McCarthy faces power test in conservative revolt

House Republicans return to Washington on Monday after a humiliating week when conservative rebels brought floor action to a halt, foiled votes on GOP priorities and rekindled questions about the ability of Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) to guide his party through the tough policy fights in the months ahead. 

Republican leaders have a series of suspension votes scheduled for Monday evening, featuring uncontroversial bills expected to pass easily with Democratic support. But the real test will come Tuesday, when they’ve slated floor action on a second series of proposals — including the four bills that never reached the floor last week — that will require cooperation from the same conservative firebrands who blocked them the first time around. 

The schedule reflects the ever-optimistic nature of McCarthy, who remains resolved to win back the hard-liners’ confidence in time for the votes. 

But it also represents a high-stakes roll of the dice, since the conservatives have shown no sign they’re ready to end the standoff — or even specify the leadership concessions that would prompt them to do so.

The dynamics set the stage for a week of high drama and uncertainty in a Republican Party already thrown on defense by last week’s history-making indictment of former President Trump, who remains the GOP standard-bearer ahead of the 2024 elections. 

Heading into the week, some McCarthy allies have leaned on Trump’s legal woes to urge the conservative agitators to drop their blockade on floor activity for the sake of unifying as a party against President Biden and the Democrats.

“Republicans need to stop being the party of every man for himself and need to stop fighting each other,” Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) tweeted following the indictment. 

“Democrats are arresting their political enemies and they work together in their corrupt ways to get it done,” she continued. “It’s time for Republicans to unify. No more non-sense.”

Whether the conservative holdouts are ready to heed that call, however, remains an open question.

Eleven conservatives had joined forces last Tuesday to block a procedural vote that would have paved the way for consideration of four separate bills over the course of the week. The opponents support the individual proposals — which relate to gas stoves and regulatory reforms — but the substance of those bills was immaterial: The conservatives were sending a protest message to McCarthy that they disapproved of his handling of the debt limit deal he cut with Biden earlier in the month. 

While they haven’t named any explicit new demands, the detractors’ overarching sentiment is clear: They expect the Speaker to hold a harder line in the partisan battles to come, particularly over funding the government to prevent a shutdown at the end of September. 

Rep. Andy Biggs (R-Ariz.), former head of the Freedom Caucus, said McCarthy’s debt ceiling agreement — which was loathed by the right wing — has triggered new fears among conservatives that the Speaker will cut similar deals in the future. Biggs named three upcoming bills in particular: the reauthorization of military spending; the renewal of the farm bill; and an extension of government funding, which expires on Sept. 30. 

“I would not be stunned if he forms a coalition [with Democrats] on all three of those bills. And that’s my biggest concern,” Biggs said. 

Still, Biggs declined to lay out specific demands that would cause him to support McCarthy’s legislative agenda on the floor, asserting that it’s up to the Speaker to volunteer a worthwhile offer. 

“Let’s see what he has without me kibitzing in public about it,” Biggs said. “Let’s see what he has to offer.”

True to form, McCarthy has largely downplayed the internal clash, saying it will only strengthen the Republican conference in their upcoming battles with Biden, while bolstering his resolve to unify the restive group.

“I always think tension only makes you stronger,” McCarthy told reporters last week amid the conservative revolt. 

“Do I want to handle this? No. But I’m not afraid of it,” he continued. “I enjoy this work. I enjoy this job. I enjoy this conflict.”

The conservatives are irate that McCarthy, after steering a partisan debt ceiling bill through the House in April, dropped most of the deficit-reduction measures and policy reforms featured in that GOP package as part of the agreement with Biden to prevent a default. 

The Republican bill had raised the debt ceiling only through next March, while the bipartisan compromise extended that window beyond the 2024 elections — a key demand from Biden. The GOP proposal had also cut 2024 spending back to 2022 levels, representing much steeper cuts than those featured in the Biden-McCarthy agreement. And it featured repeals of a number of prominent Biden policies, including green energy subsidies and $80 billion in new IRS funding, which were largely absent from the legislation that became law. 

Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-Colo.), another conservative who helped gum up floor action last week, pointed to another bill cut out of the final debt ceiling deal that’s left the hard-liners exasperated: the REINS Act, which would scale back the regulatory powers of the executive branch. 

While GOP leaders had tried to pass that bill last week and are set to try again Tuesday, the standalone nature of the proposal means it’s dead on arrival in the Senate — a fate the conservatives say could have been avoided if McCarthy had demanded that it be included in the final debt ceiling agreement. 

“That is performative theater, and I am not here for that,” Boebert said of the standalone votes. “I’m not doing messaging bills and show votes when we had an opportunity to pass real regulatory reform for the American people.”

At the center of last week’s blowup was a dispute between GOP leaders and Rep. Andrew Clyde (R-Ga.) over his bill to prevent a federal ban on a controversial firearm accessory known as a pistol brace. Clyde’s bill is also on the schedule to receive a vote Tuesday, governed by the same rule that will accompany the REINS Act and the other three bills that failed to reach the floor last week.

Yet for conservatives demanding major budget reforms — and expressing open distrust in McCarthy to see them adopted — it’s far from clear that the Clyde bill will be enticement enough to end their protest and vote for the rules that would allow the floor to reopen for business this week. 

“There are obviously multiple issues here that need to be resolved,” said Rep. Scott Perry (R-Pa.), head of the Freedom Caucus. “I don’t know that many rules will come up until it’s resolved.”

Mychael Schnell and Emily Brooks contributed.