GOP senators say that Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell (Ky.) doesn’t have any real relationship with Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) and note that the two of them would be the ultimate Republican odd couple if Jordan is elected Speaker.
Jordan on Tuesday lost the first vote to become Speaker, falling 17 votes short of what he needed to succeed former Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.). It’s unclear whether he’ll be able to overcome his opponents. The House is expected to vote again on the Speakership on Wednesday.
Senate Republican sources point out that McConnell has often had to step in to clean up the political messes caused by Jordan and other members of the House Freedom Caucus, such as the brinksmanship that nearly caused a national default in 2011 and a 16-day government shutdown sparked by a fight over the Affordable Care Act in 2013.
Jordan declared in 2011 that conservatives in the Republican Study Committee, which he led at the time, would oppose McConnell’s plan to raise the debt limit by putting the burden on then-President Obama to request debt increases and give congressional Republicans to vote for resolutions of disapproval.
In 2013, Jordan pressured House GOP leaders to add language to a short-term government funding bill to defund ObamaCare, which resulted in a shutdown that McConnell likened to “the second kick of a mule.”
More recently, McConnell broke with the House Republican efforts to challenge the results of the 2020 election, which Jordan helped lead, and warned the House about launching another round of impeachment proceedings, calling impeachments generally “bad for the country.”
McConnell knows how to throw a political punch and Democrats have loudly complained about his partisanship over his more than 16 years as Senate Republican leader, but throughout that time he has prided himself on governing, even if the deals he cut with Democrats unpopular with his party.
Jordan, by contrast, has been a leading antagonist of House Republican leaders. He founded the House Freedom Caucus to pressure GOP leaders to move rightward and helped push former Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) from power.
Jordan and other members of the Freedom Caucus vented their frustration with how Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) handled the legislative agenda and Ryan didn’t stick around in the job for long.
If elected Speaker, Jordan would have to work on a regular basis with McConnell, a lawmaker who in many ways is the embodiment of the Republican establishment in Washington that Jordan has tried to tear down over the past decade.
Boehner, who worked closely with McConnell for more than eight years, once called the veteran Kentucky legislator “Mr. Decorum.” He called Jordan and other members of the Freedom Caucus “legislative terrorists.”
This has McConnell’s allies in the Senate GOP conference nervous.
“If he gets this, he’s going to have to govern and I don’t know how he does that with the personality and the positions that he’s taken so I am concerned about it,” said one Republican senator who requested anonymity to talk about anxieties within the Senate GOP conference about what a McConnell-Jordan relationship would look like.
“We need stability in a leader and hopefully he realizes that,” the senator said of Jordan. “At the end of the day, knowing McConnell, he’ll do as much as he can in terms of building the relationship but he also knows that he’s got work to do and if it’s not working, he’s just going to go his own way.
Members of McConnell’s leadership team say that Jordan will have to change his style if he becomes the next Speaker.
“Obviously he’s never been the leader before so this is going to involve some transition and, frankly, different skills. But he’s a talented guy and hopefully he can figure that out,” Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) said of Jordan.
GOP senators point out that after four years of working with former President Trump, McConnell has shown he can work with any Republican to get a shared agenda passed.
But some senators have doubts about Jordan’s ability to pass crucial legislation after years of playing the role of conservative gadfly.
“We don’t need Jim Jordan,” a second Republican senator, who requested anonymity, said. “He’s never accomplished anything.”
Boehner told CBS News in a 2021 interview that he “never saw a guy who spent more time tearing things apart,” referring to Jordan.
Other retired House Republicans have criticized Jordan in scathing terms.
Former Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) last week warned that Jordan would cost Republicans the House majority if elected Speaker.
“Jim Jordan was involved in Trump’s conspiracy to steal the election and seize power; he urged that Pence refuse to count lawful electoral votes. If Rs nominate Jordan to be Speaker, they will be abandoning the Constitution. They’ll lose the House majority and they’ll deserve to,” she posted on X, the social media platform.
McConnell urged his Republican colleagues on Jan. 6, 2021, to vote against objections to Biden’s election victory.
“The voters, the courts and the states all have spoken. If we overrule them all, it would damage our Republic forever,” he warned.
McConnell has also voiced his skepticism about the House launching an impeachment inquiry into President Biden, which Jordan, the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, is leading with House Oversight Committee Chairman Jim Comer (R-Ky.).
“Impeachment ought to be rare,” McConnell told The New York Times this summer. “This is not good for the country.”
But the longest serving party leader in Senate history on Tuesday declined to state any preference about whom he would like to see elected Speaker.
“You guys cover the House, I’ve got my hands full in the Senate,” McConnell said when asked if Republicans should re-install McCarthy as Speaker or further empower Speaker Pro Tempore Patrick McHenry (R-N.C.) after Jordan lost on the first ballot.