Which unsavory GOP candidate for speaker of the House will Tom Kean Jr. pick? - Stile

Another tough day at the office loomed for Rep. Thomas H. Kean Jr., the Westfield Republican of New Jersey's 7th Congressional District.

He was scheduled to join the 224 other House Republicans on Wednesday to select a replacement for the recently dethroned Speaker Kevin McCarthy of California. Republicans were gathered in a closed-door session midday to choose a new leader.

Kean was staring at a menu of unsavory options — unsavory, that is, for a New Jersey Republican representing a large swath of affluent, traditionally socially moderate suburbs in Union and Somerset counties.

Jordan, Scalise — or even McCarthy, again?

Vying for the job was the MAGA firebreather Rep. Jim Jordan of Ohio, a "Stop the Steal" zealot who collaborated with then-President Donald Trump's aides to subvert the certification of the 2020 election.

His chief rival was the House majority whip, Rep. Steve Scalise, the so-called "David Duke without the baggage" veteran from Louisiana and another who opposed the Jan. 6, 2021, certification of President Joe Biden's election.

And then there is McCarthy himself, ousted last week by the resistance of a small group of right-wing nihilists but who held a news conference Tuesday acting very much like a leader in exile waiting, with toothbrush and gavel packed, for word that he's been restored to the throne.

"I'll allow the [Republican] conference to make any decision,” he said when asked if he was contemplating a return to the speaker's pulpit.

And just for an additional dose of absurdity, Trump crashed his brakeless clown car into the conversation, with several cult followers floating his name as a possible speaker. It was theoretically possible, but his slew of indictments disqualifies him for the job.

Why would anyone in the GOP toss such a nutty trial balloon into the charged political atmosphere? Former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie espoused a plausible theory over the weekend.

“This is them doing what they know Donald Trump likes, which is kissing his rear end in public,” Christie said during an appearance on ABC.

Kean had not offered any insight as to where he was leaning, but its a safe bet that if McCarthy's restoration were truly viable, Kean's endorsement would have been publicly released by now. The Congressional Leadership Fund, a political action group closely linked to McCarthy, invested heavily in Kean's defeat of Rep. Tom Malinowski, a Hunterdon County Democrat, in 2022.

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And McCarthy has come to New Jersey to fundraise for Kean, most recently in September. Kean also supported McCarthy in his 15-round bout for the speakership earlier this year

But it's unlikely that the political math that sent McCarthy packing last week — all Democrats opposing him joined by eight Burn-Down-the House Republicans — is going to change anytime soon.

A spokesman for Kean was not immediately available for comment.

'Will they choose Trumpism and chaos?'

Meanwhile, the Lincoln Project, a group of never-Trumper Republicans who have waged a sideline war on MAGA extremism, ratcheted up the pressure on Kean and 17 other House Republicans who hail from competitive districts that Biden carried in 2020. The group called on Kean & Co. to reject Jordan, Scalise and McCarthy.

“Congressman Kean and the rest of the Biden 18 must make a choice: Will they stand with the American people, decency and democracy here, and around the world, or will they choose Trumpism and chaos?” said Reed Galen, co-founder of the Lincoln Project. “They have a responsibility to their constituents to support the institution by finding other choices for speaker." Yet ducking for cover amid a House caucus riven by extremism and distrust has been a frequent challenge for Kean, who would prefer to talk about real concerns or take his "mobile" office around the district to places like Sparta, avoiding the press while collecting constituent complaints.

That's Kean: Generic, cautious and disarming in photo ops, hoping to stay out of harm's way. But now Kean is a resident member of a dysfunctional Crazy Town Caucus, and it's going to get harder to hide until a replacement is installed.

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The rudderless, dysfunctional party will continue to make the case to the American public that it's not capable of governing. And that inability is coming into sharp relief amid the war in Israel.

The United States will be pressed to provide relief and weapons to Israel at a time when many in the GOP want to cut off aid to the Ukraine war effort. These are era-defining moments being debated without a speaker approved by a majority of its members.

"The fact is that the house of Congress that has a constitutional responsibility for initiating spending bills is out of action," said Ross K. Baker, a Rutgers University political science professor and an authority on Congress. "This is something that never happened before. You don't have these interregnums in American politics."

Perhaps this crisis will be resolved and forgotten and the House will move on to the next, like another fight over the debt ceiling that threatens to bring the government to a shutdown.

This isn't what Kean signed up for, but, then again, this is his party — a far cry from the party of his grandfather or his father, former Gov. Thomas H. Kean, who preached consensus and moderation.

Perhaps his best play for the time being is to ride it out in his mobile office in remote areas in his district, like Sparta, hoping all this chaos will be in the rearview mirror by the time he hits the campaign trail next year. But on Wednesday, he was forced to park himself in his leather chair in Washington with the eyes of the nation and history watching.

Charlie Stile is a veteran New Jersey political columnist. For unlimited access to his unique insights into New Jersey’s political power structure and his powerful watchdog work, please subscribe or activate your digital account today.

Email: stile@northjersey.com 

This article originally appeared on NorthJersey.com: Speaker of the House vote: Who will Tom Kean Jr. pick?