Trump loyalists furious with the 13 House Republicans who joined Democrats to hand President Biden a victory on infrastructure took direct aim Tuesday at New York Rep. John Katko, a leader of a moderate band of Republicans.
In a closed-door meeting in the Capitol, Rep. Dan Bishop (R-N.C.) launched an effort to oust Katko as the top Republican on the House Homeland Security Committee, sources in the room said. Bishop, a member of the Trump-aligned House Freedom Caucus, serves under Katko on the Homeland panel.
House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (D-Calif), who has urged rank-and-file members to stay unified and keep their focus on taking back the majority next year, referred Bishop’s motion to the influential Republican Steering Committee. That committee can either vote and recommend that the full GOP conference remove Katko or simply not act on it.
The push comes as Katko and a dozen other Republicans who backed the $1.2 trillion Biden infrastructure package have faced threats of retribution from former President Trump and threats of violence from many of his supporters.
Other backers of the infrastructure bill that Biden signed into law Monday, including Reps. Fred Upton (R-Mich.) and Adam Kinzinger (R-Ill.), have said they’ve personally received death threats.
Leaving Tuesday’s private GOP conference meeting, McCarthy said he was vehemently “opposed to any person getting any death threat or security problem whatsoever.”
But he demurred on whether Katko should be sanctioned and said Republicans are focused on fighting Democrats’ $1.75 trillion climate and social spending package.
Katko, who also serves as chairman of the group of moderates formerly known as the Tuesday Group, has faced criticism from his own party before, including from McCarthy. Katko was one of 10 Republicans who voted to impeach Trump for his role in the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol.
And earlier this year, as McCarthy and other Trump allies tried to move on from Jan. 6, Katko bucked GOP leaders and struck a deal with his counterpart on the Homeland committee, Chairman Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.), on legislation to create a 9/11-style independent commission to investigate the Jan. 6 insurrection.
The measure passed the House but was blocked by Senate Republicans.
Bishop’s effort puts McCarthy in a tough spot. The minority leader knows he can’t alienate Trump or his supporters in his quest to become Speaker of the House, but he also needs backing from swing-district Republicans like Katko.
One of those fellow vulnerable moderates, Rep. David Valadao (R-Calif.), defended Katko and those who voted their conscience on infrastructure, even though he himself voted against the plan.
“Katko represents a very difficult district. He does everything he possibly can to win. And I think he does the best he can to represent his district as effectively as he can,” Valadao, an ally of both Katko and McCarthy, told The Hill after the meeting.
“It’s always a situation where we have to vote what we think is right for our districts,” Valadao added. “And you look at the whole northeast, it’s just a different population. I don’t know John’s district that well, but I think he does what he thinks is best.”
Cristina Marcos contributed.