That's the job Jim Jordan and Steve Scalise are competing for. Republicans vote by secret ballot on Nov. 10, and the winner needs a simple majority of a conference that has dropped below 180 members. Coverage of the race explains how the vote works. It mostly doesn't explain what the winner will be able to do, which turns out to be less than the title suggests and more than the rulebook says.
The Congressional Research Service (CRS), Congress's in-house research office, describes the minority leader as head of the "loyal opposition," whose fundamental goal is to win back majority control. CRS also says the leader's roles are "not well-defined" and rest largely on tradition and custom.
What formal powers come with the job?
The written powers are mostly about appointments and a few floor rights. The minority leader chairs the party's committee assignment panel, which for Republicans is the Steering Committee, and directly nominates or appoints minority members to certain standing committees. That decides which colleagues get the seats they want, so it's one of the leader's main sources of influence inside the party.
House rules add a list of narrower duties. According to CRS's overview of the role, the minority leader:
- Can offer a question-of-privilege resolution that jumps ahead of everything except a motion to adjourn and gets immediate consideration (Rule IX).
- Helps the Speaker and majority leader appoint the House Inspector General, and receives the IG's audit reports (Rule II).
- Names 10 members of the party at the start of each Congress to be available for Ethics Committee investigative subcommittees (Rule X).
- Is an ex officio member of the Intelligence Committee but has no vote there (Rule X).
- Picks three Private Calendar objectors and sits on the House Office Building Commission, the Capitol Preservation Commission and the Bipartisan Legal Advisory Group.
Under GOP Conference rules cited by CRS, a Republican minority leader has also had "supervisory authority over all Republican employees of the House."
Can the minority leader force votes on the party's own bills?
Only with help from the other side. The leader can file discharge petitions to pull minority priorities onto the floor, but those need 218 signatures, which means winning over some majority members. The majority holds disproportionate control over the agenda, committee ratios, staff and the floor schedule. CRS sums up the leader's central problem in two words: "inferior numbers."
Former Minority Leader Gerald Ford put it bluntly. He described offering GOP alternatives as substitutes and motions to recommit, and said that with only 140 of 435 seats, you don't expect to win many.
Is the motion to recommit still a real weapon?
It's weaker than many older explanations suggest. For decades the minority's best-known tool was the "motion to recommit with instructions," which let it force a vote on its own version of a bill. The rules package for the 117th Congress eliminated the option of making a motion to recommit "with instructions" in 2021. It also removed debate on the remaining "straight" motion.
What survives is narrower. The Rules Committee cannot block the minority leader or a designee from moving to recommit, and the minority leader gets first recognition to offer the motion. But under current rules the motion can't carry instructions, so it can't directly propose changes to the bill text. If you read the 2019 CRS overview of the role, keep in mind that it describes the older, stronger version.
What's the unwritten part of the job?
CRS lists five party functions: campaign help, devising minority strategy, promoting the party agenda, conferring with the White House when the party holds it, and fostering party harmony.
The campaign work is substantial. It includes recruiting candidates, running leadership PACs, persuading colleagues not to retire and pushing incumbents to give to the party committee. For scale, then-Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi reported raising $34.2 million for Democrats in a single quarter of 2018.
"Fostering party harmony" is close to what Scalise is pitching. He's presenting himself as the leader who can unify GOP factions.
How does having a Republican president change the role?
It adds a big responsibility. When the minority leader's party holds the White House, the leader may be the President's chief spokesperson in the House. That's the situation the winner of this race will be in.
There's a precedent. Robert Michel, the Illinois Republican who led the House minority from 1981 to 1994, served as the "point man" for Republican presidents. CRS credits him with winning over "Reagan Democrats" to pass Reagan's 1981 budget reconciliation bill in a Democratic House.
Does the job give a leader power over investigations?
Not much formal power. Jordan says he's the best person to push back on Democratic investigations of the Trump administration, calling himself "battle-tested on the oversight front." The rulebook gives the minority leader only a few levers here. The leader names Republicans to the Ethics investigative subcommittee pool and sits on the Intelligence Committee without a vote. The leader also shares in appointing the Inspector General, as CRS details.
Does the winner get a shot at being Speaker?
On paper, yes, but realistically no. The minority leader is the party's nominee for Speaker and traditionally hands the gavel to the Speaker-elect at the start of a Congress. The floor vote is on Jan. 3, 2027, and needs 218 votes. Democrats' Hakeem Jeffries is expected to run unopposed for his party. So the Republican winner will probably be on the Speaker ballot and then hand Jeffries the gavel.
Isn't this just a rerun of 2023?
Axios calls it a rematch of Scalise and Jordan's 2023 speakership fight, with Jordan running as the change candidate, and expects a close race. Speaker Mike Johnson is not running.
What isn't known yet?
Two rulebooks will shape the job, and neither has been written yet.
- The GOP's own conference rules. The details CRS gives on a Republican minority leader's appointment powers come from 2019. Back then, the leader nominated members to the Rules and House Administration committees and appointed a "Leadership Member" as the No. 2 Republican on Budget. The 2027 rules could change any of that.
- The House rules package. The minority's procedural protections, like the motion to recommit, privileged resolutions and the discharge threshold, are set in the rules each new Congress adopts.
Even the timing of the vote isn't settled. Axios reports that Jordan allies want it postponed, and ABC says some Senate Republicans want their own leadership election delayed.
The job itself is old. CRS calls it largely a late-19th-century innovation and lists minority leaders going back to 1899.