It’s been the Republicans’
mess. House Democrats have had no real power this week to get their own speaker
candidate, minority leader Hakeem Jeffries, over the finish line. Still, they
had plenty of thoughts on the GOP shitshow for which they had front row seats.
“Guess they still
haven’t learned their arithmetic!” former Speaker Nancy Pelosi declared as she
exited the House chamber, a huge grin on her face, after Wednesday afternoon’s
floor vote, which saw radical right-winger Jim Jordan go down to a crushing
second defeat. As speaker, Pelosi famously did not bring business to the House
floor unless she knew she had the votes to pass, a governing ethos clearly
absent in the current GOP majority.
“Their civil war
continues,” sighed Rep. Barbara Lee, a California Democrat, of the GOP
dysfunction on display. “A bipartisan path
forward,” shouted Rep. Lauren Underwood, an Illinois Democrat standing nearby.
“That’s our rallying cry!”
Jeffries earned every Democratic vote present during Wednesday’s vote
for speaker, a repeat performance of the unity the party showed on the
first vote Tuesday, which stood in stark contrast to the mess across the
aisle. Jordan, ostensibly still the GOP nominee for the role, earned one vote
less on Wednesday than he had the day before, finishing with 199 votes from his
party. Twenty-one House Republicans voted for someone else, with some alluding
to disillusionment with the ham-handed tactics by Jordan supporters to get
their votes.
“Jim Jordan is unfit
to lead,” said Rep. Ayanna Pressley, a Massachusetts Democrat. “As a survivor I
find it particularly indefensible that he was not there for those victims in
Ohio,” she added, referring to a sexual misconduct scandal involving the college wrestling team
that Jordan coached for a few years at Ohio State University.
“I think I was
surprised that they would revisit those issues when generally in public life
the idea is to move on,” said Rep. Richard Neal, another Massachusetts Democrat
and former chair of the powerful House Ways and Means Committee, of the many
scandals circling Jordan’s candidacy for speaker, including the Ohio
Republican’s frequent attempts to cast doubt on the election results
ever since January 6, when he was one
of the House’s leading pro-insurrectionists.
“It’s pretty
disgraceful, pretty embarrassing, and reflects poorly on them and their party,”
said Rep. Summer Lee, a Pittsburgh Democrat, who has been outspoken about Jordan’s history of support
for antisemitic and racist conspiracy theories. She reminded reporters that the Judiciary
Committee, which Jordan chairs, tweeted support for Kanye West—a tweet that remained online
long after the controversial artist declared “death con 3 to Jewish people.”
Rep. Raúl Grijalva,
an Arizona Democrat, echoed Lee’s concern about Jordan’s history of touting the
great replacement theory. “That, and his close association with white
nationalist organizations, plus the permanent ban on abortions … the list goes
on and on,” said Grijalva, who lamented how few Republicans have been willing
to push back against Jordan’s candidacy. “Jordan is a nightmare,” added
Grijalva.
“I’m just so
surprised that 200 Republicans would be supporting someone who’s so extreme and
so involved in supporting an insurrection,” said Rep. Joaquin Castro, a Texas
Democrat, on Tuesday. “It’s just so symptomatic of how corroded the Republican
Party, especially within this Congress, has become.”
Rep. Emilia Sykes, a
first-term congresswoman from Ohio (Jordan’s home state), expressed concern for
the constituents looking to Congress for help. “I’m mostly frustrated for the
American people who are expecting us to be working on their behalf, when we’re
not,” she said. “It’s just so unfortunate to watch this chamber not live up to
what it should be.”
Wednesday’s floor
vote was the 17th vote for House speaker during the current Congress, which
began with an embarrassing 15-vote series to elect Kevin McCarthy to the gavel,
only to see him vacated nine months later.
Florida Rep. Maxwell Frost,
another first-term Democratic congressman, echoed Sykes. “They’re not fit to govern,” he said of the House GOP. “I have legislation that
we’re really excited to get out there, that we’ve had to put on hold. Plus we need
to get these appropriations bills passed to bring the money back home.”
Frost, too, took issue
with the fact that his GOP colleagues seek to elevate an election denier for
speaker. “The best they’ve got is probably the member most associated with the
January 6th insurrection. That’s a huge problem,” he said.
Rep. Robert Garcia
echoed Frost. “He literally didn’t believe the legitimacy of the last election,
so he’s totally unqualified to be speaker,” said the first term congressman
from Long Beach.
Rep. Gerry Connolly,
a Virginia Democrat now in his eighth term, was the lonely voice of optimism
among the 15 members of the minority party interviewed for this story. “I still
think once they purge themselves of this, it makes space for a consensus candidate
to emerge for speaker. Then we’ll get on with the business of the House. I
think that could happen fairly soon if they get their act together,” he said.
Jeffries has
floated House Speaker Pro Tempore Patrick McHenry, a North Carolina Republican,
as someone Democrats respect and can potentially work with on a bipartisan
basis. “The fact is there is a working majority of over 300 members of this Congress
who voted on things like aid for Ukraine, a continuing resolution to fund the
government, and to raise the debt ceiling,” Connolly said. “All of those were
300-plus votes. So there’s a clear bipartisan majority. But in order to achieve
that, Republicans have got to work with Democrats. If not, then you’re gonna
get the chaos we’re seeing now.”
Maybe, having tried and failed repeatedly at chaos, the
GOP will pull back from the brink. But funny thing—they keep trying chaos and keep failing instead.