WASHINGTON — Three lawmakers from East Tennessee said they planned to vote for Rep. Jim Jordan (R - OH) for Speaker of the House on Tuesday.
Rep. Tim Burchett (R-TN) said Monday he planned to vote for Jordan after Majority Leader Steve Scalise abruptly ended his bid. Burchett had voted to oust the previous Speaker of the House, Kevin McCarthy (R-CA). He was the only Republican Representative from Tennessee to vote to oust him.
Rep. Diana Harshbarger (R-TN) and Rep. Chuck Fleischmann (R-TN) both said they also planned to support Jordan.
Electing Jordan, a founding member of the Freedom Caucus, to the powerful position second in line to the presidency would move the GOP’s far right into a central seat of U.S. power. A groundswell of high-profile backers including Fox News’ Sean Hannity publicly pressured lawmakers to vote Jordan into the speaker’s office after McCarthy was ousted.
Jordan is known for his close alliance with Trump, particularly when the then-president was working to overturn the results of the 2020 election, leading to the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol.
His rise would all but complete the far-rightward shift of the party, and boost its defense of Trump in four separate legal cases, including over 2020 election fraud. During Trump’s impeachment proceedings over the Jan. 6 attack, Jordan was his chief defender in Congress. Trump awarded him the Medal of Freedom days later.