Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) lost votes for House speaker from 22 Republicans who mainly cast their ballots for Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) or Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-LA), but one GOP lawmaker made a statement in nominating a former House speaker .
Rep. Mike Kelly (R-PA) nominated former House Speaker John Boehner to become the next speaker of the House on Wednesday, earning cheers and laughter from other members on the House floor.
Boehner, an Ohio Republican, served as speaker from 2011 to 2015. He served as Republican majority leader before taking the gavel and trying to wrangle upstart Tea Party insurgents intent on shaking Washington's establishment awake to a looming fiscal disaster.
House Republicans, who made history earlier this month when they forced McCarthy out of the speaker's chair for the first time, also tried to remove Boehner via a motion to vacate in 2015. Boehner stepped down from the position before Republicans could oust him. It was the first time in more than 100 years the move had been tried.
Then-Rep. Mark Meadows of North Carolina said at the time that he filed the motion to force a "family conversation" among Republicans on the course of congressional leadership following a series of conflicts between Boehner's team and a handful of conservatives. He added that he hoped the motion would never come to a vote.
Unlike Rep. Matt Gaetz's (R-FL) motion to vacate McCarthy, Meadows's motion was filed to committee instead of directly to the House floor. Gaetz's privileged motion went directly to the full lower chamber for a vote on Oct. 3, successfully ousting McCarthy with the help of all Democrats and eight Republicans, including Gaetz.
In September 2015, Boehner stepped down as speaker before a vote on the motion to vacate was called. Before Boehner's resignation, no House speaker since Thomas P. O'Neill Jr., who held the gavel from 1977 to 1986, had left the job willingly. Many thought McCarthy would take the speaker's gavel, but Paul Ryan succeeded Boehner in October 2015.
Jordan lost 22 Republicans' votes on Wednesday, setting him up for a third round of speakership votes. He lost 20 votes on Tuesday, and many GOP lawmakers predict he will continue to lose as the rounds continue. The time frame for the speakership vote has not been decided.
Some lawmakers on both sides of the aisle have floated the idea of bringing forward a resolution to expand Rep. Patrick McHenry's (R-NC) interim speaker powers so the House can operate. Boehner and former Speaker Newt Gingrich of Georgia voiced their support for such a resolution earlier on Wednesday before the second speaker vote.
Remember when he left and they were butching about the imbeded cigarette smell in the magic office everyone is fighting over