Headline Roundup • October 12th, 2023
Scalise Drops Out of Speaker Race After Failing to Persuade GOP Holdouts
Summary from the AllSides News Team
House Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-LA) withdrew his name from consideration for House speaker after a group of GOP holdouts refused to vote for him.
The Numbers: With Democrats united in backing Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) for speaker, Scalise could only afford to lose four Republican votes. However, well more than four Republicans either refused to vote for Scalise or said they would vote for Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) instead.
David Duke Scandal: Some Republicans, like Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC), say they oppose Scalise because he “attended a white supremacist conference and compared himself to David Duke.” In 2014, Scalise apologized for attending a rally by a white nationalist organization founded by Duke. The same year, a journalist recalled a conversation she had with Scalise years earlier, in which he purportedly “said he was like David Duke without the baggage.” However, Rep. Troy Carter (D-LA) defended Scalise, saying, “I have never seen him display racial intolerance. I count him amongst my friends and I wouldn’t if I felt otherwise.”
How the Media Covered It: Coverage was common across mainstream media outlets, often sensationally casting the speaker negotiations as chaotic; The Washington Times (Lean Right bias) said frustration “boiled over,” and Vox (Left bias) labeled Thursday “Scalise’s 24 hours of humiliation.” Some op-eds in left-rated outlets framed both Scalise and Jordan negatively. Update 7:21pm CT: Scalise dropped out of the race for speaker.
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Rep. Steve Scalise announced he was dropping out of the speaker’s race Thursday after House Republicans failed to coalesce behind him in the aftermath of Kevin McCarthy’s historic ouster.
“I just shared with my colleagues that I’m withdrawing my name as a candidate for the speaker designee,” the Louisiana Republican told reporters.
“If you look at where our conference is there’s still work to be done. Our conference still has to come together and is not there,” he said. “There are still some people that have their own agendas and I was...
House Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-La.) on Thursday dropped out of the race for Speaker, just one day after he won the Republican nomination for the role.
Scalise narrowly prevailed in a secret ballot internal GOP election on Wednesday, but it was clear almost immediately that he would struggle to get the 217 votes needed on the House floor.
Momentum swung further against him, and as Thursday progressed an increasing number of Republicans declared they would not cast their votes for him.
It’s not clear where the fractured Republican conference will go...
House Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-LA) announced at a closed-door House Republican conference meeting that he is withdrawing his bid to be House speaker.
Scalise dropped out of the speaker race on Thursday night after failing to garner enough support in the House GOP conference to be elected in a House floor vote despite winning the conference's nomination on Wednesday. With Scalise's announcement, several House Republicans will likely join the race to replace former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA).
"Our conference still has to come together, and it’s not there. There are still some people that have...
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