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House Speaker Kevin McCarthy is well aware of the fact that he has a right-wing flank that expects him to follow their orders. Indeed, the California Republican only managed to get his gavel in January following a humiliating 15-ballot process, due entirely to his most radical members.
At the time, the GOP leader agreed to tweak the chamber’s motion-to-vacate-the-chair rules, which had the intended effect: In the current Congress, it’s now easier for the speaker’s members to try to oust him in the event that he disappoints them.
Amidst unsubtle chatter that such a vote might very well happen, McCarthy, scrambling from a position of weakness, yesterday announced an evidence-free impeachment inquiry targeting President Joe Biden. If the Republican leader hoped that would satisfy the extremists in his midst, he quickly learned otherwise. Politico reported:
Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) ramped up his threats to Speaker Kevin McCarthy’s grip on the gavel. During a floor speech and a subsequent phone call with reporters, Gaetz warned that the Californian was “out of compliance” with agreements House Republicans made during the leadership race and that it could spark an attempt to strip his gavel.
“I rise today to serve notice: Mr. Speaker, you are out of compliance with the agreement that allowed you to assume this role. The path forward for the House of Representatives is to either bring you into immediate, total compliance or remove you pursuant to a motion to vacate the chair,” Gaetz said on the floor.
The far-right Floridian didn’t stop there. Gaetz promoted his floor remarks online with all-caps message that read, “The speaker has failed America.”
The congressman also told reporters that if McCarthy tries to prevent a government shutdown this month with a “clean” stop-gap spending package, that would trigger an immediate vote to fire him. Gaetz added that he also intended to launch the same effort if the House speaker didn’t also move forward with a variety of other far-right priorities, including subpoenas for the president’s relatives.
Evidently, the announcement about an impeachment inquiry didn’t have much of an effect. (Gaetz recently denounced the idea, saying he wants to skip an inquiry and go straight to votes on impeachment articles.)
Of course, it’s not just Gaetz. Politico also reported:
House conservatives are glad they finally got their impeachment inquiry. But they were quick to say it won’t shield Speaker Kevin McCarthy from potential efforts to boot him. Their issues with McCarthy when it comes to government spending, they argue, are separate from any impeachment considerations. Plus, they criticized him Tuesday for moving too late to launch a formal inquiry into President Joe Biden.
The report quoted a half-dozen House Republicans saying that a vote to take McCarthy’s gavel away might very well happen, regardless of the newly announced impeachment inquiry. “If you are trying to do the impeachment inquiry, thinking that is going to somehow keep you away from the motion to vacate … that’s not going to work,” Rep. Cory Mills of Florida explained.
If the House speaker thought he’d bought some goodwill from his far-right flank, his plan apparently didn’t work.