Jim Jordan is trying to replace Kevin McCarthy as speaker of the House.
Republicans have an extremely narrow majority and can only afford to lose 5 votes to get him into the position, assuming Democrats remain united.
A few things to know about Jordan:
- He was one of the early members of the House Freedom Caucus, an antagonistic group that has
- John Boehner, the Repulican speaker from 2011-2015 “Jordan was a terrorist as a legislator going back to his days in the Ohio House and Senate… A terrorist. A legislative terrorist.”
- Amazingly, Jordan, who has been in congress for 16 years, has never passed a single bill that was signed into law.
That last point has some caveats but it’s troubling to me that — globally — the path to power right now appears to be opposing everything and never compromising. Compromise is seen as a sign of weakness and that doesn’t really work in a democracy.
What’s particularly worrisome is that for the past 15 years or so, deficits haven’t mattered. Given what’s happening in bond markets, that could be about to change and I fear it will lead to some difficult choices and even-more toxic politics.
As for this vote, there is some real arm-twisting going on to try to get him as close to the threshold as possible.
Punchbowl notes this:
McCarthy got 201 votes on his first of 15 tries to win the speakership in January. McCarthy never dropped below 200 in all 15 rounds. If Jordan doesn’t start somewhere in the 200 neighborhood on the first ballot, he’s in trouble. And several lawmakers told us that they’d only committed to Jordan on the first ballot.
There are some voters who say they will only support him on the first ballot but politicians tend to lie so we will just have to wait and see.
As for markets, I don’t see this as a material event for today’s trading but we’re now about a month from another shutdown so if it looks like it will be impossible to get a speaker, that could play into it.