The next House speaker might be an anti-LGBTQ+ reactionary who covered up sex abuse

He was involved in a sex scandal and he tried to overturn the 2020 presidential election results. He’s accused President Joe Biden and his son Hunter of crimes, and he’s pushing for impeachment despite no evidence to support it. Now he’s running to be a leader of a chamber of Congress.

No, it’s not Donald Trump, but it might as well be. It’s Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH), Trump’s choice to become the next speaker of the House.

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Whoopi Goldberg claps back at Congressman Jim Jordan on marriage equality

The Ohio rep claims the Respect for Marriage Act is “the latest installment of the Democrats’ campaign to delegitimize and intimidate the United States Supreme Court.”

Now that Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) has decided to slink off into oblivion after being ousted as speaker by a handful of far-right (even by GOP standards) Republicans, the race has been on to replace him. At present, the race comes down to two leading contenders: Jordan and Rep. Steve Scalise (R-LA).

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That Jordan would even be considered for the position is a sign of how low the Republicans have sunk. Jordan is a founding member of the Freedom Caucus, the very group of hardliners that sank McCarthy’s chances of success from the very start. To this day, the Freedom Caucus has led the charge against LGBTQ+ rights in Congress.

As has Jordan. Jordan sponsored a bill in 2015 to ban marriage equality and called the Respect for Marriage Act, which protects same-sex and interracial marriages, “the latest installment of the Democrats’ campaign to delegitimize and intimidate the United States Supreme Court.” (The bill passed with bipartisan support.) Jordan even gave Kentucky county clerk Kim Davis a ticket to the 2016 State of the Union Address. He has railed against “dangerous situations that could arise from mixed-gender restrooms and locker rooms in schools.”

Then there’s that sex abuse scandal that Jordan is implicated in.

Before he entered politics, Jordan was an assistant wrestling coach at Ohio State. In 2018, former students started speaking out about the team doctor, Richard Strauss, claiming that Strauss sexually assaulted them during physicals. Jordan claimed he knew nothing about the abuse, even though the wrestlers said it was common knowledge. Worse still for Jordan, six wrestlers eventually came forward and said Jordan was present when accusations about Strauss, who died in 2005, were discussed.

One wrestler told CNN that when he told Jordan that Strauss insisted on examining his genitals when the wrestler only had a bloody nose, Jordan responded, “I have nothing to do with this.” Jordan denied the wrestler’s account.

Jordan withstood the accusations and remained one of Trump’s most loyal flamethrowers in Congress, leading the charge to overturn the 2020 election results.

Now Jordan stands a good chance of becoming the speaker of the House. This is the character that the GOP finds suitable for a leadership role.

It’s not as if Scalise is much better. He’s every bit as right-wing and anti-LGBTQ+. Scalise sponsored a constitutional amendment to ban marriage equality. He opposed the repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell. He reportedly once said that he was like former KKK leader David Duke, but “without the baggage.” Scalise is not as reflexively in-your-face as Jordan, which may help him with what passes for moderates in the GOP.

The question is whether the fractured GOP caucus can unite behind a single candidate. As McCarthy learned the hard way, only a handful of spotlight seekers can sink someone because Republicans have such a narrow margin in the House.

The problem is that the potential holdouts can’t be promised anything that can be delivered. What they want is to force everyone to bend to their will and pass legislation that Democrats, who control the Senate, and many Republicans will not support and that Biden will not sign into law. They simply want to burn everything down.

Unfortunately, they have a good chance of doing just that. Without a speaker, the House can’t really conduct business. Meanwhile, McCarthy’s downfall was passing a stopgap measure to prevent the federal government from shutting down. That measure was only good for 45 days. Come mid-November, we get to repeat the drama. The odds aren’t looking good that we’ll have the same outcome.