House GOP presses toward leadership elections despite post-midterm disarray

Source: Politico | November 14, 2022 | Olivia Beavers

Conservative opponents of Kevin McCarthy are privately weighing a two-step plan designed to bar him from the speakership next year.

Kevin McCarthy will take his first step toward the speakership this week. It’s looking increasingly like a leap straight into chaos.

As Republicans begin grappling with the reality of a much smaller majority next year than they’d hoped, the GOP leader’s once-clear ascent to the top House gavel is now under threat from the right — an echo of the circumstances that helped derail his 2015 bid for the spot. And a full picture of his problems could emerge as soon as Tuesday, when McCarthy is slated to be nominated as the GOP conference’s pick for speaker.

That nomination should prove easy for McCarthy to snag, given that it only requires a majority of House Republicans to agree on supporting him. But it comes as some members of the pro-Trump Freedom Caucus weigh a two-step plan that’s designed to topple him.

Conservatives want Tuesday’s scheduled leadership elections postponed until control of the House is certain. If McCarthy doesn’t agree, they plan to nominate Rep. Andy Biggs (R-Ariz.) as an internal pick for speaker to demonstrate that the Californian doesn’t have the 218 GOP votes he needs when the full chamber votes on Jan. 3, according to a Republican with knowledge of the plan who spoke candidly on condition of anonymity.

Depending on how that first step plays out, more conservatives would then embrace an alternative pick to put forward as a consensus candidate, added this Republican — who said some signs are pointing to Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) as the Freedom Caucus’ consensus choice. CNN first reported the prospect that Biggs would be a symbolic alternative in step one of the plan.

It’s a risky gambit that’s clearly still in flux as the conference churns toward a leadership election that conservatives want to delay, a sentiment aired by Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas) on Twitter on Sunday night. And it’s not clear how much McCarthy’s rival-turned-ally Jordan knows about the right flank’s plan, although though outside supporters aren’t hiding their views on the matter.

“This is about building to January,” Russ Vought, a Trump-era White House budget director aiding the plan from outside the Capitol, told Trump ally Steve Bannon during a Friday interview.

“And we have an opportunity to have a paradigm-shattering victory [on] the speakership,” Vought added, “to either be able to get Jim Jordan in as speaker — I don’t care if he’s not running right now — or to have a coalitional-style government where every decision goes through HFC.”

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