For a second day, U.S. Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, failed to secure the votes he needed to become the next speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives. The defeat continues to leave the chamber without a presiding officer. And the business of government on one side of Capitol Hill remains at a standstill.
Jordan, the chairperson of the ultra-conservative House Freedom Caucus needed 217 votes to succeed ousted former Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif. The onetime wrestling coach nabbed 199 votes, NBC News reported. Democrats continued to support U.S. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., as their choice for speaker.
Jordan lost 22 GOP votes, two more than in the initial round of balloting, the Guardian reported. Jeffries received 212, votes, the newspaper reported.
Here’s what some members of Massachusetts’s all-Democrat U.S. House delegation had to say about the second day of voting.
“So Jim Jordan’s big plan to win the speakership is to keep getting fewer and fewer votes? Got it. I guess that makes sense, since he doesn’t believe in accepting election results,” U.S. Rep. James P. McGovern, D-2nd District, posted to X, formerly Twitter.
Also weighing in on X, U.S. Rep. Lori Trahan, D-3rd District, observed, “Another Speaker vote, another embarrassing GOP defeat.
“How many more times are the ‘moderate’ House Republicans going to fail to elect an extreme candidate before they wake up? @HouseDemocrats are ready to find a bipartisan deal to reopen the House and get back to work,” Trahan wrote.
U.S. Rep. Jake Auchincloss, D-4th District, offered a similar sentiment, arguing that “a vote for Jim Jordan is a vote against the Constitution. Republicans have a choice: vote for an insurrectionist or join Democrats in a bipartisan path forward.”
U.S. House Minority Whip Katherine Clark, D-5th District stressed that Democratic support for Jeffries had held steady over two days of balloting: “Yesterday 212 [votes]. Today 212 [votes]. @HouseDemocrats are united on behalf of bipartisanship and against extremism.
“Jim Jordan is an election denier, an anti-abortion zealot, and a poster boy for MAGA extremism,” Clark observed. “He cannot and will not get the House back to work for the American people. It’s time for a reasonable, bipartisan path forward.”
In a post to X, U.S. Rep. Seth Moulton, D-6th District, described Jordan as a “spine extractor,” for the House’s GOP moderates.
“Moderate Republicans are tying themselves in knots to support a radical MAGA extremist instead of supporting a unity Speaker,” Moulton said. “As Spine Extractor @Jim_Jordan gets to work, Democrats are committed to working across the aisle to reopen Congress [and] get back to the people’s business.”
U.S. Rep. Ayanna Pressley, D-7th District, was equally blunt in her criticism.
“I would say Jim Jordan is a joke but the worst thing about him is he is dead serious about inciting insurrectionists and destroying our democracy,” Pressley posted to X.
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Original story HERE.