October 11, 2023
It looks like Representative Steve Scalise is on the path to be the next Speaker of the House.
After a secret ballot vote this morning among only Republicans – the congressman from Louisiana beat Representative Jim Jordan. The vote was 113 to 99. To win, Scalise needed to get the majority of the conference which was 111. (10 Republicans voted for someone other than Scalise or Jordan).
Now comes the real test. Can Representative Scalise get the majority of the full House votes.
To the math–
Depending on the number of representatives who are present and voting, Scalise would need to get as many as 217 votes.
It’s very likely zero Democrats will vote for Scalise, just like zero voted for Kevin McCarthy. And just like zero Republicans voted for Nancy Pelosi. That’s just politics and how it works.
So Scalise would need to get all of those 217 votes from his own Republican conference. But right now – he only has 113 solid votes.
So where is he going to get the rest? Well, obviously – he’s going to have to convert all these 99. But what’s that going to take? What kind of deals is he going to have to make? We just don’t know yet.
But what we do know – Scalise will be nominated on the floor and we will hear member by member Democrat and Republican vote yay or nay. It’s very possible, we could see multiple rounds of ballots — just like we saw with the former Speaker Kevin McCarthy back in January when it took 15 votes to secure his speakership. Right now – the Republicans are not yet fully unified behind Scalise.
