2023-10-14 14:27:00
Jim Jordan, on Friday, shortly before being elected president of the Lower House. SHAWN THEW | EFE
The congressman emerges victorious after the resignation of Steve Scalise, who won the previous vote but took a step back
14 oct 2023 . Updated at 2:29 p.m.
Republican congressman Jim Jordan This Friday he got a second chance when he was chosen by his party as the candidate to lead laCmaradeRepresentantesof the United States, a position vacant since fellow conservative Kevin McCarthy was dismissed on October 3.
The president of the House Judicial Committee had run in the previous internal votein which Steve Scalise won, but he resignedfromthis last On Thursday the list opens againin which Jordan won with 124 votes to Austin Scottwhich 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 when verifying that in the final vote in the plenary session of the Lower House he was not going to obtain the necessary 217 supports among his benchmates.
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.
This Friday, alone 152 Republicans they assured that They will support Jordan in that eventual final vote and others 55 said they won’t do it.
The one who did decide in his favor just after having lost was Scott: I have a lot of respect for him. It is an asset for the Republican Party and our nominee. “Our party has spoken and now we must unite around it so Congress can get back to work,” he said on X (formerly Twitter).
When the internal contest was between Scalise and Jordan, the latter obtained the public support of former president Donald Trump. In 2021, while still in the White House, Trump presented Jordan with the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the United States’ highest civilian honor, for being one of his greatest allies in Congress.
The former president later claimed that although he liked both, Scalise, who is undergoing treatment for blood cancer, should focus on his health instead of trying to aspire to speakername by which that position is known in English.
Jordan, from59 at and representative of the fourth district of Ohio, maintains that he took the step of running for election convinced that someone is needed who can join the team and that he is the right person to repair the rift between radical and moderate Republicans and then fulfill the promises made to 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.
Following his nomination, a new negotiation period in which he must try to guarantee 217 votes before submitting his candidacy to the vote of the entire chamber.
Democrats have nominated their leader in the House, Hakeem Jeffrieswho last January also ran to preside over the institution, on that occasion against McCarthy.
Jeffries reproch hoy a Jordan that in the 16 years that he has spent in the federal Congress he has not passed any bill because it has been focused, in his opinion, on conspiracy theories and promoting division among Americans.
The interim presidency the occupation of the moment the conservative Patrick McHenrybut until there is a new speaker Resolutions or bills cannot be approved at a time when the budgets for the current fiscal year must be closed and when more aid to Ukraine or Israel is pending authorization.
Republicans remain as divided as ever and leaves the weekend without having elected a new president of the House, therefore paralyzing Congress for the tenth day, criticized today the Democratic National Committee, which stressed that chaos at a time when strong and firm leadership is needed.
Filed in: Donald Trump USA White House
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