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After a bipartisan budget deal passed a couple of weeks ago, House Speaker Kevin McCarthy was riding high. The California Republican was receiving the kind of public plaudits he’s rarely seen — one conservative outlet went so far as to laud his “virtuoso performance“ — and the GOP leader was ready to turn a corner and enjoy his rehabilitated reputation. A new day had arrived.
As The Washington Post’s Dana Milbank summarized, McCarthy then “proceeded to do the legislative equivalent of slipping on a banana peel, pulling down the drapes, knocking over a fully laden buffet and face-planting into the wedding cake.”
Within days of the speaker’s overstated triumph, the House Freedom Caucus, outraged by their inability to derail the bipartisan legislation, started exacting its revenge: The right-wing lawmakers blocked their own party’s legislation last week, effectively taking control of the House floor away from McCarthy. The speaker, unable to convince his far-right flank to let him govern, scrapped last week’s session and sent his members home.
McCarthy was “blindsided“ by his own members’ tactics that he didn’t see coming, and it wasn’t clear how long the blockade would last. It was against this backdrop that NBC News reported on developments that, at first blush, look like a breakthrough.
Emerging from McCarthy’s office Monday, Rep. Ralph Norman, R-S.C., confirmed that the gang of 11 would now vote yes on a new rule that will allow the package of messaging bills — two to protect gas stoves, another regulatory bill and a fourth to protect pistol stabilizing braces — to come to the floor later this week. None of the bills are likely to pass the Senate.
Republican Rep. Matt Gaetz of Florida, one the ringleaders behind last week’s tactics, said, “The floor will be functioning this week.”
Of course, in context, “functioning” effectively means, “House Republicans will be able to vote on misguided bills that will never become law, but which will make the GOP feel better, serve as fodder for fundraising appeals, and generate some hollow fodder on allied media outlets.”
But Gaetz also told reporters yesterday, “[P]erhaps we’ll be back here next week.” Republican Rep. Matt Rosendale of Montana, another member of the radical contingent, also said future blockades were still possible if Freedom Caucus members do not see what they consider “progress.”
In other words, McCarthy and his far-right faction reached some kind of short-term understanding — the details of which remain murky — that will allow the House to vote on pointless bills in the coming days. But this appears to be less of an endpoint and more of a start to a separate process.
The New York Times reported that Freedom Caucus members “were explicit with Mr. McCarthy that he could not count on their support for bringing up any other legislation next week or in the future, until they had worked out a power-sharing agreement that guaranteed them major influence on the legislative agenda.”
And that’s why the overnight news only appears to be good news for McCarthy.
The Republican leader had to wheel and deal in January to gain the speaker’s gavel, and several members of his conference are apparently eager to revisit those negotiations in order to ensure the GOP’s radicals have greater power for the remainder of this Congress.
Watch this space.
This post revises our related earlier coverage.