WASHINGTON — The group of House Republicans that blocked votes on token legislation last week will withdraw Tuesday, at least temporarily.
House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) won them over in part through a mundane deal that combined a procedural motion setting up a delayed vote on gas stoves with a vote on gun keys. .
McCarthy also apparently said he would seek lower federal spending this fall, which would mean undoing a recent deal with Democrats that locked in spending for the next two years.
It’s probably an impossible promise to keep. Democrats control the Senate and the White House, and likely won’t vote for further cuts in federal spending beyond what President Joe Biden already agreed to in debt-ceiling negotiations that concluded earlier this month.
If the House and Senate can’t agree on government funding before October, then the government could partially shut down, a future leverage point for the far right, or at least a way to gain attention.
“We’re trying to be on the same team as the Republicans to focus on spending cuts,” Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) said Tuesday after leaving a party meeting on Capitol Hill. “I don’t think anyone wants closure.”
The House normally votes on several bills each week when lawmakers are in Washington, but Gaetz and 10 other Republicans stopped the camera a week ago by voting against a procedural resolution known as a rule. The hardliners, mostly members of the House Freedom Caucus, opposed the rule as payback for McCarthy’s debt-ceiling deal with Democrats. Rules are generally approved by party line votes.
Another no-no, Rep. Tim Burchett (R-Tenn.), said he wanted more conservative Republicans represented in ad hoc negotiations like the one between a handful of House Republicans and the White House that resolved the impasse on the ceiling of Debt.
“I would like to see people with tax restraints at the table,” Burchett told HuffPost.
Other members angry with his leadership did not commit to allowing votes on the legislation beyond Tuesday.
“Time will tell,” said Rep. Ralph Norman (RS.C.).
Meanwhile, the rest of the Republican majority seems increasingly frustrated that such a small faction of its 222 members has been holding the entire House back. Representative Derrick Van Orden (R-Wisconsin) reportedly criticized them during their meeting Tuesday, saying his daughter was dying of cancer and he “shows up to work every damn day.”
“You don’t always get everything you want, and so the fact that we have some who are just obsessed with what they didn’t get several weeks ago with the debt ceiling, that’s unfortunate,” said Rep. Glenn Thompson (R -Pa .) told HuffPost.
Jonathan Nicholson contributed to this reporting.
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