Back in September 2016, Representative Jim Jordan was on a mission: he wanted the House to begin the impeachment process against IRS Commissioner John Koskinen due to claims that the organization had targeted conservatives.
However, Jordan (R-Ohio) had a challenge: GOP party leaders refused to even bring Koskinen in for questioning because they viewed Koskinen’s impeachment as a political loser.
But Jordan wasn’t about to give in. On the House floor, he surrounded then-House Judiciary Committee Chair Bob Goodlatte (R-Va.) and gave him two options: either call Koskinen to the Hill, or the Freedom Caucus will force a vote on his impeachment only weeks before the election.
Jordan received a hearing.
The Ohio Republican has utilized harsh tactics to get his way, or what some of his colleagues would term bullying. In fact, POLITICO at the time dubbed him the “other speaker of the House” because he was so brilliant at it.
Jordan is seeking something that many of his coworkers are unwilling to give him. He has to decide for himself whether to continue with his recent makeover into a team player as he makes one more drive for the speakership. Or does he go back to the forceful methods that made him famous?
It is obvious that he has work to do. Even though Jordan secured the GOP’s speaker position yesterday, the vote fell far short of what he and his supporters had anticipated. A staggering 81 Republicans rejected Jordan in favor of Rep. Austin Scott (R-Ga.), a low-key backbencher who declared his candidacy just hours before the vote.
Rep. Daniel Webster (R-Fla.) told Bloomberg that he and his party were “shocked” by the number of people who abstained. They had nowhere else to go, but they refused to go there.
The main issue Jordan is dealing with is that even though he has become closer to the leadership over the previous three years, many of his coworkers still don’t trust him.
Many of them are concerned that he will practice fiscal brinksmanship and lead to government shutdowns. After the House majority leader won the nomination on Wednesday, a much larger group was incensed by how he treated Steve Scalise, and they don’t want to see the second-place finisher get the gavel.
But the fact that Jordan and his allies are prepared to fight in a way that Scalise wasn’t should not be shocking. The holdouts will be eliminated in a public floor vote, and they will then be placed in a political pressure cooker.
Rep. Tim Burchett (R-Tenn.) echoed the opinion in Jordan world that his opponents will yield to pressure from the GOP base in his interview with POLITICO on Friday. “What is going to happen is, they are going to vote on the floor, based on what they hear from the grassroots,” he said.
The theory has value, without a doubt: Members were asked if they would support Jordan on the floor during a secret ballot revision, and the opposition decreased from 81 to 55. And out of those 55, only a few have publicly voiced their objections, indicating that there is genuine apprehension about openly departing from Jordan.
The pitch Jordan made to his colleagues in recent days — that he’s a transformed guy who will represent all Republicans, rather than just base-pleasing conservatives — that he’s a changed man and will represent them all goes against the basic requirement of getting to 217.
Additionally, if he moves to defeat his opponents on the floor, that would contradict his earlier this week position that the nominee needed to receive 217 votes within the conference before engaging in a floor battle.
(Note that Kevin McCarthy, the outgoing speaker, supported the get-217-first rule earlier this week when Scalise was leading.) Jordan is not the first one to do that particular flip-flop. Jordan and acting Speaker Pro Tempore Patrick McHenry instructed Republicans to submit yesterday after Jordan was nominated as speaker, according to a witness in the room. Both men did not convey that after Scalise’s nomination.)
Despite the pressure, a number of Republicans are already working in secret to plan a defense of themselves against him. They include lawmakers who question his judgment on government spending and defense hawks who object to his hesitation on raising the Pentagon budget.
To put it gently, they don’t have a great track record of challenging their fellow members. Jordan has additional benefits as well. Unlike Scalise, who was under pressure to withdraw after just one day, he has more than three days to court his opponents ahead of the anticipated vote on Tuesday. And to be honest, many members are eager to choose a leader and move on because they are sick and weary of the drama.
Jordan’s whip effort has been well-known, and the idea that Jordan is attempting to intimidate his way to the gavel has been refuted. According to the source, Jordan encouraged doubtful lawmakers to phone him with their issues after receiving the nomination yesterday. Since then, not a single politician has informed Jordan that he won’t support him on the floor.
According to spokesman Russell Dye, “Chairman Jordan has made it clear that he wants to unify the conference with the objective to pass the bills that the American people demand by providing Israel with the resources it needs to combat Hamas, protecting the border, and revising FISA. He is eager to collaborate with the conference as a whole to accomplish this when he speaks.