WASHINGTON — The House of Representatives has now gone two weeks without a speaker. At least one more round of voting is expected after Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) failed to get enough votes Tuesday after becoming the nominee of the Republican conference.
It is a critical absence because so much important legislation is in limbo until a speaker is elected. Items such as aid for Israel and Ukraine, as well as a plan to avert a government shutdown cannot be addressed without a speaker of the House in place.
QUESTION
Is this current stretch the longest the House of Representatives has gone without a speaker?
SOURCES
ANSWER
Long periods with a speaker have become rare, but this current gap has not yet approached the record.
WHAT WE FOUND
The role of speaker of the House is open because a few Republicans voiced their displeasure with former Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-California) over a continuing resolution that allowed the government to remain functioning at the beginning of the new fiscal year. Eight Republicans and all the Democrats in the House voted to remove McCarthy, the first time a speaker had been voted out in the middle of a term by their colleagues.
During the 15-vote process by which he became speaker in January, McCarthy eased the rules for removing a speaker as a concession to those Republicans who opposed his nomination.
While this is the second contentious House speaker vote in 2023, division like this has not existed for a century.
Before 2023, the House went exactly 100 years without needing more than one round of voting in order to elect a speaker.
However, protracted fights to become speaker were more common before the Civil War.
In 1855, according to the Office of the Historian of the House of Representatives, the House went two months without a speaker.
With slavery and immigration as the divisive issues of the day, they voted 133 times before electing Nathaniel Banks.
Hopefully the current members of the House of Representatives can figure things out a little faster this time. The House is expected to have a second round of voting for Jordan on Wednesday.