Speaker Mike Johnson advanced a short-term funding bill to keep the government open in a similar fashion as his predecessor, but the lawmakers who booted Rep. Kevin McCarthy don’t plan on axing the new House leader for it.
But his House Republicans struggled to pass two of the four spending bills on the docket for the next shutdown deadline on Jan. 19.
Lawmakers across the conference have said they wanted to give the Louisiana Republican time to settle in, but cracks in the facade are showing.
Rep. Chip Roy, Texas Republican, said he wanted to give Mr. Johnson time to get going, but the stopgap that only passed because of Democratic votes “perpetuates the very system my constituents sent me here to oppose.”
Mr. Roy added, “That is precisely what was put down on Saturday, Oct. 1, that then resulted in the motion to vacate against Kevin that following Tuesday, and here we are doing the same thing.”
He joined over a dozen conservatives and all House Democrats to block a bill Wednesday to fund the Department of Justice and trade and science agencies. They also torpedoed legislation meant to permanently refreeze $6 billion in Iranian oil assets freed up in President Biden’s prisoner-swap deal with Tehran.
Most of the GOP no votes came from House Freedom Caucus members, including Mr. Roy, who argued that the spending bill was weak and lacked conservative policy wins, like not preventing funding for the FBI’s new headquarters in Maryland.
The House has passed seven of the dozen spending bills while the remainder have been stalled by GOP infighting.
“We’ve had enough, we’re sending a shot across the bow. We do this in good faith. We want to see these bills move,” said House Freedom Caucus Chair Scott Perry of Pennsylvania. “We want to see good righteous policy, but we’re not going to be part of the failure theater anymore.”
Other Republicans said the infighting only makes it harder to get conservative policy wins.
“This is retaliation,” said Rep. Dusty Johnson of South Dakota. “When something doesn’t go their way, they decide that they want to blow something up, and I guess this is today’s fatality.”
Meanwhile, the lawmakers in the group of eight that ousted Mr. McCarthy contend the stopgap situation is not Mr. Johnson’s fault, and that they’re willing to give him a grace period.
It also means the lawmakers fired Mr. McCarthy, California Republican, for more than just needing Democrats to keep the government open.
Rep. Matt Gaetz, who filed the motion to vacate, said Mr. McCarthy was bounced for “a variety of reasons.” The Florida Republican told The Washington Times that the former speaker had time to build a strategy to pass spending bills one at a time, while Mr. Johnson has been working under a truncated schedule.
“This is the last McCarthy play we have to run, and I know Speaker Johnson doesn’t even want to do it,” Mr. Gaetz said.
He added that Mr. McCarthy had time to develop a plan to pass spending bills, but didn’t manage to pass any until just a few weeks were left until the government was on the precipice of a shutdown in September.
“If in seven months this is the Johnson governance strategy, we’ll all be real disappointed in that outcome,” Mr. Gaetz continued. “But I am as confident as ever that is not where we will be in seven months.”
Mr. Johnson’s leash is not infinite. Republicans expect him to adhere to sought-after spending cuts that go below the debt-ceiling deal hammered out by Mr. McCarthy and President Biden and to not agree on more Ukraine aid — or to at least hold out until the White House returns with a strategy for the region.
Rep. Eli Crane, Arizona Republican, told The Times that members of the eight agreed to give Mr. Johnson a grace period, but it does have an expiration date.
“I think he’s still under that, but he knows that it’s not gonna last forever,” he said.
• Alex Miller can be reached at amiller@washingtontimes.com.
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