House Mutiny leaves McCarthy with difficult choices

With his right flank in open rebellion and a stranglehold on the House floor, Speaker Kevin McCarthy faces two unappealing choices for how to govern.

He can meet the demands of far-right members of his conference, pushing through bills that will face a bipartisan legislative buzz in the Senate. Or he could sidestep them on crucial issues, work with Democrats to pass spending bills and other vital measures, and face constant threats to his job from his own party — if not outright removal.

The surprise attack on the GOP leadership this week by nearly a dozen far-right Republicans shut down the House with no resolution in sight, sidelining the party’s political messaging bill on gas stoves, which would never become law. But it also created a crippling political dilemma for Mr. McCarthy that foreshadows much bigger problems.

The right-wing faction’s favorite tool for the insurgency — against a routine procedural measure known as a rule that is normally a strict party line — was a reminder that the group in a closely divided House could easily wreak havoc on the annual spending bills that are starting to take shape now that the debt crisis is over.

Members of both parties are concerned that such tactics could lead to a stalemate over those accounts, which could lead to a government shutdown this fall and an automatic cut in spending next year, which they fear would significantly undermine Ukraine in its conflict with Russia and other federal programs as Good.

“I have serious concerns as we move into the credit process about how antics like this rule scrapping could affect our ability to do our basic job of funding the government,” said Arkansas Representative Steve Womack, a senior Republican. member of the Credit Committee. “It was going to be a pretty tough lift already, but it’s a lift that’s going to be made heavier if this is what we’re dealing with.”

Other major legislative initiatives, such as an emerging farm bill, the Pentagon’s annual policy measure, and program renewal from the Federal Aviation Administration, could also be dragged into the fray, but it’s the bills that are in the foreground right now.

The backlash to the Republican leadership was triggered by anger on the right over the way Mr. McCarthy passed the debt limit package, a compromise he struck with President Biden that passed the House last week with more Democratic than Republican votes. Members of the ultraconservative House Freedom Caucus and other Republicans felt betrayed and complained that the deal fell far short of the cuts McCarthy promised when he ran for the speakership in January.

Some of those critics now say leadership should commit to deeper cuts through the 12 annual spending measures, keeping spending below the limits agreed in the debt limit agreement.

The problem for Mr. McCarthy is that if he capitulates to hard justice on spending, he will most likely lose any chance of getting Democratic support for the bills, which means he would have to pass them with only Republican votes, when many conservatives reflexively hesitate to spend. bills.

But party-line spending bills that could win the approval of far-right mutineers — including Representatives Chip Roy of Texas, Ralph Norman of South Carolina and Ken Buck of Colorado — stand no chance at all of getting through the Democratic-controlled Senate. Even leading Senate Republicans think the Pentagon funding agreed in the debt limit package is far too low and say it needs to be supplemented to keep Ukraine in the field against Russia.

On the other hand, Mr. McCarthy could try to find consensus with Democrats on the spending bills — historically a bipartisan process — only to face the wrath of conservative Republicans who don’t want anyone reaching down the aisle. They say Mr. McCarthy must choose between them or Representative Hakeem Jeffries of New York, the Democratic leader, who gave his blessing to his party to help push through the rule so that the debt limit deal could happen when Republicans withheld their votes to try to block it.

“We’re going to force him into a monogamous relationship with one or the other,” Florida Representative Matt Gaetz, one of 11 Republicans holding the floor this week, said of Mr. McCarthy on the podcast hosted by Stephen K Bannon.

Thursday, Mr. Gaetz said some insurgents had had “encouraging” talks with Louisiana Majority Leader Representative Steve Scalise about resolving the dispute, focusing primarily on “how we’re going to think about the credit process.”

The battle over the spending bills is especially fraught because the debt limit agreement included a provision that says spending will be cut by 1 percent across the board in 2025 if Congress fails to pass the 12 appropriation bills by January 1. That arrangement was devised as a way to enforce the compromise and hailed as an incentive for Congress to better consider individual spending measures, which hasn’t happened in years.

Now those responsible for writing the spending bills see the autopilot approach as a potentially dangerous outcome, as House conservatives may be eager for the chance to trigger the automatic cuts, even in defense programs — a prospect alarming the military hawks of the Senate.

“Now that the debt ceiling issue is behind us, the challenge ahead is to have some semblance of a regular credit process,” Senator Mitch McConnell, Kentucky Republican and minority leader, said Wednesday. “It’s going to take a lot of bipartisan collaboration to do what we need to do in the coming months.”

But cooperation between two parties is exactly what Mr McCarthy’s far-right says it does not want.

On Thursday, Mr. Jeffries flatly ruled out his party supporting bills that fall below the level agreed in debt limit legislation, but offered to work with Republicans to advance bills acceptable to Democrats.

“As for the way out,” he said, “House Republicans will have to decide whether to be responsible public policymakers or whether to continue bending the knee to the extreme MAGA Republicans in their party.”

It’s way too early for Republicans to consider a pact with Democrats. They see the rebellion as a temporary distraction that they can overcome.

“Government always has its challenges,” said Mr. Scalise, “and we’re just working on it.”