republican votes. 20! Because of the number of members voting and present this afternoon, Jordan could only lose 3. He lost 20.
The hope from Jordán’s allies is that he can work throughout the night tonight to persuade those 20 to change their minds and will try again for another vote on the House floor tomorrow. As for Republicans cutting some kind of deal with Democrats to reopen the House – Jordan says “no one in our conference wants to see a coalition government with democrats.”
And that sums up the bitter divisions in the House. At this point it is an uphill battle for him and in the meantime, the House of Representatives is paralyzed.
