Roy is one of two Texas Republicans in the U.S. House to say they’ll vote against U.S. Rep. Steve Scalise, R-Louisiana, after he won the party’s nomination to become the next House speaker, the Texas Tribune reports. Combined with the votes of other far-right holdouts, Roy and Michael Cloud, R-Victoria, could prevent Scalise from taking on that role, according to Tribune.
The House has been without a speaker since hard-right Republicans engineered the ouster of fellow GOP member Kevin McCarthy a week ago. A stalemate over who will serve as his successor would prevent the body from moving ahead on legislation as a crisis widens in the Middle East and Congress faces a new deadline to keep the government funded.
During his five years in the House, Roy has built a brand as a bomb thrower more interested in disrupting than governing. During a 2021 meeting with a conservative group, the Austin-based congressman was captured on tape saying he wants “18 more months of chaos and the inability to get stuff done” in Washington.
The House recessed Wednesday without a vote for a new speaker. It’s unclear whether either Scalise or U.S. Rep. Jordan, R-Ohio, who’s also seeking the speakership, can pull in the 217 votes needed to overcome Democrats’ opposition.
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This article appears in Oct 4-17, 2023.