Republican House Conference Chair Elise Stefanik (R-NY) issued a statement on Thursday renewing her support for Speaker-designate Jim Jordan (R-OH) while “strongly” opposing any alliance with Democrats to elect Speaker Pro Tempore Patrick McHenry (R-NC) as acting Speaker.
“The people across #NY21 and America can rest assured that I strongly oppose any attempt to create a Democrat backed coalition government,” she posted on X after a conference meeting.
“I will vote to support Jim Jordan for Speaker on the House Floor,” she said. “We must work to unify Republicans as the last line of defense to save America.”
The people across #NY21 and America can rest assured that I strongly oppose any attempt to create a Democrat backed coalition government.
I will vote to support Jim Jordan for Speaker on the House Floor.
We must work to unify Republicans as the last line of defense to save…
— Elise Stefanik (@EliseStefanik) October 19, 2023
After the second round of voting failed on Wednesday to elect Jordan as Speaker, some Republicans supported the idea of working with Democrats on Thursday to elect McHenry as acting Speaker. That idea reportedly does not have the full support of the conference, especially among many conservative members.
Ken Klukowski, Breitbart News’s senior legal contributor, explained how elevating McHenry could empower House Democrats:
If something happens to both the president and vice president, then federal law at 3 U.S.C. § 19 says that the Speaker of the House becomes Acting President “until the expiration of the then current Presidential term.” After the Speaker, it goes to the president pro tempore of the Senate, then Cabinet secretaries in the order that Congress created their departments, starting with the secretary of state and ending with the secretary of homeland security.
But it can only be a person with the true title of Speaker, not Speaker Pro Tempore or Acting Speaker. So if McHenry – or anyone else – is sitting in the Speaker’s chair as anything other than the true Speaker elected by a roll call vote of the House, then after Biden and Harris the powers of the presidency would bypass the House altogether, going to Sen. Patty Murray (D-WA) as president pro tempore of the Senate, then to Secretary of State Anthony Blinken, then Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, and all the way through Biden’s Cabinet, to Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas. Everyone in that lineup is a Democrat, aside from a Speaker duly elected by the Republican-majority House.
“This would be a total sellout of the conservative agenda that won us the House majority,” says former U.S. Ambassador Ken Blackwell, chairman of the Conservative Action Project. “Republican members need to see through this plot by the uni-party establishment to block an America First agenda that would save our constitutional republic by stopping the Biden agenda and paving the way to elect a new president in 2024.”
A third speakership vote is expected in the near future, possibly Thursday evening, according to media reports. Jordan, who appears to be the only candidate vying for the gavel, hopes to convince his opposition to back him before the vote. He previously backed out of a third vote Thursday morning for a perceived lack of support.
Follow Wendell Husebø on Twitter @WendellHusebø. He is the author of Politics of Slave Morality.
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