A Surprise Candidate For House Speaker Just Entered The Race, Taking on Jim Jordan
A new name has entered the race for the Speaker of the House, and it’s… Rep. Austin Scott (R-GA). If you’ve never heard of him, you’re not alone, but here is what you need to know about the newest contender for the third-in-line of the presidential succession.
Scott, a seven-term member of Congress first elected in 2011 to represent Georgia’s eighth district, is a member of the House Intelligence Committee as well as the House Armed Services Committee and the House Agricultural Committee. Some of his latest comments can be seen on Fox Business Channel, where he discussed the Israel-Hamas War.
A reliable conservative, Scott voted against ousting former Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) and criticized the eight Republicans who voted with Democrats to remove him as “nothing more than grifters who have handed control of the House to the Democratic Party in the name of their own glory and fundraising.”
The New York Times described Scott as “a mainstream conservative and ally of the ousted former Speaker Kevin McCarthy,” and said he is putting himself forward “as a protest candidate against Mr. Jordan, the hard-right Republican who is the chairman of the Judiciary Committee.”
During a segment on MSNBC, Brendan Buck, a former aide to past Speakers John Boehner and Paul Ryan, stopped short of calling Scott a “hothead,” but made it clear that he’s no fan of the “meddling” Freedom Caucus. Buck also posited that Scott’s run is more about making a point than actually wanting to be Speaker:
Well, I think Austin Scott is serving a very particular purpose in this race. Austin Scott, as was mentioned, is not anybody who has ever established himself as a real leader in the conference, but he is someone who has stood out as someone who gets very frustrated by the Freedom Caucus meddling in the plans. He is as conservative as they come, but he was a regular visitor to the speaker’s office when I was there, coming in, just could not believe what the Freedom Caucus was doing that day to describe what was going on, and he’s… I wouldn’t call him a hothead, but he runs, he runs hot. And it’s very clear to me at this point when Jim Jordan was about to be going into this race without anybody challenging him, Austin Scott, I imagine, stood up and said, “I’m not going to let this happen.” So I look at him more as a protest candidate than any votes for him are probably less about voting for Austin Scott. They’re the anti-Jordan votes. And it’s going to be very interesting to see how big that number is.
Before making his announcement on Friday, Scott told CNN’s Manu Raju that House Republicans trying to mess with the speaker race made his conference look “like a bunch of idiots.”
Watch the video above via MSNBC.
