House Republicans chose Jim Jordan on Tuesday to lead them through the minority, handing the job to the Ohio hardliner who has spent this Congress investigating Fani Willis, the Black Fulton County district attorney who prosecuted Donald Trump in Georgia. Jordan beat Majority Leader Steve Scalise 106 to 73 in a secret ballot, as the Guardian reported.
The pairing is hard to miss. When the new Congress is sworn in, the Democrat across the aisle is set to be Hakeem Jeffries, who would become the first Black Speaker in the House’s history. The Republican answering him will be a man who built his profile on investigating the people Democrats and Black voters most trusted to hold Trump to account.
Democrats gained at least 40 seats in the midterms, Al Jazeera reported, and Mike Johnson stepped aside from Republican leadership after the loss. Jordan, a Trump ally since his election in 2007 and a co-founder of the House Freedom Caucus, ran as the fighter. In a letter to colleagues he called himself “battle-tested” and wrote: “We need a Leadership team that is active and engaged, forward-thinking and straight-shooting.” He also chairs a House committee that has gone after former special counsel Jack Smith as well as Willis.
Scalise, the more traditional choice, lost by 33 votes. Republicans were not picking a leader to cut deals. They were picking one to fight the investigations Democrats have promised into the Trump administration.
That choice lands on Black communities in specific ways. The Democratic majority was built in large part by Black voters, and Black members are in line to chair major committees. Their agenda, from restoring health coverage to curbing ICE to defending what remains of the Voting Rights Act, will meet a Republican leader who pitched himself as a fighter, not a dealmaker. His one previous bid for a top job, for Speaker in 2023, was short-lived.
Jordan also carries an old accusation he has denied: that he knew about the sexual abuse of Ohio State student-athletes by team physician Dr. Richard Strauss between 1978 and 1998, when Jordan was an assistant wrestling coach. He has said he did not.
A minority leader who treats a Black prosecutor as a target and a Black Speaker as an opponent to be stopped is a party’s answer to losing, and it is the wrong one. Voters sent Republicans home to listen. They answered by promoting the loudest voice in the room. The new Congress convenes in January, when Jordan and Jeffries first face each other across the chamber.
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