Steve Scalise
House majority whip and panderer to white supremacists Steve Scalise
says he has the votes lined up to be House majority leader:
The Louisiana Republican held a conference call with backers Sunday evening during which he indicated he's locked up support from more than half of the 247-member GOP conference. Closed-door voting for the majority leader post is expected on Thursday, though some Republicans are pushing to delay it until after a new Speaker is sworn in.
“I’ve been making calls all day. I haven’t stopped working, and I know you haven’t stopped working either,” Scalise said, according to a source on the call. “In this race, the winning number has always been 124. A couple of days ago, we actually hit that number and we’re continuing to add to it each day.”
When the news about Scalise having given a speech to the David Duke-founded European-American Unity and Rights Organization broke last winter, White House press secretary Josh Earnest
said that "Who Republicans decide to elevate into a leadership position says a lot about what the conference’s values and priorities are." That was true when Republicans were deciding to keep Scalise in the leadership position he already held, and it'll be doubly true if they give him a promotion.
But the more active danger to Scalise's chances may be that he's not far enough to the right. Reps. Mick Mulvaney and Jim Renacci are pushing to delay the elections for majority leader and majority whip until after a new speaker is elected, and among the reasons is that:
Some conservatives do not want to see the frontrunners McCarthy, Scalise and North Carolina Rep. Patrick McHenry ascend to the top three positions in the House GOP. This way, McCarthy can become the party's candidate for speaker, and the right would have more time to find a candidate to run against Scalise and Price.
Rep. Tom Price (R-GA), the Budget Committee chair, was supposed to be the establishment choice, but if Scalise is claiming to have the votes he needs and there's still talk of finding an even more extremist candidate, it sounds like Price may be left out in the cold. Either way, between all this and Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-UT) challenging current Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy for speaker, the messy disarray of these Republican leadership elections just seems to increase by the day.