Jim Jordan facts for kids

Quick facts for kids Jim Jordan
Official portrait, 2015
Member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Ohio's 4th district
Incumbent
Assumed office January 3, 2007
Preceded by	Mike Oxley
Committee positions Chair of the House Judiciary Committee Incumbent Assumed office January 3, 2023 Preceded by Jerry Nadler Ranking Member of the House Judiciary Committee In office March 12, 2020 – January 3, 2023 Preceded by Doug Collins Succeeded by Jerry Nadler Ranking Member of the House Oversight Committee In office March 31, 2020 – June 29, 2020 Preceded by Mark Meadows Succeeded by James Comer In office January 3, 2019 – March 12, 2020 Preceded by Elijah Cummings Succeeded by Mark Meadows
Chair of the House Freedom Caucus
In office October 1, 2015 – January 3, 2017
Preceded by	Position established
Succeeded by	Mark Meadows
Member of the Ohio Senate from the 12th district
In office January 3, 2001 – December 31, 2006
Preceded by	Robert R. Cupp
Succeeded by	Keith Faber
Member of the Ohio House of Representatives from the 85th district
In office January 3, 1995 – December 31, 2000
Preceded by	Jim Davis
Succeeded by	Derrick Seaver
Personal details
Born	James Daniel Jordan (1964-02-17) February 17, 1964 (age 60) Troy, Ohio, U.S.
Political party	Republican
Spouse	Polly Jordan ​ (m. 1985)​
Children	4
Education	University of Wisconsin–Madison (BS) Ohio State University (MA) Capital University (JD)
Awards	Presidential Medal of Freedom (2021) Two-time NCAA National Champion (wrestling)

James Daniel Jordan (born February 17, 1964) is an American politician currently serving in his ninth term in the U.S. House of Representatives as the representative for Ohio's 4th congressional district since 2007. He is a member of the Republican Party.

Jordan is a two-time NCAA national champion wrestler and a former college wrestling coach. In Congress, Jordan helped start the right-wing populist House Freedom Caucus, serving as its first chair from 2015 to 2017, and as its vice chair since 2017. Jordan was a prominent critic of Speaker of the House John Boehner, who resigned under Freedom Caucus pressure in 2015. He was the ranking member of the House Oversight Committee from 2019 to 2020, when he left to become the ranking member of the House Judiciary Committee, of which he became chair in 2023.

Jordan is a close ally of President Donald Trump. During Trump's first presidency, Jordan sought to discredit investigations into Russian interference in the 2016 election and staged a sit-in to prevent a Trump impeachment inquiry hearing over the Trump–Zelenskyy telephone controversy. After Joe Biden won the 2020 presidential election and Trump tried to overturn the election, Jordan supported lawsuits to challenge the election results and voted not to certify the Electoral College results. He refused to cooperate with the U.S. House Select Committee on the January 6 Attack, which subpoenaed him on May 12, 2022.

Jordan, who opposed Kevin McCarthy during his failed bid to succeed Boehner as speaker in 2015, later became one of McCarthy's closest allies; Jordan supported McCarthy during the January 2023 Speaker of the House election. After McCarthy was removed as speaker, Jordan stood in the October 2023 election to replace him. He became the second nominee of the House Republican Conference after Steve Scalise withdrew, but failed to win the speakership in three rounds of voting and had his nomination revoked.

Early life and education

Jordan was born in Troy, Ohio and raised in Champaign County, Ohio, the son of Shirley and John Jordan. He attended and wrestled for Graham High School, graduating in 1982. He won state championships all four years he was in high school and compiled a 156–1 win–loss record. He then enrolled at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, where he became a two-time NCAA Division I wrestling champion. Jordan won the 1985 and 1986 NCAA championship matches in the 134-pound (61 kg) weight class. He graduated with a bachelor's degree in economics in 1986. He lost the 126–137-pound (57–62 kg) featherweight semifinal match at the 1988 US Olympic wrestling trials, failing to qualify for the Olympic team in freestyle wrestling.

Jordan earned a master's degree in education from Ohio State University and received a Juris Doctor degree from the Capital University Law School. In a 2018 interview, Jordan said he never took the bar examination.

Early career

Jordan was an assistant coach with Ohio State University's wrestling program from 1987 to 1995.

He was elected to the Ohio House of Representatives in November 1994 and represented the 85th Ohio House district for three terms.

In 2000, Jordan was elected to the Ohio Senate over independent candidate Jack Kaffenberger with 88% of the vote. In 2004, Jordan defeated Kaffenberger again, with 79% of the vote.

U.S. House of Representatives

Elections

Jordan represents Ohio's 4th congressional district, a primarily urban district, which includes Lima, Mansfield, Marysville, and Marion, and parts of Columbus.

Jordan first ran for Congress in 2006, where he won the Republican primary for the 4th district after 26-year incumbent Mike Oxley announced his retirement. Jordan defeated Democratic nominee Rick Siferd in the general election with 60% of the vote.

Jordan was reelected in 2008, defeating Democratic nominee Mike Carroll with 65% of the vote. In 2010, he was again reelected, defeating Democrat Doug Litt and Libertarian Donald Kissick with 71% of the vote. Jordan was reelected in 2012, 2014, 2016, 2018, 2020, 2022, and 2024.

Tenure

Jordan chaired the Republican Study Committee during the 112th Congress, while turning down a position on the Appropriations Committee. During the 2013 US government shutdown, he was described by Rolling Stone as the committee's most powerful member. That group was the primary proponent and executor of the Republican congressional strategy to bring about a government shutdown in order to force changes in the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare.

Jordan received a vote for Speaker of the United States House of Representatives in the 113th Congress from a fellow right-wing conservative, Tea Party Caucus chairman Tim Huelskamp. Jordan received two votes for Speaker during the 114th Congress. On July 26, 2018, he announced his bid for Speaker after Paul Ryan retired; his campaign ended when Democrats took the majority in the House. Subsequently, Jordan campaigned for House minority leader. Former Ohio state representative Capri Cafaro said that Jordan "is someone who has built a reputation as an attack dog, someone who is media savvy, someone who is a stalwart supporter of the president and who has the skill necessary to take the lead for the GOP". He lost his bid to Kevin McCarthy in a 159–43 vote. In 2023, Jordan returned to consideration for the speakership after McCarthy failed to win it after three rounds of voting.

Jordan was the ranking member of the House Oversight Committee from January 2019 to June 2020, with a brief interlude in March 2020. He was replaced by James Comer.

Jordan's district has been redrawn over time to minimize urban area (such as Toledo, Columbus or Cleveland) and increase rural area; it now stretches from Lake Erie nearly to Dayton. In May 2019, a three-judge federal panel ruled Ohio's congressional district map unconstitutional due to partisan gerrymandering and ordered Ohio to create a new map in time for the 2020 election. But after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Rucho v. Common Cause that courts could not review allegations of gerrymandering, the district boundaries were not to change until maps were redrawn in 2022.

In December 2021, the House Select Committee on the January 6 Attack released the partial contents of a text message an unnamed lawmaker sent to White House chief of staff Mark Meadows before the scheduled final certification of presidential electors on January 6, 2021. The excerpt read: "On January 6, 2021, Vice President Mike Pence, as President of the Senate, should call out all the electoral votes that he believes are unconstitutional as no electoral votes at all." The day after the release, Jordan acknowledged sending the message, but said he had merely forwarded it after receiving it from attorney Joseph Schmitz. Both Jordan and Meadows asserted that the committee had altered the context of the excerpt by misplacing a period.

Mark Zuckerberg mea culpa letter to Jim Jordan, p1, in which the author expresses regret over censorious conduct

As chair of the Judicial committee, Jordan received on 26 August 2024 a letter from Mark Zuckerberg in which the Facebook founder and Instagram magnate expressed regret at his firm's election interference in the 2020 US Presidential election. In the same letter he expressed regret over his "covid misinformation" actions. Zuckerberg wrote that the Biden White House "pressured" Meta to "censor" content. Jordan's fellow Republicans said the letter was a "big win for free speech".

Freedom Caucus

During the 114th Congress, Jordan and eight other members of Congress founded the House Freedom Caucus, a bloc of conservatives working "to advance an agenda of limited constitutional government" in Congress. He served as the group's first chair. The caucus was ultimately credited with pushing Speaker John Boehner into retirement.

Legislation

Jim Jordan with Vice President Mike Pence

As of 2023, Jordan, who has served in the House of Representatives for over 16 years, has never sponsored a bill that later became law.

On May 2, 2014, Jordan introduced House Resolution 565, "Calling on Attorney General Eric H. Holder, Jr., to appoint a special counsel to investigate the targeting of conservative nonprofit groups by the Internal Revenue Service". It passed on May 7, 2014. Holder, who had previously been found to be in contempt of Congress, failed to appoint a special counsel to investigate the alleged procedural abuses of IRS employees, including Lois Lerner.

In March 2017, Jordan criticized the newly introduced American Health Care Act, the Republican replacement bill for the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, calling it an unacceptable form of "Obamacare Lite". On May 4, 2017, he voted to pass a revised version of the legislation.

On June 13, 2018, Jordan and Representative Mark Meadows filed a resolution to compel the Department of Justice to provide certain documents to Congress relating to the ongoing congressional investigations of Russian interference in the 2016 election. The resolution asserted that the DOJ was stonewalling congressional oversight and sought to give the DOJ seven days from its enactment to turn over documents related to both Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein's appointment of Special Counsel Robert Mueller as well as various decisions made by the FBI during the 2016 presidential election.

On July 25, 2018, Jordan and Meadows introduced articles of impeachment against Rosenstein, whom they accused of "intentionally withholding embarrassing documents and information, knowingly hiding material investigative information from Congress, various abuses of the FISA process, and failure to comply with congressional subpoenas".

Jordan and Representative Warren Davidson were the only members of Ohio's congressional delegation and two of 60 members of Congress to vote in October 2019 against a bipartisan resolution that passed the House 354–60 condemning Trump's unilateral withdrawal of U.S. military forces from Syria.

Speaker elections

Despite his support for Kevin McCarthy in the 2023 Speaker of the House of Representatives election, including nominating McCarthy on the second ballot, Jordan was nominated on the second ballot by Representative Matt Gaetz. He received 19 votes, enough to deny McCarthy the speakership in the second round. Jordan was nominated again on the third ballot by Chip Roy. He won 20 votes in the third ballot, with Byron Donalds switching from McCarthy to Jordan. This was enough to necessitate a fourth ballot, but Jordan got no votes on ballots 4 through 11, as all his supporters switched to Donalds. On the 12th ballot, Gaetz nominated Jordan again. He received four votes, enough to necessitate a 13th ballot when combined with the three for Kevin Hern. He was not nominated on the 13th or 14th ballot, but received six and two votes on each, respectively.

After the House removed McCarthy from the speakership on October 3, 2023, Jordan launched a bid for the speakership. His speakership bid was endorsed by Donald Trump. On October 11, Jordan was defeated by Steve Scalise for the Republican nomination for the speakership. However, after Scalise withdrew a day later after failing to consolidate the necessary votes, Jordan launched a second bid for the speakership and defeated Austin Scott for the Republican nomination. Jordan subsequently failed to win the speakership in the first two rounds of the House vote, garnering only 200 of the 217 votes needed to win in the first vote and only 199 votes in the second. A third round of voting occurred on October 20, 2023, where he garnered only 194 votes of the 217 votes needed to win in the third round. Following his third defeat, Jordan intended to continue his bid for the speakership however he was subsequently removed from his position as Speaker-designate by his Republican colleagues in a secret ballot.

Committee assignments

• Committee on the Judiciary (chairman)
  • Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government (chairman)
• Committee on Oversight and Government Reform
  • Subcommittee on Health Care, Benefits, and Administrative Rules
  • Subcommittee on Government Operations
  • Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Crisis
• House Select Committee on the Events Surrounding the 2012 Terrorist Attack in Benghazi (2014–2016)
• Committee on Intelligence (temporary)

Caucus memberships

• Freedom Caucus
• Congressional Constitution Caucus
• Congressional Western Caucus
• U.S.-Japan Caucus
• Campus Free Speech Caucus

Political positions

Jordan speaking at the 2016 Conservative Political Action Conference.

According to The Dayton Daily News, Jordan "is known for being one of Congress' most conservative members".

Disinformation research

As chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, Jordan is heading a legal campaign against researchers at universities, think tanks and private companies that study disinformation. Those affected include the Stanford Internet Observatory at Stanford University, the University of Washington, the Atlantic Council's Digital Forensic Research Lab and the social media analytics firm Graphika. Since January 2023, when Republican gained a majority in the House, the House Judiciary Committee has sent letters, subpoenas, and threats of legal action to researchers, demanding notes, emails and other records from researchers and even student interns, dating back to 2015. Projects affected include the Election Integrity Partnership, formed to identify attempts "to suppress voting, reduce participation, confuse voters or delegitimize election results without evidence" and the Virality Project, which has examined the spread of false claims about vaccines. Jordan claims that such organizations worked with the government to censor conservative speech online. Although research groups may have reported problematic content, "no evidence has emerged that government officials coerced the companies to take action against accounts". Researchers argue that they have academic freedom to study social media and disinformation as well as freedom of speech to report their results.

Health care

Jordan opposes the Affordable Care Act, calling for it to be repealed. He opposes vaccine requirements, describing them as "un-American".

Environment

In July 2008, Jordan was the first member of Congress to sign the "No Climate Tax" pledge drafted by the conservative political advocacy group Americans for Prosperity.

In Congress, Jordan voted to open the Outer Continental Shelf to oil drilling, prevent the EPA from regulating greenhouse gases, and bar greenhouse gases from Clean Air Act rules. He voted against enforcing limits on carbon dioxide global warming pollution, tax credits for renewable electricity, tax incentives for renewable energy and energy conservation, and curtailing subsidies for oil and gas company exploration.

Antitrust and tech policy

Jordan has critiqued "Big Tech" companies, though he opposes proposals to break up these companies through antitrust enforcement.

Google has contributed money to his political campaign since 2012, including $10,000 in 2020. Tucker Carlson criticized Jordan for accepting donations from Google.

In 2023, Jordan refused to make Ken Buck the chairman of the Subcommittee on Antitrust, despite Buck being the senior most republican on the committee and a proponent of antirust enforcement. Conservatives criticized Jordan for this decision.

Taxes

While serving in the Ohio Senate, Jordan supported the Tax and Expenditure Limitation Amendment, a state constitutional amendment that would require a vote of the people to raise taxes or increase spending over certain limits.

Foreign policy

Jordan was among 60 Republicans to oppose condemning Trump's action of withdrawing forces from Syria. According to The American Conservative, along with Matt Gaetz and a handful of Republicans, he broke with the party and voted to end Saudi assistance to the war in Yemen.

In June 2021, Jordan was one of 49 House Republicans to vote to repeal the AUMF against Iraq.

In 2023, Jordan was among 47 Republicans to vote in favor of H.Con.Res. 21 which directed President Joe Biden to remove U.S. troops from Syria within 180 days.

LGBT rights

In 2015, Jordan cosponsored a resolution to amend the US constitution to ban same-sex marriage. Jordan condemned the Supreme Court ruling in Obergefell v. Hodges, which held that same-sex marriage bans violated the Constitution.

Personal life

Jordan and his wife, Polly, live near Urbana, Ohio, in central Champaign County. They were introduced by her brothers, with whom Jordan competed in wrestling. Polly and Jordan started dating when he was 13 and she was 14. They have four children and two grandchildren. Jordan's son-in-law, Jarrod Uthoff, is a professional basketball player.

Political campaigns

U.S. House of Representatives, Ohio 4th District

2008 – defeated Mike Carroll.

2010 – defeated Doug Litt (D) and Donald Kissick (L).

2012 – defeated Jim Slone (D) and Chris Kalla (L).

2014 – defeated Janet Garrett (D).

2016 – defeated Janet Garrett (D).

2018 – defeated Janet Garrett (D).

2020 – defeated Shannon Freshour (D) and Steve Perkins (L).

2022 - defeated Tamie Wilson (D).

2024 - defeated Tamie Wilson (D).

Electoral history

See also

In Spanish: Jim Jordan (político) para niños

• Conspiracy theories related to the Trump–Ukraine scandal