The House Republican caucus held another internal vote today to decide the next Speaker of the House after their initial nominee, House Majority Leader Steve Scalise, dropped out of the race for lack of support. This time, the conference chose Judiciary Committee Chair Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) to be their speaker nominee.
The vote was hardly resounding, though; Jordan only beat Rep. Austin Scott (R-Georgia), a lesser-known Republican who only announced his speaker campaign this morning, by a secret-ballot vote of 124-81. That means Jordan will be presented with the same problem that Scalise was: getting to 217 votes on the House floor.
Among New Jersey’s three Republican representatives, Reps. Jeff Van Drew (R-Dennis) and Chris Smith (R-Manchester) both voted for Jordan, while Rep. Tom Kean Jr. (R-Westfield) once again declined to say how he voted.
Van Drew’s vote is hardly surprising, since the South Jersey congressman had previously endorsed Jordan when he was facing Scalise in the initial caucus vote earlier this week. Van Drew said that he remains confident that Jordan is the right person to lead the Republican conference and the entire House.
“We’re moving in the right direction,” Van Drew said. “We’ve got a good amount of support for Jim Jordan. His job over the weekend now is going to be to change the mind of those folks who aren’t supporting him, which I think is doable.”
Smith, meanwhile, was originally a Scalise backer but switched to Jordan today. Smith and Van Drew also supported Jordan on a second secret-ballot vote testing how many people would vote for Jordan on the House floor; the margin for that vote was 152-55, a lackluster total for Jordan given that it means he has more than 50 skeptical Republicans to win over.
It’s possible that one of those Republicans is Kean, who represents a highly competitive district and may not want to support a House Freedom Caucus member like Jordan for speaker. Given Kean’s reluctance to share his views, though, there will be no way to know until an actual floor vote comes up, which looks like it won’t happen until next week (at the earliest).
Kean, Smith, and Van Drew were all staunch supporters of the original speaker, Kevin McCarthy, throughout his nine months in office. Last week, all three voted against the motion to vacate, the procedural motion that allowed a few renegade Republicans – combined with the entire Democratic caucus – to kick McCarthy out of office.
As for New Jersey’s nine House Democrats, they’ve been stuck in limbo for the last week as the House stumbles forward without a permanent leader. Their preferred speaker is House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-New York), who is likely to get universal Democratic support whenever the House finally holds a full-chamber speaker vote.
Democrats are also already on the offensive against Jordan, who would be the most conservative speaker in recent history. Rep. Bill Pascrell (D-Paterson) said that he believed if Jordan does cobble together the votes and get elected as speaker, it would be a dark day for the House and the country.
“The most horrible thing that could happen is Mr. Jordan being elected,” Pascrell said. “I will do everything in my power – legally – to see that doesn’t happen. I think that would be a real downfall for the republic.”