🎙 The gavel Jim Jordan does not get | The Receipts - Dataspheres AI

The gavel Jim Jordan does not get (5 min), with captions The story House Republicans elected Jim Jordan of Ohio as minority leader in a closed-door confere...

The gavel Jim Jordan does not get (5 min), with captions The story House Republicans elected Jim Jordan of Ohio as minority leader in a closed-door conference meeting on Tuesday, November 10. The secret ballot gave Jordan 106 votes to 73 for Steve Scalise, the sitting majority leader. The vote came one week after the party lost more than forty seats and control of the House. In the same meeting, Tom Emmer held the whip's job by 103 votes to 76 over August Pfluger. The minority leader is the top job in the party that does not control the House. It carries the microphone and the strategy but not the gavel. Jordan's term begins with the 120th Congress, seated in January 2027, so the margin of thirty-three votes decides who speaks for House Republicans for the next two years. Jordan has sat in the House since 2007, chairs the Judiciary Committee and has led Republicans at Oversight. He co-founded the House Freedom Caucus, the conference's hardline bloc. His twenty years in the chamber were built on investigations rather than legislation: no bill he introduced as its sponsor has been signed into law, and the Center for Effective Lawmaking ranked him fourth from last among the House Republicans it scored. Trackers that also count bills he cosponsored report a figure in the dozens. Scalise entered as the continuity candidate and took 73 votes. Jordan had argued that Scalise was too closely tied to the failed midterm effort, and the conference agreed. Mike Johnson did not put his name forward; he is stepping aside and is not seeking another leadership position for the next two years, which is how the seat came open. Lisa McClain of Michigan takes the conference chair and Brian Jack of Georgia the campaign committee. On the day of the vote the count stood at 254 Democrats to 166 Republicans, with fifteen races still uncalled. In a letter to colleagues on November 4, Jordan wrote that the party had operated "without a clear plan to survive the hour or the day in front of us" and called the result a staggering day for the conference. After winning, he said: "When Democrats offer more government, we'll offer more freedom. And we will bring that fight in committee, on the floor and on the stump every single day." The power to compel witnesses will not follow him into the minority. According to the Congressional Research Service on November 9, House Rule Eleven lets a committee authorize a subpoena by majority vote and hand that authority to its chair, who signs it. The rules typically require the chair to consult or notify the ranking minority member but give that member no power to issue one, and chairs come from the majority party. Highlights Highlight In pictures Listen The episode as audio