During the speaker candidate forum on Monday, all the speaker candidates agreed that they wanted to get to 217 votes in the room before going to the floor, a source familiar told CNN. But that doesn’t mean it will officially happen.
As the voting gets down to the wire, House Republicans will have to decide yet again whether they should stay behind closed doors until a speaker nominee locks in 217 votes, or again go to the House floor with a nominee who has just won a majority of the conference and risk more public embarrassment.
Speaker candidate GOP Rep. Kevin Hern told CNN on Monday that he and other candidates in the race believe the conference should hold a private roll call vote ahead of going to the House floor to test whether the GOP nominee has 217 votes to be elected. That would avoid the spectacle on the floor that derailed Ohio Rep. Jim Jordan’s bid.
“I think the consensus is, and I've talked to some of the other people that are running and others that are actually going to be the voting members, and we'd like to see a roll call vote in the basement so that we know this. Because the American people don't want to see another thing that happened like last week with Jim Jordan,” he said.
GOP Rep. Tim Burchett of Tennessee told CNN it is important for the conference to 217 behind closed doors because they need to avoid another public embarrassment on the House floor.
“I do not think it will go to the floor until we have 217 committed,” Burchett said. “If it goes to the floor, it will succeed.”
But not all Republicans are sold on the strategy. Texas GOP Rep. Dan Crenshaw told CNN, “it’s impossible” for the conference to get to 217, but added “let’s see who wins. The rebels might be tired.”
GOP Rep. Ralph Norman of South Carolina told reporters in between voting rounds that the conference decided to have a roll call vote once the race narrows to the final two candidates so members can be on the record with who they support.
“We’ll pare it down And then we get it down to I assume the two, we will have a roll call vote.”
