- Jordan says GOP senators shouldn’t be working with Democrats to pass bipartisan Biden-backed bills.
- “I wish they wouldn’t,” the Ohio lawmaker said of his Republican counterparts in the upper chamber.
- Kevin McCarthy has taken a stand against much of the Biden agenda, to the delight of Jordan.
When President Joe Biden entered the Oval Office last year, he expressed a commitment to working across the aisle with Republicans to craft legislation — something he practiced in his 36-year career in the Senate.
From last year’s $1.2 trillion bipartisan infrastructure package to a recent $52 billion chips-funding bill, the administration has notched some major successes in attracting support from Democrats and Republicans and breaking part of the filibuster logjam that has become an all-too-common form of blocking legislation in recent years.
However, the wave of consensus doesn’t sit too well with Rep. Jim Jordan, the conservative Ohio Republican and longtime ally of former President Donald Trump who could play a major role in Congress next year if Republicans win back control of the House.
Jordan recently told Politico that Senate Republicans who join their Democratic counterparts in supporting legislation backed by Biden are “wrong.”
“I wish they wouldn’t,” the lawmaker said of his GOP counterparts in the upper chamber.
While Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky — known for employing sharply partisan maneuvering from Supreme Court nominations to GOP-led tax plans — has been a surprising supporter of some of the Biden-endorsed legislation, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy of California has led his caucus against most of the administration’s agenda items.
Jordan praised McCarthy for taking such a position, telling Politico that the GOP leader was “on the side of the American people.”
The Ohio Republican then contended that voters disliked the bipartisan legislation coming out of Congress.
“Look at all the pushback,” he added.
McCarthy opposed both the bipartisan infrastructure bill and the CHIPS Act of 2022 legislation.
However, some Senate Republicans are leary of taking McCarthy’s approach as it relates to passing legislation, frustrated that he could be dismissing good bills and allowing Democrats to portray the party as intransigent.
GOP Sen. Shelley Moore Capito, who represents West Virginia alongside her Democratic counterpart, Sen. Joe Manchin, expressed such reservations.
“I wish [McCarthy] would take a deeper policy look at some of these issues that we’ve come together on, understanding they may want to make changes,” she told Politico. “Just unilaterally being against? I’d rather get things done, put it that way.”