The race for House Speaker took an unexpected turn on Friday.
A relatively unknown Congressman, Rep. Austin Scott (Ga.) has entered the race to become the next Speaker teeing up a challenge to Jim Jordan hours after GOP nominee Steve Scalise dropped out of the race.
Theย New York Timesย described Scott as โa mainstream conservative and ally of the ousted former Speaker Kevin McCarthy,โ and said he is putting himself forward โas a protest candidate against Mr. Jordan, the hard-right Republican who is the chairman of the Judiciary Committee.โ
The Hill has more:
โI don't necessarily want to be the speaker of the House. I want a House that functions correctly, but the House is not functioning correctly right now,โ he said.
Scott told reporters he had โno intentionโ of running for Speaker this morning.
โI care more about the conference and that it's doing our job than I care about who the Speaker is. I truly do,โ Scott said. โWhen I woke up this morning I had no intention of doing this.โ
โI believe is if we as Republicans are gonna be the majority, we have to do the right things the right way. And we're not doing that right now,โ he later added.
Mediaite reported that during a segment on MSNBC,ย Brendan Buck, a former aide to past Speakersย John Boehnerย andย Paul Ryan, stopped short of calling Scott a โhothead,โ but made it clear that he's no fan of the โmeddlingโ Freedom Caucus. Buck also posited that Scott's run is more about making a point than actually wanting to be Speaker.
โWell, I think Austin Scott is serving a very particular purpose in this race. Austin Scott, as was mentioned, is not anybody who has ever established himself as a real leader in the conference, but he is someone who has stood out as someone who gets very frustrated by the Freedom Caucus meddling in the plans. He is as conservative as they come, but he was a regular visitor to the speaker's office when I was there, coming in, just could not believe what the Freedom Caucus was doing that day to describe what was going on, and he'sโฆ I wouldn't call him a hothead, but he runs, he runs hot. And it's very clear to me at this point when Jim Jordan was about to be going into this race without anybody challenging him, Austin Scott, I imagine, stood up and said, โI'm not going to let this happen.โ
Before making his announcement on Friday,ย Scott told CNN'sย Manu Rajuย that House Republicans trying to mess with the speaker race made his conference look โlike a bunch of idiots.โ
Scott is a seven-termย member of Congressย first elected in 2011 to represent Georgia's eighth district, is a member of the House Intelligence Committee as well as the House Armed Services Committee and the House Agricultural Committee.ย
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2 Comments
another Kevin McCarthy??
He’s an undeclared Operative of The Democrat Communist Criminal Terrorist Organization. NO