Rep. Jim Banks, who opposed Tom Emmer’s speakership bid on Tuesday behind closed doors, is vowing that he won’t back the Minnesotan on the floor — and urging fellow Republicans to ditch the speaker pick they just chose.
The GOP shouldn’t put one of the “most moderate members of the entire Republican conference in the speaker’s chair,” Banks (R-Ind.) said, adding that Emmer’s “not a conservative.”
“I hope there’s a change along the way. [Emmer] doesn’t have the support in the room right now. … It’s been a heated discussion,” the Hoosier added of the ongoing closed-door GOP meeting that has followed Emmer’s fifth-ballot victory as the party’s third speaker pick in three weeks.
Banks’ anti-Emmer stance crystallizes the long-standing fallout from one of the House GOP’s most bitter rivalries. He’s now running for an open Senate seat, but since Banks narrowly lost the majority whip race to Emmer last year, he has not exactly hidden his view that his colleague is too centrist — and he’s recently amplified social media content that suggests he favors nearly anyone else.
