Lawler stresses GOP consensus
Hudson Valley congressman spoke after Republicans failed again to elect a House speaker
WASHINGTON — The U.S. House of Representatives remains leaderless after the ouster of U.S. Rep. Kevin Mccarthy, R-calif., more than two weeks ago and U.S. Rep. Jim Jordan’s failed second bid for speaker on Wednesday afternoon. Jordan has told reporters he plans to stay in the race. But to achieve a different result, he’ll likely need to win the support of the New York Republicans who have staunchly opposed him so far.
There are two vacancies in the 435-seat House, meaning if no members vote “present,” the next speaker needs 217 votes to win. With 221 Republicans (and with Democrats in lockstep behind U.S. Rep. Hakeem Jeffries), the next speaker can only afford to lose four votes from the GOP conference.
In both rounds of voting this week, four of New York’s 11 congressional Republicans voted against Jordan: Anthony D’esposito, Andrew Garbarino, Nick Lalota and Mike Lawler. All represent suburban swing districts that Democrats have targeted as potential flips in 2024. (Another swing-district Republican, Marc Molinaro, voted for Jordan in both rounds.)
Lawler, in the lower Hudson Valley, is perhaps the most vulnerable. He upset incumbent Sean Patrick Maloney last year by fewer than 2,000 votes — less than 1 percent — in the redrawn 17th District, whose voters President Joe Biden carried by 10 points in 2020. He did so, in part, by courting moderate voters and disaffected Democrats, even as he adopted conservative-media talking points about crime and inflation.
“You have to be speaking to the issues that cut across party lines and not just get sucked into the kind of party brand or message,” Lawler said last year in criticizing Maloney’s campaign strategy.
Jordan, a hard-right Republican from Ohio, is a controversial figure who co-founded the populist Freedom Caucus, voted not to certify the 2020 election results, and was called a “legislative terrorist” by former Speaker John Boehner for his eagerness to torpedo legislation — even bills championed by fellow Republicans. (Jordan has never been the primary sponsor of a congressional bill that has been signed into law.) While the majority of congressional Republicans have coalesced behind him in an effort at unity, Lawler and other potentially vulnerable New York representatives have held out.
The Times Union spoke with Lawler by phone on Wednesday after the second speaker vote. The interview has been lightly edited and condensed.
You have voted twice for Kevin Mccarthy since he was ousted. Why do you support him as speaker?
Well, he never should have been removed as speaker to begin with. The fact that eight Republicans teamed up with 208 Democrats to remove the speaker, paralyze the House and create this chaos is unacceptable.
Jim Jordan does not have the votes. Until we can get consensus on a candidate, I
believe Kevin Mccarthy is the right person to lead us.
You flipped a swing district last year that figures to be competitive again in 2024. How are you balancing the need to win moderate voters in the Hudson Valley with how other Republicans — including in the
New York delegation — are voting and the fervid calls from conservative media to consolidate behind Jordan?
Every member is going to vote their district and their conscience and, you know, help others choose to vote. But for me, it’s imperative that we have consensus. And there’s not at the moment. They keep having these floor votes and obviously, it isn’t really changing anything — it’s just deepening the divide.
Ultimately, I think, within my district people recognize where I am and have been on the issues and how to move the country forward. So I’m not too worried about how this plays out in terms of 2024. For me, the focus is the need to get back to governing and elect a speaker who can lead us.
Marc Molinaro said yesterday that voters in the 19th District don’t care who the speaker is — they just care if government is functioning for them. What have you heard from your constituents in the 17th District? Is there a distinction between the frothy national conversation
and what the people who elected you are saying?
What voters want is a majority that can govern. The focus for me is on our ability to work as a conference, as opposed to who the speaker is, per se. I think Marc is right insofar as voters want us to get back to work. Obviously, within the parties, there’s a difference of opinion. Democrats want a Democrat speaker, which is not going to happen. So the Republican conference is going to have to unify behind someone and focus on the task at hand, which is governing.
Are there any conditions under which you would vote for Jim Jordan if he gets nominated again?
The objective to me is to build consensus within the conference. Right now, there’s no consensus. I have said to Jim directly: If you want to build consensus, you have to bring together the folks who are in these swing districts and who have been frustrated by what has gone on the last 10 months and the folks who have worked against the interests of the conference. But in the absence of that, I don’t see how you get consensus here.
Ultimately, the objective for me is to elect a speaker who can lead us and for the conference to work as one. That’s the only way you’re going to be able to maintain this majority.
You’ve talked a lot about consensus. But Jordan’s ability to build consensus depends on convincing some of the 20 or so Republicans who voted against him to vote for him. Is there anything he could do — any policy proposal he could put on the table — that would sway you?
There are key issues that matter to me and my constituents, including raising the cap on SALT. (Raising the cap on state and local tax deductions, also known as SALT, has been an important bargaining chip for suburban New York Republicans in the speaker’s fight. The current SALT cap limits state and local tax deductions to $10,000 a year, a threshold easily exceeded in the high-tax New York City suburbs.)
But again, it’s not me individually — it is a question of whether or not we can build consensus within the conference. And as of right now, he can’t. What can he do to change that? You have to get the right people in the room to actually have a discussion about governing. Otherwise, it doesn’t really matter who the speaker is or what the issues are.