Republican Jim Jordan keeps up floundering fight to be US House Speaker
By David Morgan, Katharine Jackson and Makini Brice
WASHINGTON (Reuters) -Hardline conservative Jim Jordan vowed to continue his floundering bid for speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives on Thursday, after his fellow Republicans abandoned a backup plan to allow the leaderless chamber to resume business.
Jordan, who has lost two votes for speaker this week, emerged from an hours-long closed-door meeting with fellow Republicans to say he would press ahead with a third vote.
«I'm still running for speaker and I plan to go to the floor and get the votes and win this race,» Jordan told reporters, adding that he wanted to talk to some of the more than 20 fellow Republicans who have voted against him.
He then met with some of the holdouts, though Jordan opponents emerged from the meeting saying their minds had not been changed.
«We all told him that we're solid no's. That was the discussion,» Republican Representative Vern Buchanan told reporters. «Now he's got a decision to make.»
Jordan told reporters as he left that meeting: «We had a good discussion.»
It was not clear when the House would vote again on a speaker. The chamber has been at a standstill since Oct. 3, when a small group of Republicans ousted Kevin McCarthy from the speaker's chair, leaving lawmakers unable to respond to eruption of war in the Middle East and a possible partial government shutdown less than a month away.
According to lawmakers in the meeting earlier in the day, Jordan had suggested that Republicans vote to extend the authority of Representative Patrick McHenry, who is serving as acting speaker, effectively pausing his campaign for the gavel.
House Democrats and the White House have said they are open to that idea, but many Republicans
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