Jim Jordan Has Ambition to Spare: Hard-Line Judiciary Chairman Reaches Out to Moderates amid Leadership Speculation

Back in October 2023, House Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan’s allies were on a mission: Fire up Washington’s well of conservative activist groups to help him win the speaker’s gavel.

The lobbying effort, spearheaded by many Jordan allies in Congress and around Capitol Hill — and complete with emails, phone calls, and social-media posts — was meant to shore up support for his speakership bid among holdouts who weren’t yet sold. But the pressure campaign ended up backfiring, as many moderate members of Congress who were irked by the aggressive tactics ended up digging their heels in opposition to his candidacy.

These days, Jordan spends the free time he has helping moderate members campaign and fundraise, cutting large checks to House Republicans’ fundraising arm, and mending fences with many House Republicans who may have been put off by his allies’ aggressive tactics a year ago.

Jordan’s recent effort to make nice with moderates is widely perceived as an attempt to position himself for a more powerful role in Republican leadership after the election, Politico first reported in September, and National Review has since confirmed.

Whether there will exist a hunger for new House GOP leadership will likely hinge on what happens in November. If Republicans lose their narrow majority this fall, the speaker’s gavel would of course swing back to the Democrats. It’s possible in this scenario that Jordan, a co-founder of the Freedom Caucus and the current chairman of the Judiciary Committee, would challenge Majority Leader Steve Scalise for the role of minority leader. Unlike speaker elections, which require a House floor vote and 218 votes to secure the gavel, other House GOP leadership elections are conducted via secret ballot and a simple-majority vote.

It’s not yet clear whether House Republicans have the appetite for another a contested leadership fight just a year after eight House Republicans and a united Democratic caucus kicked ex-speaker Kevin McCarthy to the curb.

Publicly, many House Republicans asked about Jordan’s ambitions on Capitol Hill last month maintain they haven’t heard anything from the Ohio Republican personally about his plans, even as they concede that he has ambition to spare. A Jordan spokesman declined to comment for this article.

“I’m not really aware of that, but I don’t always hear the behind-the-scenes stuff,” said Representative Dan Meuser (R., Pa.). “Jim’s a really talented guy,” Meuser said, praising his intelligence and work ethic. “He does bring people together,” and “anything he gets into, I think he’ll do well.”

Meuser says members are always trying to find ways to expand their portfolio. One way to do that is “to advance in leadership and even have more influence so you can make more positive decisions for your constituents and the country,” he said. “So you just can’t blame anyone, such as somebody like Jim Jordan, for perhaps being interested in getting there.”

He’s far from the only Republican to make this observation. It’s not unusual for high-profile members to do everything they can to boost their standing with different factions of the conference in hopes a leadership vacancy emerges or there’s widespread frustration with the status quo.

“Based on my eight years here, this is a norm where there are people always seeking increased leadership responsibilities and working towards that,” Representative Jack Bergman, (R., Mich.) said in a brief interview with National Review in the speaker’s lobby last month. “I wouldn’t be surprised” if Jordan made a run for a higher leadership position, he said, adding: “And I would also be surprised if he was the only one.”

“I’ve been up here a year and a half, and one thing I can tell you is that nothing surprises me,” said first-term Representative Eric Burlison (R., Mo.) in a recent interview with NR.

Others, including Scalise’s team, say that any discussion about potential postelection leadership fights is premature.

“Leader Scalise remains fully focused on his reelection and expanding our Republican majority in the House,” a political spokesperson for Team Scalise told National Review in a statement. “To support those missions, he has raised over $55 million this cycle and contributed $26 million directly to the NRCC, members, and candidates. The Leader will visit 28 states between now and Election Day to ensure our members and candidates have the necessary resources to win.”

In addition to supporting House candidates, Scalise will headline several victory rallies for former President Donald Trump in key battleground states, according to his team, and his objective is for every member and their teams to remain laser-focused on growing the Republican majority. Any time spent on palace intrigue, those in his camp say say, is time lost on what truly matters—winning a bigger majority this fall.

Added Club for Growth president and former Representative David McIntosh (R., Ind.) in a recent interview with National Review: “I don’t mean to be snide about this, but I don’t think it’s even worth speculating about” potential House GOP leadership fights before the election, “because we don’t know what’s going to happen and how people will feel when it’s done.”

Some of Jordan’s allies are up-front in their hopes that he will at some point make another play for the speaker’s gavel.

“I hope Jim Jordan runs for speaker. He’d be far better than what we have right now,” said Representative Jim Banks (R., Ind.), who is on track to succeed retiring Indiana senator Mike Braun this fall. “He’s a fighter,” the soon-to-be-senator told NR, “and what we need right now is a speaker that will fight back against the Democrats and not allow spending bills to pass that continue to grow our national debt every hundred days by a trillion dollars.”

It’s certainly possible Jordan could mount a run for the House’s top job in the future, though sources say it’s unlikely he will challenge Johnson if Republicans manage to hold on to the House.

For his part, the Louisianan has said publicly that he intends to run for speaker again—and win. “Speaker Johnson is focused entirely on defending and growing the House Republican majority,” his spokesman said.

Intra-GOP tensions have cooled since the spring, when two of the party’s most intransigent GOP hard-liners — Thomas Massie and Marjorie Taylor Greene — threatened to force a snap vote on Johnson’s speakership over his decision to muscle through a pricey four-part foreign-aid package. But that motion to vacate the chair never materialized, thanks in part to a lack of appetite within the conference to replace him, along with some help from Donald Trump, who threw the speaker a lifeline by urging hard-line members that a speakership fight would hurt Republicans electorally.