Republicans fail on first try to elect Jim Jordan as speaker. How did NC’s lawmakers vote?

House Republicans so far have failed to coalesce behind Rep. Jim Jordan, who asked for a floor vote to elect him as speaker Tuesday afternoon.

That means that Speaker Pro Tem Patrick McHenry of North Carolina will continue leading the House in finding a new speaker.

Jordan could afford to lose only three Republican votes Tuesday afternoon, but ended up losing 20. None of the holdouts were from North Carolina.

As lawmakers voted, Jordan sat near the front of the room with a grimace on his face, occasionally whispering to those around him.

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries ended up leading Jordan with 212 votes to Jordan’s 200, but that wasn’t enough to secure the speakership for Jeffries, either.

It took 15 votes for the House to secure McCarthy as speaker in January.

The vote came two weeks after Rep. Matt Gaetz, a Republican from Florida, paralyzed the House’s ability to legislate by filing a motion to fire McCarthy. Gaetz was able to get seven of his Republican colleagues to rally around him, along with the Democratic caucus, to vote McCarthy out as the chamber’s leader.

Since then, McHenry, a Republican from Lincoln County, has served as speaker pro-tem. McHenry’s name was at the top of a secret list of successors that a post-9/11 rule required McCarthy to keep in the event that he couldn’t fulfill his duties.

McHenry’s power

As his new role was first announced, McHenry immediately recessed the House, slamming his gavel into the dais with such force it has become both an internet joke and a gif.

Republicans had to decide how to move forward, while McHenry was forced to figure out how much authority the post-9/11 rule, which had never been exercised, gave to him. He decided that it was to be used in its most stripped-down form that made him the person to help oversee the election of a new House speaker and nothing more.

But as Republicans finished out their second week without a speaker, Democrats began coming around to the idea of allowing McHenry to have more power, limited to certain topics like funding the government and providing aid to Ukraine and Israel. Those who supported granting him that power said the arrangement should be reviewed every 15 days.

On Monday, Rep. Mike Kelly, a Republican from Pennsylvania, offered a proposal to officially elect McHenry as speaker pro-tem, which would give him more power to act through Nov. 17, the deadline to fund the government, or risk a shutdown.

The NC delegation

Two of North Carolina’s seven Republicans made their support of Jordan known as soon as he became a candidate for the job.

Rep. Virginia Foxx, a Republican from Banner Elk, posted: “Chairman Jim Jordan, you have my vote to become our next Speaker of the House. You have the influence, determination, and experience necessary to work with our excellent existing leadership team and lead this conference forward.”

Foxx went on to support Majority Leader Steve Scalise once the conference initially nominated him. But Scalise withdrew his name after it became clear that he couldn’t get enough support to win a vote on the House floor.

“Our conference still has to come together, and is not there,” Scalise told reporters. “There are people who still have their own agendas and I was very clear we have to everybody put their agendas on the side and focus on what this country needs.”

Gaetz then posted, “It’s Jim Jordan Time,” to which Rep. Dan Bishop, a Republican from Charlotte, responded: “LFG,” an abbreviation for, “Let’s go!” that includes an expletive.

Reps. Greg Murphy and Richard Hudson also posted their support of Jordan. Hudson is the chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee.

Reps. David Rouzer, Chuck Edwards and McHenry kept mum about their decision before Tuesday’s vote, though it was clear during the Scalise nomination that the state’s Republicans would support their party’s nomination.

The entire delegation ended up voting for Jordan once the vote went to the floor.

Meanwhile, North Carolina’s Democrats threw their entire support behind Jeffries, who held a news conference Friday expressing Democrats’ concerns about electing Jordan, saying that Jordan hadn’t passed a single bill in his 16 years in Congress because he focuses too much on pushing conspiracy theories.

“House Republicans have selected as their nominee to be the speaker of the people’s House, the chairman of the chaos caucus, a defender in a dangerous way of dysfunction and an extremist extraordinaire,” Jeffries said of Jordan.

Jordan, Trump and the Freedom Caucus

House Republicans spent Friday in a private meeting where their phones were checked at the door to prevent public leaks. At the end of the afternoon, Jordan had emerged as their choice for House speaker in a 124-81 vote, against Georgia’s Rep. Austin Scott. A second vote was taken to see if Jordan’s colleagues would support him if they took his name to the floor. He came up 65 votes short of the 217 he needed.

The 59-year-old from Ohio is one of several people, including North Carolina’s former Rep. Mark Meadows, who helped form the ultraconservative House Freedom Caucus; he served as its first chairman. Rep. Dan Bishop is also a member.

Jordan is a loyalist to former President Donald Trump who defended Trump during two impeachment hearings, helped push conspiracy theories that the 2020 election was stolen and was, said by Rep. Liz Cheney, chairwoman of the Jan. 6 committee, to have known more about what Trump planned for Jan. 6, 2021, than any other member of Congress.

Cheney doubled down on social media Friday: “Jim Jordan was involved in Trump’s conspiracy to steal the election and seize power; he urged that (Vice President Mike) Pence refuse to count lawful electoral votes. If (Republicans) nominate Jordan to be Speaker, they will be abandoning the Constitution. They’ll lose the House majority and they’ll deserve to.”

Changing minds

After Jordan won the nomination Friday, it was clear he didn’t have enough support to call a floor vote. Republicans instead went home over the weekend to allow Jordan to whip votes.

Jordan was able to change some minds during that time off. One of his biggest critics, Rep. Mike Rogers of Alabama, posted Monday on social media his support of Jordan.

“Jim Jordan and I have had two cordial, thoughtful, and productive conversations over the past two days,” Rogers posted. “We agreed on the need for Congress to pass a strong NDAA, appropriations to fund our government’s vital functions, and other important legislation like the Farm Bill.”

In North Carolina, Rogers is best known for being the lawmaker who almost got into a fight with Gaetz on the House floor in January after the 14th vote to elect McCarthy as speaker but was stopped by Hudson, who grabbed Rogers face and yanked him off the floor.

Several other Jordan opponents followed Rogers in offering support throughout Monday.