The House of Representatives went without a speaker for three weeks — leaving one of America’s branches of government effectively paralyzed as crises and a government shutdown loomed.
The 21-day gap was the longest that Congress has been rudderless since 1962, when it took 55 days to elect a speaker.
Republicans — who hold the majority of seats in the House and thus have the ability to elect a speaker without Democratic votes — nominated four candidates to the position: Rep. Steve Scalise R-La., Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, Rep. Tom Emmer, R-Minn., and the eventual next speaker, Rep. Mike Johnson, R-La.
Jordan, who was nominated Oct. 13, went through three rounds of votes, falling short each time and losing votes with each round. The 194 votes Jordan won in his third speaker vote tied the record for the fewest number of votes for a majority nominee in the past 100 years.
Scalise was nominated by Republicans on Oct. 11, only to withdraw from consideration the next day when it became clear he wouldn’t be able to win enough votes.
Until the new speaker was chosen, Rep. Patrick McHenry, R-N.C., served as speaker pro tempore, an interim role for which he was selected by former Speaker Rep. Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif. The position contains limited powers to bring bills to the floor.
Amid the difficulty in choosing a new speaker, Republicans briefly considered expanding McHenry’s powers to move legislation. But the plan collapsed later in the day, and McHenry threatened to resign as speaker pro tempore if Republicans pushed him to move legislation without holding an official vote to expand his powers.
Democrats backed House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y.
“It’s time for the GOP to end the House Republican civil war, get their act together, so that we can take care of the business that the American people stand strongly for: Our allies throughout the world, including Israel and Ukrainian people,” Jeffries told reporters Oct. 12.
Speaker elections typically happen at the beginning of a new congressional session, and it is extremely rare to have one during the middle of a session There have only been five instances since 1913 in which a midsession speaker election was needed, all of them following either a death or resignation. This is the first time an election follows a speaker’s dismissal, which happened to McCarthy on Oct. 3.
