House Speaker vote: House adjourns without Speaker of the House vote

Interim House Speaker Patrick McHenry says that he hopes the House can vote on a new Speaker "by Thursday."

A source close to the House Republicans say Steve Scalise has "no path to 217" — the number of votes needed to confirm his position as Speaker of the House. 

House Republicans are blaming the far-right MAGA faction of the GOP for the failure. 

"These folks are destroying our conference and apparently want to be in the minority," said Rep. Don Bacon. "They don't respect the customs of the House that have gone on for over two centuries."

In a breaking bit of news, Rep. Byron Donalds (R-Florida) has made a motion to become House Majority Leader. Donalds will secure this position if Rep. Steve Scalise succeeds in becoming Speaker of the House.

As of this writing, Scalise doesn't have enough votes to secure the Speaker of the House win. As a result, there will be no voting on the new Speaker tonight. However, sources on Capitol Hlll have been hinting that Scalise is working overtime "behind closed doors" to secure the necessary votes to secure the ultimate win for Speaker of the House.

Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas) says he's in no rush to get a vote for Speaker of the House.

"I did not want this to go to the floor before we're united, and we should have done that this morning. It was not done," Roy told reporters in the Capitol.

"So we’ll go now have some conversations and go figure out where we’re gonna go."

Ousted House speaker Kevin McCarthy says that Steve Scalise has his vote for the job. 

"Look, Steve’s gonna have to talk to them all, see what the concerns are," McCarthy told reporters. "But I’m supporting Steve."

Good evening. I'm Bernadette Giacomazzo, the Senior News Reporter for The Express, and I'll be taking over the live blog for the House Speaker vote until 11pm this evening. If you have questions, tips, or concerns, feel free to email bernadette.giacomazzo@reachplc.com. 

Scalise needs 217 votes to become the next House Speaker - but several Republicans have said he is still short of that number of backers.

One Republican source told CNN that there is broad skepticism towards Scalise as a result of an overall lack of trust throughout the GOP leadership.

Scalise is reported to be meeting individually with Republicans in attempts to convince them to support him on the House floor.

Tennessee Republican Tim Burchett, one of the eight Republicans who voted to oust Kevin McCarthy, said he will vote for Steve Scalise.

“Absolutely,” Burchett said in response to a question from a CBS reporter on whether he would vote for Scalise on the House floor.

In more signs of trouble for Steve Scalise, Marjorie Taylor Greene has announced that she will not vote for him to be House Speaker.

She said: “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.

“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. I lost my father to cancer and it’s a very serious battle.

“We need a Speaker who is able to put their full efforts into defeating the communist democrats and save America.”

Jim Jordan offered to give Steve Scalise a nominating speech on his behalf, sources told the Guardian.

Additionally, the House will not vote on electing a speaker today, CNN reported.

Matt Gaetz told reporters he will vote for Steve Scalise to succeed Kevin McCarthy as speaker because Scalise is “an upgrade over McCarthy in every way”.

“There’s a renewed excitement,” says Gaetz. “We’ve got the legend from Louisiana who’s gonna lead us.

“And I think that he’ll be invigorating to our activists. I think he’ll be a great communicator to the country and I think he’ll do a great job uniting the Republican conference.”

Steve Scalise will only be able to afford to lose four Republican votes when his candidacy for speaker comes to the House floor.

But at least three Republicans have already said they will not support him.

The three House GOP members are:

Steve Scalise was nominated as the House Speaker after Republicans cast their votes over the vacant role.

House Republicans voted behind closed doors to select the Majority Leader, with the final tally being 113-99 against Rep. Jim Jordan.

However, the Louisiana Republican has not yet won the votes from the House in full to replace Kevin McCarthy.

House Majority Leader Steve Scalise won the GOP conference ballot for Speaker of the House.

Representative Kevin Hern is reported to run for majority leader if current chief contender Steve Scalise wins the House speaker nomination.

The Oklahoma Republican was nominated for Speaker of the House as a protest candidate against Kevin McCarthy.

House Republicans are now voting via secret ballot to elect their party’s nominee for speaker.

If Steve Scalise, the majority leader of the House, wins the nomination, Republicans will be required to elect a new majority leader.

Scalise’s chief contender is Jim Jordan, House judiciary committee chair, though it appears that Scalise is favored against Jordan, NBC’s Jake Sherman reports.

House Republicans reportedly tabled a motion to change the rules surrounding the speaker vote.

Steve Scalise, one of the chief contenders, has been urging for the tabling over the past several days.

Prior to heading to the closed-door nomination meeting, Scalise said to reporters:

Both frontrunners arrived at the Capitol this morning for the meeting and vote on who will be put forward.

The meeting is still ongoing

Before casting their votes for a speaker, House Republicans will first vote on a party rule change.

This proposed change would necessitate that the speaker nominee garner the backing of 217 Republicans before proceeding to a vote on the House floor.

This adjustment aims to prevent a situation similar to the 15 rounds of voting required to elect  Kevin McCarthy as the speaker in January.

As per the draft, seen by The Washington Post, the procedure states that once a candidate secures a majority of support, Republicans will conduct two secret ballot rounds in an effort to reach the crucial 217 votes.

The third round would involve an open roll call, where lawmakers publicly declare their support within the group, and candidates would have the opportunity to target specific lawmakers.

If no candidate achieves 217 votes after five rounds, new candidates can enter the race, and the process restarts.

Steve Scalise, however, opposes this rule and is urging his supporters to vote against it.

The complete US House of Representatives is scheduled to assemble at 3 pm ET, and it remains uncertain whether the Republicans, who are currently holding closed-door meetings to decide on their nominee for the Speaker position, will have reached a consensus on a candidate by that time.

However, if and when they do reach an agreement and present their nominee for the speakership vote, House Democrats do not intend to support the Republican choice, be it Steve Scalise or Jim Jordan.

Instead, they plan to put forward their own candidate, House Minority Leader and New York Congressman Hakeem Jeffries, for the position of Speaker.

While the Democrats may not have enough votes to secure Jeffries as Speaker, their aim is to demonstrate unity in contrast to the GOP.

Alabama Representative Gary Palmer has thrown his vote behind Jim Jordan along with a slew of other GOP lawmakers.

Congressmen Ben Cline, Mike Carey, Russell Fry have also posted on X, formerly Twitter, in support of Jordan.

While there are still some Republicans supporting former speaker Kevin McCarthy, McCarthy stood up at the start of the forum on Tuesday to explicitly warn the conference against voting for him.

McCarthy told reporters before entering a candidate forum: “There’s two people running in there, and I’m not one of them.

“I told them not to nominate me.”

The selection of a new House speaker has halted legislative proceedings, raising concerns about a potential government shutdown looming just over a month away.

Jim Jordan and Steve Scalise faced inquiries on Tuesday regarding the upcoming expiration of short-term funding, scheduled for November 17, leaving limited time for Congress to pass the requisite 12 appropriations bills.

The closed-door GOP conference meeting revolved around the pivotal issue of government funding.

Several lawmakers revealed that Jordan suggested introducing a stopgap spending bill on the floor, commonly known as a continuing resolution, which would maintain current funding levels for six months.

Nevertheless, a significant faction of hardline members strongly opposes any short-term measure, which was a factor contributing to the removal of Rep. Kevin McCarthy. Instead, they favor a mechanism that would activate if government funding remains at current levels into the new year.

A six-month continuing resolution would trigger an automatic ine percent reduction in government spending in April should Congress fail to pass its funding bills.

House Republicans are convening privately on Wednesday morning to unite around a potential speaker candidate capable of securing the majority vote within the entire chamber.

House Majority Leader Steve Scalise and Rep Jim Jordan, who chairs the Judiciary Committee, are competing to take over the position previously held by Rep. Kevin McCarthy, whose removal as speaker was orchestrated by staunch conservatives last week.

It remains uncertain whether either Scalise or Jordan can garner sufficient backing.

A full House vote may occur as soon as Wednesday or possibly be postponed to later in the week.