Despite election denier record, Jim Jordan remains GOP favorite for succeed McCarthy

However, today he failed to secure the necessary votes to take the Speakership.

After a first round of voting, almost two dozen Republicans have blocked Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) from taking up the gavel. In fact, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) received 12 more votes than Jordan. Other congressional members that received votes included Reps. Steve Scalise (R-LA), Kevin McCarthy (R-CA), Tom Emmer (R-MN), Tom Cole (R-OK), Thomas Massie (R-KY) and Mike Garcia (R-CA). Former New York Rep. Lee Zeldin (R) also received three votes.

Several Democrats made reference to Jordan’s record of denying the results of the 2020 election. On the House floor, Rep. Maxine Waters (D-CA) framed the vote for House Speaker as a battle between "true patriot Hakeem Jeffries” and “an insurrectionist."

And on X (formerly known as Twitter), Rep. Steve Cohen (D-TN) commented that he could not “believe this is happening. Election denier and plotter and subpoena evader is the REPUBLICAN CHOICE."

As our own Jennifer Schulze pointed out yesterday, the mainstream press has seemed more focused on the horse race than the connotations of a Jordan speakership. 

“The Speaker of the House is a constitutional office of great importance to our nation. The current nominee of the majority party to fill that spot is Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH),” Schulze explains. 

“He’s a man with a well-documented record of supporting the effort to overturn the last presidential election, a history of turning House committees into circus shows. and, despite his years in office, not one single piece of legislation to his credit.”

Schulze also made reference to a 2021 report by the national security and legal investigative group Just Security that documented Jordan’s crucial role in undermining the certification of the 2020 election: 

“Over the course of the past year, congressman Jim Jordan (R-OH), the ranking member of the House Judiciary Committee, has engaged in a systematic effort to cast doubt on the integrity of the 2020 U.S. presidential election,” Just Security wrote in 2021. “He also led efforts to create an image in the minds of Trump supporters of Jan. 6 as the “ultimate date of significance” (his words, repeated several times). He helped spearhead the effort to oppose certification of the election in Congress,” 

Jordan’s fate is yet to be determined. The House will now head to a second round of voting to see if anyone can reach 217 votes, and Democrats seem unified in blocking Jordan from assuming one of the highest posts in government. Additionally, they seem content to allow for the GOP to cannibalize itself in front of the entire nation. 

All the while, this “Simpsons” bit will continue to play in my head on a loop until this exhausting process invariably ends with Mayor McCheese taking the reins in Congress. 

POLL WATCHERS

As the most democratic institution in our government, the fractures in our congressional body should reflect the composition of the electorate. And in many ways, new polling by YouGov bears this out. The political identity of Americans as of 2023 offers up an interesting picture of how the public perceives themselves. Excluding positions around abortion,  “Moderate,” “Conservative” and “Progressive” were all competing for some of the largest blocks of ideological signifiers, but none were able to aptly represent even a third of U.S. adults. It’s a mangled mess of unclear definitions and bull-headed principles that is then siphoned into party coalitions. 

What this tells us is that while there appears to be quite a mix of interests and priorities amongst the voting bases, but they’re suffocated by two stifled, geriatric institutions. And until the old guard gives way to the new, any kind of meaningful, productive realignment is going to be sidelined.