After weeks of dysfunction, Rep. John Curtis calls GOP nomination of speaker candidate ‘positive’

House Republicans nominated Majority Leader Steve Scalise to be speaker during an internal GOP conference election Wednesday. He will now face a bipartisan vote on the House floor, likely later this week.

Scalise, a nine-term congressman from Louisiana, beat his opponent, Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, 113-99, in a secret ballot vote by the Republican conference.

After losing the vote, Jordan confirmed to multiple sources he is throwing his support behind Scalise, improving the current majority leader’s odds at winning the speakership and revealing a GOP ready to move on from the last few weeks of legislative dysfunction and party infighting.

“I don’t think there was a negative word said during our several hour meeting about either one of them and almost everybody led off by saying, ‘Hey, I’m supporting Steve’ or ‘I’m supporting Jim but I’ll get behind whoever gets the majority,’” Utah Rep. John Curtis told the Deseret News. “So that’s a real positive note.”

Curtis, who along with Utah Rep. Burgess Owens voted for Scalise, says Jordan’s decision to back Scalise was the right thing to do for the conference and hopes “others will follow his lead.” However, he cautions there’s still “a lot of work to do.”

“Until we go to the floor and get the 217, we don’t have a speaker. And as everybody has seen, it just takes a few members to thwart that,” Curtis said, adding he felt “optimistic” the party would show a united front when the speaker’s vote is brought to the floor.

As of Wednesday evening, at least seven Republican lawmakers, including Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., Thomas Massie, R-Ky., and Chip Roy, R-Texas, had signaled that Scalise can’t count on their vote, setting up what could be another prolonged speakership battle.

Republican conference speaker forum

The Republican conference previously met Tuesday night for a closed-door candidate forum to hear the two well-known figures make their case for why they are up to the task of leading the party after last week’s contentious removal of Rep. Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif.

Scalise has navigated GOP party leadership elections for the better part of a decade and relies on a well-trained staff and extensive whip operation to grow his tally of supporters. He has emphasized his ability to forge unlikely agreements and come back from devastating setbacks to his personal health. He narrowly survived a politically-motivated shooting in 2017 and is currently undergoing treatment for a form of blood cancer.

While Jordan came to Wednesday’s vote with a longer list of endorsements from his colleagues, and from former President Donald Trump, Scalise was considered the favorite by political observers who cited his increased appeal among House moderates and his past leadership positions.

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Despite general skepticism that the fractious House Republican conference could quickly unite around a new speaker, Scalise appeared one step closer to snagging his party’s nomination Wednesday morning when a proposal from Texas congressman Chip Roy that would have required nearly unanimous Republican support before a Republican nominee could be presented for a bipartisan floor vote, failed to pass.

McCarthy was back in the race — then out again

Earlier in the week, three Republican congressmen vowed they would only vote to reinstate McCarthy as speaker. However, McCarthy said on Tuesday he did not want to be nominated for the position after he had expressed openness to running again over the weekend.

The eight Republicans who sided with Democrats to evict McCarthy from his position last week have not yet publicly endorsed any candidate, according to Punchbowl News. However, Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., who was at the forefront of McCarthy opposition, has implied that he’ll support Scalise.

With the House Republicans’ narrow majority of just three seats, only a handful of GOP lawmakers could decide to oppose the GOP nominee in a floor vote to obstruct the process or extract concessions.

This is what happened in January when McCarthy was elected to the speakership after 15 rounds of voting and numerous commitments to the party’s most conservative members. The currently vacant leadership position is the result of some of these promises being broken by McCarthy, according to the disaffected Republicans who voted to remove him.

Curtis, who represents Utah’s 3rd Congressional District, says he “doesn’t know anybody” pushing to undo the rule changes made as part of January’s speaker race, which included a return to “regular order,” passing spending bills individually to avoid a massive, last-minute omnibus package. He says that while McCarthy’s ouster represented an institutional “low,” it is more likely the party can heal and govern with a replacement that enjoys better relationships with the most conservative members of the conference.

“It’s become more and more evident that what the real problem was just Kevin, and that it was personal and I don’t think they have those same feelings for Steve,” Curtis said.

“I clearly do think that it was a low for us, but I think we can heal ourselves, that we can become what the American people expect of us, and that we can govern, and do so in a way that’s in harmony with those in our district.”

But avoiding the ire of hardline Republican lawmakers while governing a divided conference and addressing issues requiring bipartisan support, like passing annual spending bills prior to Nov. 17 and parsing U.S. aid packages to Israel and Ukraine, will likely prove difficult for any politician.

In an op-ed for the Hill, Owens, who represents Utah’s 4th Congressional District, argued that Scalise is just the man for the job.

“I’ve been in the room with Scalise, strategizing, debating, and ultimately finding results,” Owens wrote. “His unifying leadership is not just a ‘nice-to-have’; it’s essential for the work we are elected to do.”

Scalise vs. Jeffries

Scalise will now face off against House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., in a floor vote before the entire House. Nearly every Republican, including those who voted for Jordan or preferred McCarthy, will have to rally behind Scalise for him to secure the necessary 217 votes.

Reporting from inside the Capitol suggests a full-House speaker vote will likely wait until Saturday, further delaying Congressional action in support of Israel or Ukraine and making another shutdown battle in November all but inevitable.