The nomination of Mr. Scalise, 58, who has been the No. 2 leader in the chamber, was a vote of confidence for a deeply conservative Republican who as soon as described himself, in keeping with an area columnist, as “like David Duke without the baggage.” He represents the Louisiana congressional district that elected Mr. Duke, the previous Ku Klux Klan chief, to the State Legislature in 1989. His conservative governmental philosophy, the columnist wrote, was not a lot completely different from the one Mr. Duke embraced as a politician, together with oppositions to taxes and social security web packages.
Mr. Scalise apologized in 2014 for having attended a white supremacist gathering greater than a decade earlier, saying that he had not recognized the character of the group.
On Wednesday, Consultant Nancy Mace, Republican of South Carolina, cited that episode as a cause to not assist him, saying that she would again Mr. Jordan as a substitute.
“I personally can’t, in good conscience, vote for somebody who attended a white supremacist convention and in contrast himself to David Duke,” she advised CNN.
In Congress since 2008, Mr. Scalise was diagnosed with blood cancer over the summer and is now present process intense remedy, which has prompted him to put on a masks to vote on the Home flooring and to attend information conferences. And in 2017, throughout a follow for a congressional baseball sport, an anti-Trump extremist shot and seriously wounded Mr. Scalise. He nonetheless walks with a limp.
Over the previous 12 months, Mr. Scalise has been marginalized by Mr. McCarthy, who has privately described him to colleagues as ineffective, checked out and reluctant to take positions, and reduce him out of all main determination making. Their icy relationship made it harder for Mr. Scalise to consolidate assist within the badly fractured Republican convention.
Catie Edmondson, Robert Jimison and Carl Hulse contributed reporting.
