Fed-up House Republicans strike back

[cigaretteman]

A handful of House Republicans are threatening to oust the Republican speaker for the second time in barely six months — and a growing number of their colleagues are sick of the endless intraparty standoffs.



They want Johnson to take forceful action to make the House work again. They want to raise the threshold for triggering a vote to oust the speaker, known as a motion to vacate. And some of them want to kick three of their colleagues off the powerful House Rules Committee.

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• “There has to be repercussions for situations like this,” Rep. Anthony D’Esposito (R-N.Y.) told us.

But the speaker ruled out changing the motion to vacate on Thursday — and it’s unclear whether he’ll try to make other changes as the House stumbles toward an expected vote tomorrow on a package to send $95 billion in military aid to Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan and humanitarian funding for Gaza that’s bitterly divided the party.

Raising the threshold​

When eight Republicans pitched the House into chaos in October by voting to oust House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.), some in their party started discussing changing the chamber’s rules to ensure a single lawmaker couldn’t trigger such a vote again.



But a rules change never happened. Greene’s effort to depose Johnson led some Republicans to try again.
There was universal support for raising the number of lawmakers needed to sign onto a motion to vacate among members of the Republican Main Street Caucus when they met with Johnson on Wednesday, according to Rep. Dusty Johnson (R-S.D.), the group’s chairman.

• “The motion to vacate set at one has been an incredibly destabilizing force for the House and for the country,” he said. “And it just doesn’t have to be this way.”

The Ukraine aid bill seemed to offer a rare chance for Republicans to change the motion to vacate because Democrats are expected to vote for the “rule” that governs debate over the bill — something members of the opposition party traditionally almost never do.
But the speaker ruled out changing the motion to vacate less than 24 hours later even though he acknowledged it had “harmed” the Republican majority.

• “Recently, many members have encouraged me to endorse a new rule to raise this threshold,” Johnson wrote on X. “While I understand the importance of that idea, any rule change requires a majority of the full House, which we do not have.”

The statement seems to imply not enough Democrats are willing to support the change, perhaps because they’re holding out for broader rules changes. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) called in October for changing the rules so they “reflect the inescapable reality that Republicans are reliant on Democratic support to do the basic work of governing” — a much bigger change than what Republicans want.

The rules committee push​

Some House Republicans are also pressing Johnson to kick Reps. Chip Roy (R-Tex.), Ralph Norman (R-S.C.) and Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) off the Rules Committee, where the three of them wield an effective veto over the House agenda. They can block any rules — which govern debate over bills that come to the floor --- if the three of them vote with the committee’s four Democrats.



McCarthy put the three lawmakers on the committee last year after Roy, Norman and other lawmakers refused to vote for McCarthy for speaker unless he agreed to concessions. Roy and Norman are members of the hard-right House Freedom Caucus, while Massie is an ally of the group.
All three of them voted against the rule for the Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan package late last night.
“When you’re a member the Rules Committee, it is a position where you’re carrying out the will of the conference,” D’Esposito, a freshman who represents a district that Biden won by nearly 15 points, told us. “And they're not. They're carrying out the will of themselves. And I think if that's the situation, then perhaps there needs to be new people on the Rules Committee.”

Rep. Michael Lawler (R-N.Y.) said he thought the overwhelming majority of House Republicans wanted Roy, Norman and Massie off the committee. Any deals that McCarthy struck to become speaker are no longer in force, he added.

• “If they are unable to fulfill their job on that committee, they should resign,” he said. “And if they don’t resign, they should be removed.”

Many Main Street Caucus members — though not all of them — feel the same way, Dusty Johnson said. There’s also a renewed appetite for other structural changes that might allow the House to function better.

• “There’s a growing chorus of members who just feel like the status quo is absolutely untenable,” Johnson said.

Massie’s view​

Massie — the only Republican who’s said publicly he’ll support Greene’s motion to vacate Speaker Johnson if Greene calls it up — said he’s not bothered by the prospect of being kicked off the Rules Committee.

• “They’d be doing me a favor,” he quipped. “It’s like jury duty.”

He was more upset by the prospect of changing the motion to vacate, which he described as a cynical attempt by Johnson to hold onto the speakership akin to “something Vladimir Putin would do.”

• “It's a brazen, bold attempt to hold onto a power for the sake of having power,” Massie said. “He's not doing it for the good of our conference, or for the good of the country.”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2024/04/19/fed-up-house-republicans-strike-back/

 

[joelbc1]

Some of these (Republican) congressmen cannot think past the end of their (short) dicks! Amazing….sounds as if many of their colleagues have reached their “Popeye moment”..maybe there are enough adults in the room?

 

[TC Nole OX]

The “we’ll see” is an interesting observation


Embattled Mike Johnson kept in check by conservative House 'FART' team