On Tuesday, Republican Jim Jordan announced his candidacy for the top leadership position in the U.S. House of Representatives. A triumph for one of the original members of the conservative House Freedom Caucus would be achieved if the 59-year-old, nine-term congressman, were to ascend to the position of number two in the presidential line of succession.
Jordan explained his views in a letter to House colleagues last week in which he announced his bid for speaker of the House. He claimed that “Far-left progressive policies are destroying our communities, our security, and our future.” All around the country, crime is on the rise. Our government has open-borders policies that have destabilized the country and made it vulnerable.
“We’ve seen federal agencies turned on the American people silencing speech online, targeting parents at school board meetings, and flagging pro-life Catholics as potential threats and we’ve witnessed blatant double standards in federal law enforcement. We continue to spend too much money and Americans are suffering under President Biden’s economy.”
Jordan has never been successful in sponsoring a bill during his time in the U.S. Congress, but as the current chairman of the influential House Judiciary Committee and as the ranking member on the House Oversight Committee from 2019 to 2020, he has developed a reputation for pursuing investigations into Democrats. Jordan has joined lawsuits contesting the results of the 2020 presidential election and is a well-known admirer of former President Donald Trump.
Jordan, a lawyer and former college wrestling coach, was chosen to serve as the 4th congressional district’s representative in Ohio in 2007. Jordan has always been a leader in the opposition to tax increases, according to his congressional website.
“He is a fiscal conservative who believes that families and taxpayers, rather than government, know best how to make decisions with their money,” his congressional biography says.
The Freedom Caucus, a conservative voting bloc inside the Republican conference, was established in January 2015 by Jordan and eight other members of Congress. Late in 2015, the Freedom Caucus worked to have Speaker John Boehner removed from office. As Trump climbed to power, the group gradually shifted to a more populist position and supported tough anti-immigration laws.
Jordan was described by Boehner as someone he had never met “who spent more time tearing things apart.”
Jordan was a crucial player in the drive to overturn the results of the November 2020 presidential election, according to the committee formed to look into the January 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol.
The investigators, collectively known as the January 6 Committee, claim Jordan took part in a meeting on December 21, 2020, to put pressure on Mike Pence, who was then the vice president, to use his official position to rig the election. Additionally, they claim that he took part in conferences calls and meetings held in January 2021 to protest the election’s certification.
On the day of the incident, Jordan also made two phone calls to Trump. Jordan is one of 139 House members that voted on January 7, 2021, one day after Trump’s supporters stormed the Capitol, to nullify the certification of Joe Biden’s victory.
Jordan will lead one-half of the country’s legislative branch, be a member of the so-called “Gang of Eight” in congressional leadership circles who get higher-level briefings, and represent the United States internationally if he wins the speakership with almost every Republican vote.