McCarthy yet to win over GOP holdouts blocking legislation
Reese Gorman
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As House leadership wants a vote to reconsider the failed rule from last week, Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) has yet to win over the holdouts blocking legislation on the floor.
The 12 members who voted down the rule on the bill to block the bill on gas stoves did so out of frustration surrounding the debt ceiling bill, government spending, and Rep. Andrew Clyde (R-GA) being threatened by House Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-LA) that if he voted against the rule on the debt ceiling bill, then it would be harder to get his pistol brace bill to the floor.
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While what the holdouts want in order to get to a yes on rules is wide-ranging and hard to nail down, most of the members want a return to 2022 spending levels when it comes to writing appropriations bills, they want Clyde’s bill to come to the floor, and some want to cut spending for federal programs that have not been reauthorized in a number of years.
When asked by reporters if he has the votes to pass the motion to reconsider the rule Monday morning, McCarthy said, “We will eventually get there.” But at the moment, that seems unlikely to happen by the end of the day Monday.
Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL), one of the holdouts, told the Washington Examiner he had a “productive” meeting with Scalise on Monday morning but that he hadn’t talked with McCarthy since they shot down the rule on Tuesday.
Over the weekend and on Monday, a number of holdouts stood firm on their decision to block legislation from coming to the floor.
At the Western Conservative Summit over the weekend, Rep. Ken Buck (R-CO) proposed that the government stop funding federal programs that have not been reauthorized.
“The reality is we’ve got to deal with spending and force the Senate and the president to deal with spending,” Buck said at the event. “So we will keep the House floor shut down until we start getting answers from our leadership, Republican leadership, to take spending seriously, and we started dealing with this.”
Buck’s plan is supported by a number of the holdouts, including Gaetz and Rep. Tim Burchett (R-TN).
“I believe that’s a real productive, constructive architecture,” Gaetz told the Washington Examiner.
Gaetz stated he didn’t want to talk about redlines for what it would take to get him to vote yes on rules but said, “I am in strong agreement with Mr. Buck’s ideas” and that the House needs to “liberate the pistol brace legislation.”
But as of now, he is still a no on rules.
Burchett concurs, saying he fully supports the Buck plan and thinks the majority of Congress can support it, too.
“The Buck plan, I think, would be a great first step and something everybody could agree on,” Burchett told the Washington Examiner. “In Tennessee, we have, and I served on that committee. It’s called government operations. And every bill was sunsetted. And then if it came up in the committee, they had to come in and make their case, then we reauthorized. And then a lot of them didn’t and would just go away. But in federal government, nothing goes away. And I think we need to start looking at sunset provisions and moving in that direction. That’s a commonsense approach.”
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Burchett, who is still a no on rules, said he wants to get the holdouts in a room with McCarthy and air everything out instead of meeting one on one. He wants to see McCarthy’s offer to allow appropriators to write spending bills below the cap in writing so that there is no confusion about what exactly the speaker is offering.
“I would like to see some fiscally conservative people at the table when negotiations happen,” he said. “And, of course, I want Andrew Clyde’s bill to move forward as well. But I think that’s a good start. Because when you do that, you have ownership. And then again, you’re not left reading about it in the press the morning of the vote.”