A group of Republicans in the US House of Representatives on Tuesday staged a mini-revolt after House Speaker Kevin McCarthy last week led a vote to raise the debt ceiling.
Led by members of the House Freedom Caucus, a group of 11 Republicans, blocked progress on a mixture of bills, breaking with their party on an otherwise routine procedural vote that threw the day’s schedule — and the rest of the week — into disarray.
It was the first such procedural rule vote to fail in nearly two decades.
Photo: AFP
The group is among some of the same Republicans who tried to stop the debt ceiling bill from advancing last week and who then threatened to try to oust McCarthy after passage of the debt ceiling package that US President Joe Biden signed into law.
They have sought a meeting with McCarthy, leaving it unclear how the standoff would be resolved.
“We’re frustrated with the way this place is operating,” US Representative Matt Gaetz said. “We’re not going to live in the era of the imperial speaker anymore.”
McCarthy is working with just a four-seat majority, which gives a small bloc of lawmakers considerable power to gain concessions from him.
“We’re trying to resolve internal tensions within the House Republicans. And from time to time you have to have an airing within your family, and I think that’s part of what happened today,” US Representative Patrick McHenry said.
Just hours earlier, Republican leaders were extolling how the House Republicans had learned to work together.
“In sports, it’s called a game plan,” said US Representative Tom Emmer, the top Republican vote-counter and a former ice hockey coach. “The debt limit last week displayed just how far House Republicans have come as a team.”
The protesting group outlined a list of grievances over McCarthy’s leadership in handling the debt ceiling package.
US Representative Dan Bishop said that the group was now demanding that McCarthy meet with them to hash out an agreement for how the House would operate.
“We had an agreement that had been forged by all of us together, and it was utterly jettisoned unilaterally by the speaker,” Bishop said. “And there’s been nothing so far to address the consequences of that.”
Asked if the protest was about the debt ceiling vote, US Representative Ralph Norman said: “It’s about a lot of things.”
Norman said that the group is seeking “what we insisted in January: Truthfulness, sincere cuts and putting economic security on the floor.”
Republicans had scheduled a mid-afternoon vote on legislation that would prohibit the use of federal funds to regulate gas stoves as a hazardous product.
However, efforts to proceed to that matter stalled unexpectedly when the rule setting terms for debate was brought up for a vote.
Republican leadership kept the vote open for an extended period as House Majority Leader Steve Scalise listened to concerns in the back of the chamber from some of his Republican colleagues.
Eventually, Republican leadership acknowledged the obvious and it was announced that the procedural vote had failed with 220 lawmakers opposing it and 206 in support.
After hours of discussions in McCarthy’s office, it was announced that no other votes were to occur on Tuesday.
“We’ve got some more conversations to be had,” said US Representative Chip Roy as he exited McCarthy’s office in the early evening.
It took McCarthy 14 failed votes in January to become speaker amid objections from his own party. He finally seized the gavel on the 15th try after making a number of concessions to the Freedom Caucus and other members.
One issue that has frustrated some members is an upcoming vote to reverse a Biden administration firearms-related regulation on so-called pistol braces, a stabilizing feature.
Some members said that House Republican leaders delayed consideration of the bill after members voted against last week’s debt package.
US Representative Andrew Clyde, a member of the House Freedom Caucus and gun shop owner who backed the bill, met with McCarthy on Tuesday afternoon.
He said they discussed his pistol brace bill and received an assurance that it would get a vote on the House floor next week.
“I will hold them to this promise,” Clyde wrote on Twitter. “And I will never back down in the fight to defend our natural rights.”
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