On Wednesday afternoon, Republicans voted 113-99 in a secret ballot, opting for Rep. Steve Scalise as their nominee for Speaker of the House over Jim Jordan. Earlier in the day, two voters on deck — Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) and Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-CO) — spoke up individually in a shared goal to not contribute to that nomination.
"I just voted for Jim Jordan for Speaker on a private ballot in conference, and I will be voting for Jim Jordan on the House floor," Greene said in a statement made to X. Breaking down several reasons that contributed to her decision, she lists Scalise's cancer among them. "I like Steve Scalise, and I like him so much that I want to see him defeat cancer more than sacrifice his health in the most difficult position in Congress."
Boebert, who has been locked in tense disagreements with Greene in the past over other issues, aligns in this one, minus the cancer part. In her own statement to social media, she stated, "I will be voting for Jim Jordan to be Speaker of the House on the floor when the vote is called. In conference, Jordan received 99 votes and Scalise received 113. We had a chance to unify the party behind closed doors, but the Swamp and K Street lobbyists prevented that. The American people deserve a real change in leadership, not a continuation of the status quo."
Per The Wall Street Journal's coverage of the results of the vote today, "The razor-thin nature of Scalise’s victory left the House staring down a potential replay of the 15-ballot marathon back at the start of the year, when Kevin McCarthy of California emerged as the winner only after making a series of promises related to spending and other issues to conservatives." Furthering that, "Some of those same holdouts helped to oust him just nine months later."
