2023-10-13 23:11:39
Republican Congressman Jim Jordan got a second chance this Friday when he was chosen by his party as the candidate to lead the United States House of Representatives, a position vacant since fellow conservative Kevin McCarthy was dismissed on October 3.
The chairman of the House Judiciary Committee had already run in the previous internal vote, in which Steve Scalise won, but the latter’s resignation on Thursday reopened the race, in which Jordan won with 124 votes over Austin. Scott, who scored 81.
In the previous vote, on Wednesday, Scalise obtained 113 votes and Jordan 99, but that narrow margin already anticipated that the former was going to have a difficult time and decided to take a step back after confirming that in the final vote in the plenary session of the Lower House He was not going to obtain the necessary support among his colleagues.
Scalise was not guaranteed the favor of the most radical wing of the party, the same one that promoted the motion against McCarthy, presented by Matt Gaetz.
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Jordan takes the step because someone is needed who can “bring the team together”
When the race was between Scalise and Jordan, the latter obtained the public support of former President Donald Trump (2017-2021). In 2021, while still in the White House, Trump had awarded Jordan the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the United States’ highest civilian honor, for being one of his greatest allies in Congress.
The former president later argued that although he liked both, Scalise, who is undergoing treatment for blood cancer, should focus on his health instead of trying to aspire to “speaker”, the name by which that position is known in English.
Jim Jordan, with Kevin McCarthy, former Republican leader of the House of Representatives, to his left, in an image from 2019 at the Capitol
J. Scott Applewhite/AP
Jordan, 59, a representative of Ohio’s 4th District, maintains that he took the step of running for office convinced that there is a need for someone who can “bring the team together” and that he is the right person to repair the rift between radical and moderate Republicans and then fulfill the promises made to the Americans.
In that eventual mandate he has also promised to protect the moderates and not put them in difficult situations, unlike McCarthy, forced to make concessions in the face of the pressures that the most radical demanded of him.
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Democrats have nominated their House leader, Hakeem Jeffries
After his nomination, a new period of negotiations now opens in which he must try to guarantee 217 votes within his caucus before submitting his candidacy to the vote of the entire chamber.
The Democrats have proposed their leader in the House, Hakeem Jeffries, who last January also ran to preside over the institution, on that occasion against McCarthy.
Republican Jim Jordan, this Friday addressing the media
Al Drago/Bloomberg
The interim presidency is currently occupied by the conservative Patrick McHenry, but until there is a new “speaker” new resolutions or bills cannot be approved at a time when the budgets for the current fiscal year must be closed and when it is pending authorize more aid to Ukraine or Israel.
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