Republican representatives Matt Gaetz and John Rutherford have each played key parts in the chaos surrounding the Speaker of the House.
JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — There was not a vote for a new Speaker of the House on Thursday in the House of Representatives. In fact, the person who failed in two recent Speaker of the House votes, chose not to seek a third vote and will consider to expand the role of the Interim Speaker. A lot of this chaos and political quagmire can be traced back to lawmakers from Florida.
While they are apart of the same party, their views on the leadership of the Republican Party are drastically different. At the beginning of October, Florida Congressman Matt Gaetz led a push to remove Kevin McCarthy as Speaker of the House. When it came time to vote on the new Speaker, fellow Florida Congressman John Rutherford blocked the person that Gaetz supported.
For the foreseeable future, North Carolina Representative Patrick McHenry will continue to bang the Speaker’s gavel. McHenry is currently the Interim Speaker of the House, in part, because of the actions of two Florida representatives – Gaetz and Rutherford.
“This is pretty much uncharted territory,” said floridapolitics.com writer A.G. Gancarski, “but it reflects the strength that Florida’s republican delegation has, it’s 20 people so, roughly a 1/10th of the republicans in the House.”
Gaetz represents Florida’s 1st Congressional District in the western panhandle. Rutherford represents Florida’s 5th Congressional District, which encompasses parts of Duval and St. Johns counties. Gancarski says that other than their party affiliation, they’re very different people.
“Gaetz and Rutherford are pretty ideologically removed in many ways: different generations, orientations ideologically,” said Gancarski. “Gaetz was never in the freedom caucus, but he aligns with Jim Jordan who obviously is freedom caucus.”
The push to make Ohio representative Jim Jordan the new Speaker of the House is where Rutherford pushed back on his fellow republican. On Wednesday, Rutherford released a statement that reads in part, “Rep. Jordan is fiddling while the world is on fire.” You can read Rutherford’s full statement here.
Rutherford called for a consensus candidate for Speaker of the House, which is an unlikely outcome considering the battlelines are already being drawn by members of the same party.
“I blame gerrymandering,” said Gancarski, “it empowers the extremes on both sides so, somebody like Matt Gaetz, who seems like a bomb thrower, actually has disproportionate sway.”
Gancarski also believes that Rutherford’s recent pushback could hurt him with local republicans in the next election.
“Rutherford may face a primary going forward from the right, April Carney, member of the Duval County School Board has mentioned it, others who ran before are probably going to run, too so, this could be an issue in 2024 for Rutherford,” said Gancarski.
After Thursday’s closed door meetings, Representative Mike Waltz of Florida’s 6th Congressional District told CNN that Gaetz and the other republicans who voted McCarthy out as Speaker of the House earlier this month, “plunged the chamber into chaos.”
Without a Speaker, the House of Representatives remains effectively frozen with another government funding deadline in November.
