Can ‘legislative terrorist’ Jim Jordan lead the House?

The first day of the 118th Congress was bizarre for many reasons, most notably the fact that it was the beginning of a week-long process to select a new speaker of the House. But people who have followed the House for a long time needed to do a double take when Rep Jim Jordan (R-OH) nominated Kevin McCarthy to become House speaker.

That was because for much of the past 15 years, before he emerged as Donald Trump’s chief apologist in the House and now a leading candidate to replace Mr McCarthy, the Ohio congressman had antagonised Republican leadership at every turn for being insufficiently conservative.

A co-founder of the House Freedom Caucus, he played a key role in ousting Speaker John Boehner when his friend Mark Meadows filed a motion to vacate the chair. It’s why Mr Boehner, now free to puff his cigarettes and sip his Merlot in peace, famously called Mr Jordan, his fellow Ohioan, a “legislative terrorist” and dubbed Mr Jordan and former congressman Jason Chaffetz “a*******.”

But during his speech, Mr Jordan said the differences between someone like himself and less conservative Republicans were minuscule and that they needed to get behind Mr McCarthy. In response, Rep Matt Gaetz (R-FL), who had nominated Mr Jordan to serve as speaker, said “Jim Jordan is humble, perhaps today, humble to a fault” and that “Maybe the right person for the job of speaker of the House isn’t someone who wants it so bad.”

Now, of course, Mr Jordan is a top candidate for speaker of the House. Friend of Inside Washington Kadia Goba at Semafor reported Wednesday evening that Mr McCarthy’s allies have rewarded Mr Jordan’s loyalty by making calls on behalf of the one-time bomb-thrower.

While some hardline conservatives have floated the idea of making Mr Trump the speaker, that serves more of a virtue signal to the pro-Trump base of voters and the former president would likely not make it after the first ballot. Ironically, conservatives used to vote for Mr Jordan for speaker on the floor in previous Congresses for the same reason: to burnish their right-wing credentials despite the fact Mr Jordan was never a serious prospect.

Liberals, of course, despise Mr Jordan for his spouting of election lies, promoting conspiracy theories and overall right-wing extremism. But should he seek to occupy the speaker’s office, the former college wrestling champion will need to show he has more skills in his arsenal than simply going on the offence.

At this point, Mr Jordan has earned the support of members like Rep Byron Donalds (R-FL), Ralph Norman (R-SC) and Rep Lauren Boebert (R-CO), members who opposed Mr McCarthy and now occupy the role of hellraiser in the House that Mr Jordan once occupied.

Indeed, Ms Boebert posted on X, formerly known as Twitter, that she would support getting rid of the motion to vacate with Mr Jordan as speaker (incidentally, despite the fact she and Mr Gaetz never supported Mr McCarthy, she did not join his coup earlier this week, likely a sign that she would need House GOP leadership money to survive in her district).

But to win the gavel, Mr Jordan will need to grow his base to block out House Majority Leader Steve Scalise, his chief rival in the race. The best way to do so is to appeal to the more centrist wing of the GOP. Friend of the newsletter Melanie Zanona at CNN reported that Mr Jordan and Mr Scalise are jockeying for support from the Main Street Caucus, who want major changes to the motion to vacate the chair.

Moderate Republicans are still furious after every Democrat joined eight Republicans to depose Mr McCarthy. Of course, they also agreed to these rules when they decided to back Mr McCarthy even after he allowed for a single member to file a motion to vacate the chair to appease the “Hell No” caucus. Nonetheless, they have chosen to blame Democrats.

That is where Ms Boebert’s words might work in Mr Jordan’s favour. If he can convince the more pro-business centrist Republicans that he can call off the dogs and that he might even entertain a change to the motion to vacate, even some Republicans who might not like Mr Jordan’s style could agree to back him instead of Mr Scalise.

But that does not even begin to address the biggest obstacle Mr Jordan would face were he to get the gavel – the question of whether he can govern. For most of his career, Mr Jordan has largely avoided any serious responsibilities by being the loudest “no” in the House GOP conference. That has allowed him to maintain a semblance of ideological purity and made him a darling of Fox News viewers, while avoiding any serious responsibilities.

That would change as soon as he is sworn in. In 2013, Mr Jordan, members of the Tea Party and Sen Ted Cruz plotted the government shutdown as a means to defund Obamacare. But should he become speaker, he would have to deal with the fact that the government runs out of money (indeed, the whole reason the eight Republicans staged a coup with Mr McCarthy was because he passed a continuing resolution to fund the government).

The moment he has to make a hard decision of governing, he risks becoming the thing he once rebelled against. And nothing angers zealots more than a heretic.