McCarthy under pressure from all sides as spending fight crawls ahead
Jack Birle
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House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) managed to survive debt ceiling negotiations earlier this year, but he now faces his biggest leadership test with the budget process and is feeling pressure from every direction.
McCarthy is facing pressure from the hard-liners in the House GOP conference who want to be aggressive with budget negotiations and impeaching President Joe Biden, while Republican leadership in the Senate is reportedly looking to opt for a more bipartisan solution in the upper chamber of Congress. Here is a look at the two sides McCarthy is facing pressure from.
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Senate Republicans
Republican leadership in the Senate is looking to pass three bipartisan spending bills next week, per Punchbowl News, and looks more willing to work to pass a bipartisan option than force a stalemate with a conservative spending bill.
The Senate, which is held by the Democrats 51-49, has been a major hurdle for bills passing from the Republican-led House of Representatives, with a bipartisan option clearing both chambers during debt ceiling negotiations in the spring.
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) gave McCarthy the reins for the debt ceiling negotiations, but for the federal budget, Senate GOP leadership may put a hard stop on a conservative spending bill from the House.
Hard-liner House Republicans
While the upper chamber of Congress looks poised to pressure McCarthy to be more moderate with his spending bill approach, that will only garner anger from the hard-liners in the House Republican Conference who also want to tie the budget to an impeachment of Biden.
Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL), a vocal hard-liner, is entertaining the idea of vacating the speakership if McCarthy does not force a vote on impeaching the president. McCarthy has said he would want a floor vote to open an impeachment inquiry into Biden rather than expediting the process.
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Along with impeachment, the hard-liners will look to secure more conservative spending bills, which will likely cause a disconnect between the two chambers of Congress.
With the slim 222-212 majority for Republicans in the House, nearly every vote of the caucus is required for anything to get passed, which means having to unify the centrist and right-wing flanks of the House Republican Conference. McCarthy has balanced the conference for his first eight months in power but will really feel the heat in the next month.