House Speaker Mike Johnson told reporters Monday night that Republicans can’t delay their leadership elections because new members are in Washington for orientation and “it’s just not something that logistically we could do.” “These dates were published in advance and everybody knew it. I suppose if you’re running for an office, you’d always want more time to do that,” Johnson said.
“But the reason we can’t change the date is because all this was set in stone, and we have all the new members here, and we’re doing all the member orientation. If we delayed leadership elections, that interferes in all of that.” “There’s a lot of logistics that goes into all that,” he added. Earlier Monday, GOP Rep. Jason Smith of Missouri, who chairs the Ways and Means Committee, argued that the elections should be delayed so that the conference could address rules that have allowed a small group of Republicans to hold up legislative activity throughout the past two years. “Failing to address these issues before choosing someone new to lead our Conference is doing a disservice to whoever we choose as Republican Leader,” he said.
“We should delay our Leadership elections until we decide how to hold each other accountable and what our path forward should be. Our rules must never again permit a Leader to be taken hostage to the whims of an individual member.”
