The shortest distance between two points is a straight line, but in their effort to elect a House speaker, Republicans have taken a more tortured route.<\/p>\n
Compared to a straight line, Republicans will follow the path of the \u2018truncated icosidodecahedron rhombus,\u2019 a monstrous, convex, polygonous shape.<\/p>\n
At least the\u00a0truncated icosidodecahedron rhombus is an actual thing.<\/p>\n
The Rube Goldberg-esque approach by House Republicans to the speakership would probably confuse Archimedes, Pythagoras and Euclid.<\/p>\n
I\u2019ve always said that the essence of Congress is \u2018the math.\u2019 The math is rather simple. Republicans need an outright majority of the entire House \u2014 voting by name \u2014 to elect someone as speaker. But since they can\u2019t balance the equation after nearly three weeks, the House has devolved into a state of unsolvable political algebra.<\/p>\n
If nothing else, House Republicans have been consistent about one thing the past few weeks: Whatever the plan is, they will alter the strategy 180 degrees a few hours later.<\/p>\n
Everyone has whiplash.<\/p>\n
House Republicans tapped House Majority Leader Steve Scalise, R-La., as their speaker nominee a week ago Wednesday, but 30 hours later, he dropped out.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Last Friday afternoon, Republicans then anointed House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, as their speaker nominee. But a week later, Republicans voted Jordan off the island after he lost three consecutive votes for speaker on the floor. Jordan hemorrhaged additional ballots each time.<\/p>\n
But that doesn\u2019t do justice to the frenzied planning that has become a touchstone of the manic process to tap a new speaker.<\/p>\n
Jordan lost consecutive floor votes for speaker on Tuesday and Wednesday. On Thursday morning, the tentative plan was for the House to meet at noon, potentially teeing up a vote for speaker around 1 p.m.<\/p>\n
But House Republicans convened one of their labyrinthine \u2018conference\u2019 meetings for 11 a.m.<\/p>\n
Just as the meeting started, word came that Jordan would not demand a roll call vote that day. Jordan was destined to lose that vote, the same as he had lost on the days before. One GOP source said that the strategy by Jordan\u2019s opponents was \u2018escalatory\u2019 \u2014 a move to prompt more opponents to cast ballots against Jordan on each ballot.<\/p>\n
Before the meeting, Jordan indicated that he would remain a candidate for speaker and remain the official GOP nominee for the job. But he endorsed a plan for the House to formally elect Speaker Pro Tempore Patrick McHenry, R-N.C., as interim speaker pro tempore. McHenry simply assumed the role once the House bounced former Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., from the speakership earlier this month. McHenry is handcuffed in his powers as acting speaker pro tempore, but the House would formally empower McHenry if he were elected\u00a0speaker pro tempore. That would allow the House to function again and vote on legislation. There is precedent for this. More on that in a moment.<\/p>\n
But after four hours, Republicans emerged from the meeting, swerving suddenly toward a divergent plan. Republicans incinerated the idea to elect McHenry and get the House running again \u2014 even though Jordan supported it.<\/p>\n
Wildly, the plan switched back to holding a floor vote for Jordan later that day, perhaps even in the middle of President Biden\u2019s prime-time address about the Middle East.<\/p>\n
Naturally, the vote never came.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The House adjourned early Thursday evening\u00a0without voting, but, true to form, a new\u00a0plan emerged. The House would meet at 10 a.m. Friday\u00a0with a third vote for speaker beginning around 11 a.m.<\/p>\n
Holy trapezoid.<\/p>\n
\u2018Additional votes are expected throughout the weekend,\u2019 tweeted Rep. Warren Davidson, R-Ohio, a Jordan ally, at 7:23 p.m. Thursday.<\/p>\n
But there was a problem with the idea of weekend votes for speaker.<\/p>\n
\u2018Additonal votes\u2019 would mean that Jordan still hadn\u2019t wrapped up his bid for speaker on Friday. Lawmakers on both sides saw the possibility of an attendance problem over the weekend. They scheduled events in their districts. It was unclear how many would be willing to hang around Washington for another vote that was destined to fail.<\/p>\n
However, weekend absences could actually help Jordan. If the right mixture of Members were absent, that could lower the threshold to elect a speaker. Depending on who were gone, there was a possibility that Jordan could actually WIN.<\/p>\n
However, any benefit to Jordan would mean a nearly equal risk of losing the speaker\u2019s gavel entirely.<\/p>\n
If another blend of members were absent, it was possible that Republicans, if they weren\u2019t careful, could elect House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., as speaker.<\/p>\n
The magic number to prevail as speaker morphs with each roll call vote. It\u2019s contingent on how many members are there and vote for a candidate by name. The speaker must win an outright majority of the ballots being cast.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s why the Jeffries scenario was in play.<\/p>\n
As they say in the movies, \u2018You play a dangerous game, Mr. Bond.\u2019<\/p>\n
But it never got to that point.<\/p>\n
At 9:33 p.m. on Thursday, Jordan announced he would hold an 8 a.m.\u00a0press conference Friday in the Rayburn Room of the U.S. Capitol. It\u2019s rare for any event on Capitol Hill to begin before 9 a.m, but it\u2019s even stranger to announce an event of this magnitude so late the night before.<\/p>\n
But Jordan strode in to the Rayburn Room a few moments after 8 a.m. Friday, jacketless, as is his custom.<\/p>\n
\u2018Our plan this weekend is to get a speaker elected,\u2019 said Jordan at 8:11 a.m.<\/p>\n
During his remarks, Jordan spoke of how the Wright Brothers built a plane in 1903 that was \u2018barely\u2019 airborne.<\/p>\n
\u2018Flew like 100 feet. Got a few feet off the ground,\u2019 said Jordan.<\/p>\n
He then added that Chuck Yeager broke the sound barrier in a jet in 1947.<\/p>\n
\u2018In 44 years, we go from two guys flying 100 feet to another American breaking the sound barrier in a jet,\u2019 said Jordan.<\/p>\n
Jordan concluded his remarks at 8:12 a.m. He was back in his office in the Rayburn House Office Building by 8:21 a.m. The House began voting shortly after 11 a.m. By 11:26 a.m., the House was only through names beginning with letter \u2018G.\u2019 But it was clear Jordan had lost another vote for speaker. McHenry gaveled the vote closed at 12:06 p.m. By 1:56 p.m., House Republicans voted by secret ballot to move on from Jordan as their speaker nominee.<\/p>\n
Jordan\u2019s campaign for speaker probably traveled further politically than the 120 feet on the maiden voyage of the Wright Brothers\u2019 flyer. However, the Wright Brothers kept at it that day in 1903, increasing their flight distance with each sortie. Their fourth flight was aloft for nearly a full minute and flew 852 feet. But unlike the Wright Brothers, Jordan kept losing ground on his subsequent roll call votes. At the rate Jordan was going, it may have taken him 44 years to become speaker \u2014 the same amount of time it took Chuck Yeager to break the sound barrier.<\/p>\n
Some Republicans took umbrage at what they perceived as strong-arm tactics by Jordan and his allies. Some received death threats. Their family members encountered vulgar messages. Rep. Mariannette Miller-Meeks, R-Iowa, called her warnings \u2018credible\u2019 and reported them to the U.S. Capitol Police. She described Jordan as a \u2018bully.\u2019<\/p>\n
Rep. Drew Ferguson, R-Ga., said he planned to support Jordan on the second ballot, but he changed his mind after intimidation tactics \u2018ramped up.\u2019 He also characterized Jordan as a \u2018bully.\u2019<\/p>\n
Jordan allies rode to his defense.<\/p>\n
\u2018Jordan has never pressured anybody,\u2019 said Rep. Ralph Norman, R-S.C.<\/p>\n
Rep. Scott Perry, R-Penn., minimized security concerns.<\/p>\n
\u2018All of us in Congress receive death threats. I don\u2019t know if that\u2019s a news flash for anybody here,\u2019 said Perry. \u2018It\u2019s nothing new to a member of Congress. We all know it. That is another red herring.\u2019<\/p>\n
Never mind that former Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, D-Ariz., nearly died during a 2011 shooting that also injured future Rep. Ron Barber, D-Ariz. And Scalise nearly perished during the GOP baseball practice shooting in 2017.\u00a0<\/p>\n
A cavalcade of House Republicans entered the speaker sweepstakes Friday following Jordan\u2019s defeat. The House aims to vote again on Tuesday. But it\u2019s anyone\u2019s guess whether the House can elect a speaker then or anytime soon.<\/p>\n
One senior Republican source told Fox that it was likely the House had to go at least one more round with a bona fide candidate for speaker before it began to consider the scenario mentioned earlier about empowering McHenry.<\/p>\n
The House has done so in the past. House Rule I, Clause 8 allows an elected speaker pro tempore to assume \u2018virtually all the duties, authorities, and prerogatives of the Speaker of the House.\u2019<\/p>\n
One of the best examples came in 1961. Late House Speaker Sam Rayburn, D-Tex., fell ill over the summer and went back to the Lone Star State to die. The House elected future House Speaker John McCormack, D-Mass., as speaker pro tempore in Rayburn\u2019s absence. The House returned to legislative form, passing a foreign operations spending bill and legislation to create the Peace Corps. The latter was one of the hallmarks of President John F. Kennedy\u2019s legislative agenda.<\/p>\n
Rayburn passed away in the fall. The House later elected McCormack as the regular speaker.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s far from clear whether the House will ever follow this path to elect a speaker pro tempore if it can\u2019t pick an actual speaker, but one thing is certain: The pathway over the next week remains circuitous. Ellipitical. Contorted. Malformed.<\/p>\n
The shortest distance between two points is a straight line. That is rarely the case for anything in Congress, but the exercise of electing a speaker is certainly akin to a truncated scosidodecahedron rhombus.<\/p>\n