Forbes Magazine: 'BREAKING: Hakeem Jeffries Holds A Press Briefing After Jim Jordan's 3rd Bid For Speakership Fails'

Source:Forbes Magazine- left to right: failed House Speaker candidate Jim Jordan (Republican, Ohio) & House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (Democrat, New York)

"House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) held a press briefing on Friday moments after Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) failed in his effort to become speaker." 

From Forbes Magazine

Just to lay my my own full-disclosure here on House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries: he was mine and The New Democrat's original choice to be House Minority Leader in this Congress, after House Democrats lost their majority in 2022. So we're big fans of him and think he's an excellent choice to lead the House Democrats not just while they're still in the minority, but back into the majority as soon as January, 2025. 

The key point that I take away from Minority Leader Jeffries press conference here, is him saying that there are House MAGA Republicans, that would only vote for Jim Jordan as Speaker of the House. House Republicans just voted 112-86 to remove Representative Jordan as a Speaker candidate. So if that's the case and I have no reason to doubt the Minority Leader, House Republicans are very short in electing their own Speaker, at least on their own. 

If Hakeem Jeffries is right here, that gives him room to negotiate with the center-right, establishment wing of the House Republican Conference, that's essentially being led by Speaker Pro Tempore Patrick McHenry, to elect a new bipartisan Speaker, where all the establishment Republicans would vote for McHenry or some other center-right Republican, with Democratic votes led by Hakeem Jeffries. 

But if a deal like this would go through and could even be reached between the Minority Leader and establishment Republicans, Jeffries would have to first be able to sell that deal to his caucus. And that means getting something substantial in return. 

A bipartisan deal between Hakeem Jeffries and establishment House Republicans that could be things like: 

no more emergency crisis governing in the House 

returning the House to regular order with committee hearings, markups, votes 

allowing all House members to be able to read every bill before voting on it 

being able to offer and have their amendments voted on in committee and on the House floor 

the minority being able to offer their own substitutes to bills that House Republicans are trying to pass by themselves. etc. 

If House Republicans are still short on electing their own Speaker next week, this would open up the door for a bipartisan deal to elect a consensus Speaker and reopen the House of Representatives.

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