Closed Doors and Secret Ballots: How Republicans Choose the Next House Speaker

House Republicans are set to meet privately Wednesday to choose their party's nominee to become speaker of the House of Representatives.

The party's nominating process is the first step toward replacing Kevin McCarthy, who was evicted from the speakership last week after a rebellion from eight Republicans that was supported by all Democrats.

Two candidates are running to replace McCarthy as speaker: Reps. Steve Scalise, who as House majority leader is the current No. 2, and Jim Jordan, chairman of the Judiciary Committee and a founding member of the ultraconservative House Freedom Caucus.

Scalise of Louisiana and Jordan of Ohio have been campaigning for nearly a week now, meeting with various factions of the conference. They made their formal pitches to Republicans in a private candidate forum Tuesday night that lasted more than two hours as they took questions from dozens of members.

Now it's time to vote. Here's how the nominating process works:

The GOP Conference will gather behind closed doors on Wednesday morning around 10 a.m., after a separate classified briefing on the war raging in Israel for all House members.

Once inside the room, Republicans may debate an addendum to their election process or begin the election and debate that matter after (more on that later).

To kick off the election, allies of the candidates will give nominating speeches.

Candidates are nominated in alphabetical surname order, so Jordan's camp goes first. Each side can give a main nominating speech of up to three minutes and two seconding speeches of up to a minute each.

Although Jordan and Scalise are the only two declared candidates, any other member could try to nominate an alternative.

Some Republicans had talked about nominating McCarthy, but he said he's asked them not to do that. Others had previously floated nominating former President Donald Trump, but have largely backed off that idea after Trump endorsed Jordan.

After the nominating speeches, the conference will proceed to a secret-ballot election.

Whoever gets a majority of the votes wins the conference's nomination. The maximum number of votes possible is 223 (all 221 House Republicans with voting privileges, plus the Puerto Rico resident commissioner and the American Samoa delegate, who are Republicans and can vote in conference proceedings but not on the floor).

If all 223 GOP conference members vote, a majority would be 112. Both candidates were far short of that late Tuesday night, according to Republicans who are backing them publicly. At least 47 Republicans had committed to Jordan, and at least 33 were supporting Scalise.

From here, it gets complicated:

Some Republicans want to change their current rules, which allow a GOP nominee who garners a simple-majority vote in the conference to go to the floor. That means going to the floor on a gamble, hoping but not assured of getting the requisite number of votes needed to win in the full House.

Trying to prevent a spectacle where Republicans fail to unite around their nominee, a group of members, led by Texas Rep. Chip Roy, is proposing an internal rules change to ensure their selected speaker can get 217 votes needed to win a floor election.

The conference is expected to debate Roy's amendment Wednesday and potentially vote on it either before or after the secret ballot, simple-majority vote.

If the Roy proposal is adopted, Republican lawmakers would have an opportunity to ask the speaker nominee more questions. Then they would submit secret ballots signifying whether they'd support that candidate on the House floor.

If those votes fall short of 217, they will repeat the process one more time before moving to an open roll call vote where Republicans will have to answer whether they'll back the party's speaker nominee on the floor.

If the roll call falls short of 185 votes or fails to secure 217 firm commitments after two roll calls, then the speaker election will start anew. The previous candidates will be automatically renominated unless they opt to drop out, and members would also be able to offer alternative candidates.

Rep. Jodey Arrington said the proposal to eventually switch from a secret ballot to a roll call where Republican have to provide their answers to one another is needed to avoid walking "in circles ad infinitum."

"You have to have the accountability of taking a stand in the presence of your peers," the Texas Republican said.

Even if Republicans reject the Roy amendment, they may find an informal way to coalesce behind closed doors before proceeding to a floor vote.

"There’s a real appetite" to ensure Republicans have 217 votes for their preferred speaker before going to a floor vote with Democrats, Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., said.

Warren Rojas and Stephen Neukam contributed to this report.