House Freedom Caucus Chairman Jim Jordan said Wednesday that conservatives would band together in voting for speaker, a move that would give them the power to block a candidate or decide a winner.
“We have every intention of voting together as a group tomorrow and on the House floor,” the Ohio Republican said during a monthly forum for House conservatives. “We are looking at all of the candidates, but our focus is voting as a bloc.”
House Republicans will meet Thursday to vote on their nominee for House speaker in a contest that requires the winner to garner about 124 votes, or a majority of GOP lawmakers present. The entire House will officially elect a speaker on Oct. 29 and the winner will need a majority, which is 218 votes if every member votes.
The Freedom Caucus claims to have more than 40 lawmakers as members, although the group does not list its membership publicly. If all of them vote together, they have the power to block front-runner Kevin McCarthy, the most likely nominee and current majority leader.
Some Freedom Caucus members and other conservatives have said they won’t vote for McCarthy because he has retaliated against them while serving in the leadership and they are not convinced he will change.
McCarthy promised conservatives in a Tuesday night forum that he’d do things differently than current House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, who the far Right has tried to remove. But some conservatives still weren’t convinced.
“My take on last night is there is not much to talk about because there is not much you can take to the bank,” said Rep. Tim Huelskamp, R-Kan., who is among the conservatives who lost his committee assignments under the retaliatory leadership.
The Freedom Caucus meets Wednesday afternoon to discuss who they will support.
House Oversight Committee Chairman Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah, and Daniel Webster, R-Fla., are also running for House speaker.
We are still talking and this thing is fluid,” Jordan said. “If we vote as a group we have more ability to influence the decision than if we don’t.”
