The House of Representatives will reconvene on Wednesday morning to try to elect a new speaker, after the hard-right congressman Jim Jordan failed to win the gavel in the first round of voting.
Twenty Republicans opposed Jordan on Tuesday, leaving him far short of the 217 votes needed to ascend to the speakership. Because of Republicans’ razor-thin majority in the House, Jordan can only afford four defections within his party and still become speaker.
The House has been without a speaker since the historic ouster of the Republican Kevin McCarthy earlier this month. As long as the chair is vacant, the House is stuck, unable to advance any legislation.
Many Republicans have expressed their desire to quickly pass an aid package for Israel amid its war with Hamas, but the House cannot do so until a new leader is elected.
Jordan, a congressman from Ohio, initially said after the failed vote that he hoped to continue to a second ballot on Tuesday evening, but he scrapped that plan as he struggled to expand his support within the Republican conference. The House will instead reconvene at 11am on Wednesday to begin the next round of voting, although it remained unclear whether Jordan could sway enough of his critics to win the top job.
Jordan appeared poised to pick up at least two votes ,on Wednesday, from the congressmen Gus Bilirakis of Florida and Doug LaMalfa of California. Bilirakis missed the first vote because of a death in the family, and LaMalfa, who supported the former Republican speaker Kevin McCarthy on the first ballot, said that he would back Jordan moving forward.
Jordan’s other detractors appeared confident after the first ballot, suggesting their ranks may grow in the second round of voting. Several Republicans joined the congressman Mario Díaz-Balart of Florida in calling for an immediate follow-up vote on Tuesday, a move that would have deprived Jordan of additional time to negotiate with the holdouts.
Speaking to reporters on Tuesday, Jordan appeared ready for a potentially lengthy floor battle, and he dismissed the possibility of his Republican critics working with House Democrats to form a bipartisan coalition.
“We’ve got to have a speaker. And it can’t be some deal with the Democrats. The American people don’t want that,” Jordan said.
The House Democratic leader, Hakeem Jeffries of New York, indicated that some Republicans were indeed prepared to work across the aisle to resolve the standoff, saying that there have been “informal conversations that have accelerated over the last few days”.
“My hope, now that it’s clear Jim Jordan lacks the votes to be speaker, [is] that those conversations will accelerate this evening,” Jeffries told reporters on Tuesday.
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One idea floated by centrist Democrats would involve temporarily expanding the powers of the acting speaker, the Republican congressman Patrick McHenry of North Carolina, to allow the House to take up urgent legislation. In addition to the proposed aid package for Israel, the House must approve some kind of stopgap funding measure by 17 November to avoid a government shutdown.
Jeffries told reporters that he had no plans to meet with McHenry, but added: “High-level members on the Democratic side of the aisle are ready, willing and able to have those conversations.”
Even as he hinted at a possible bipartisan path out of the current impasse, Jeffries firmly rejected the idea of elevating Jordan to the speakership.
“I have respect for Patrick McHenry. I think he is respected on our side of the aisle,” Jeffries said. “There are a whole host of other Republicans who are respected on our side of the aisle. Jim Jordan is not one of them.”