US Representative Steve Scalise on Thursday ended his bid to become speaker of the US House of Representatives after some fellow Republicans refused to back him.
Scalise told his colleagues at a closed-door evening meeting of his decision and declined to announce backing for anyone else, including US Representative Jim Jordan.
Next steps are uncertain as the House is essentially closed while the Republican majority elects a speaker after ousting US Representative Kevin McCarthy from the job.
Photo: Reuters
“I just shared with my colleagues that I’m withdrawing my name as a candidate for speaker-designee,” said Scalise as he emerged from the meeting at the Capitol.
Scalise said that the Republican majority still has to come together and “open up the House again, but clearly not everybody is there.”
He had been working to secure the votes after being nominated by a majority of his colleagues, but after hours of private meetings over two days and late into the evening it was clear that many other Republican lawmakers were not budging from their refusal to support him.
Asked if he would throw his support behind Jordan, Scalise said: “It’s got to be people that aren’t doing it for themselves and their own personal interest.”
Scalise spoke candidly of the perspective on life he said he has gained from surviving being shot in 2017 and said he would push quickly for a resolution, “but it wasn’t going to happen.”
“It wasn’t going to happen today. It wasn’t going to happen tomorrow. It needs to happen soon, but I’ve withdrawn my name,” he said.
McCarthy said afterward that Scalise would remain as majority leader, but had no other advice for his colleagues.
“I just think the conference as a whole has to figure out their problems, solve it and select the leader,” he said.
Scalise won the closed-door Republican vote 113-99, but with the House narrowly split 221-212, with two vacancies, Scalise could lose just a few Republicans to reach the 217 majority needed in the face of opposition from Democrats, who would back their own leader, US Representative Hakeem Jeffries.
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