This story was originally published by MinnPost.
WASHINGTON — Minnesota Rep. Tom Emmer’s candidacy for speaker will go to the the full House chamber as early as today, three weeks after right-wing members of the Republican caucus led to Rep. Kevin McCarthy’s ouster from the job.
Emmer, R-6th District, emerged as the favorite after several rounds of secret balloting within the conference and finally won a majority with 117 votes on Tuesday to become speaker-designate. He now faces the challenge of earning enough support among Republicans to receive a majority of votes in the full House — a hurdle that upended the candidacy of Rep. Jim Jordan (R) of Ohio.
But there’s reason to believe Emmer might not face the same challenges as Rep. Steve Scalise, R-Louisiana, who was selected speaker-designate, but didn’t have the votes to go to the full House, and Jordan.
One factor that was big in McCarthy’s ouster and both Scalise and Jordan’s bids for speaker was former President Donald Trump’s influence on GOP House members. But when asked by a reporter in New Hampshire on Monday about Emmer, “who hasn’t always been your biggest fan,” Trump replied, “He’s my biggest fan now because he called me yesterday and told me he’s my biggest fan so … I’m trying to stay out of that as much as possible.”
As the former head of the National Republican Congressional Committee, Emmer helped build a fractious and razor-thin House majority by fielding candidates and spending millions of dollars of NRCC PAC money to help those candidates in 2018 and 2022.
Emmer has also run a leadership race before, narrowly beating Rep. Jim Banks, R-Indiana, for the position of majority whip – the No. 3 leadership position. Besides a base of support, Emmer has an operation, with several good hands on his team, including Deputy Whip Guy Renschenthaler, R-Pennsylvania.
Emmer’s team spent the weekend pushing back against a campaign by allies of former President Trump — including Banks — who were seeking to derail his candidacy.
In an email to GOP colleagues, Emmer’s team pointed out that he was one of the first members to endorse former President Donald Trump in 2016, and that he endorsed Trump in 2020.
The memo also said Emmer worked “hand-in-hand” with Trump while he was NRCC chair and included comments Emmer made to FOX News Sunday in 2022 denying that he had told candidates to distance themselves from Trump.
“Absolutely not,” Emmer said at the time. “The president has been a fantastic ally of ours, especially when it comes to fundraising and our candidates. Again, what we tell them is you know your districts, you know how to run to the people that are going to be voting for you in November.”
Wanting to be a player
Born in South Bend, Indiana, Emmer, 62, received his law degree from William Mitchell College (now the Mitchell Hamline School of Law.)
As a solo-practicing attorney, Emmer plunged into politics, serving on the city councils of Delano and Independence before running successfully for the state Legislature in 2005. As a new state representative, Emmer distinguished himself as a brash legislator with sharp elbows in his quest to get things done.
Doug Schultz, a political science professor at Hamline University, was the former executive director of Common Cause Minnesota when Emmer called him “out of the blue” in his first year in office. He asked Schultz for the Common Cause “wish list” of campaign finance and ethics reforms.
Emmer said “you probably weren’t expecting this because of the perspective I have,” Schultz said. But the professor said Emmer indicated he was angered by the influence of money in politics, even when those big donations helped the anti-abortion lobby and other causes he believes in.
“I never expected him to respond,” Schultz said. “But he did, saying ‘I’ll carry everything on your list.’”
Emmer is now one of the top fundraisers in Congress, an attribute that helps him in his bid for speaker. He has tapped the resources of a new industry, the crypto currency world, to help raise political money and has become one of the biggest supporters in Congress of digital currency.
State Rep. Greg Davis, R-Rochester, who served in the state House with Emmer, remembers him as a smart, ambitious and competent legislator who wasn’t afraid of confrontation but was careful not to burn any bridges. He said Emmer could go from a heated floor fight with a legislator to dinner hours later with that political foe.
“There was no question he wanted to be a player,” Davis said.
Since McCarthy’s ouster earlier this month, detractors have revived Emmer’s sponsorship of a bill in 2009 that would shorten the time a driver’s license is revoked for driving under the influence, as well as Emmer’s ticket for a driving under the influence when he was 20 years old. Emmer also pleaded guilty to careless driving in 1991 after two charges for DWI were dropped. Emmer said his sponsorship of the bill had nothing to do with his personal history.
The ever-ambitious Emmer left the state Legislature to run for governor against Mark Dayton in 2010 on a very conservative platform in a blue-leaning state. He promoted tax and spending cuts and proposed a constitutional amendment requiring a supermajority in the state Legislature to approve any federal law before it could be enacted in the state.
Emmer narrowly lost that election against Dayton (43.2% to 43.6%) and launched a conservative talk radio show in the Twin Cities. After former Rep. Michele Bachmann retired, Emmer handily won her 6th District congressional seat.
As he did when he was first elected to the state Legislature, Emmer began his congressional career with the aim of getting things done. But this time he was not challenging the status quo as an outsider and was willing to work with the GOP establishment.
“I will be very deliberate,” Emmer told USA Today. “I’m here to accomplish something.”
His willingness to help the party as NRCC chief helped him win the support he needed to win the race for House Majority Whip last year. His loyalty to McCarthy — which included Emmer’s support for recent bipartisan bills that raised the debt ceiling and prevented an Oct. 1 federal government shutdown — helped win him the endorsement of the former speaker and of many “institutionalist” GOP lawmakers who, like Emmer, don’t believe shutting down the government will help their constituents or their party.
Unlike the failed candidates for speaker after McCarthy’s ouster, Scalise and Jordan, Emmer voted to certify the 2020 election.
And Emmer crossed party lines to vote for a bill that would codify the right to same-sex marriage.
Now, Emmer must appeal to all of the feuding factions of the House Republican conference.
This article first appeared on MinnPost and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.