Ultra-conservatives freeze House floor to kick off new session
13 far-right hardliners took down a rule in protest to an agreement the speaker made with Democrats. Sound familiar?
More than a dozen House conservatives tanked a procedural vote that blocked three bills from coming to the floor for full consideration.
The hardliners joined all Democrats to take down what’s known as a “rule” in protest of a deal Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) reached with Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) on the spending caps for the 12 bills that fund the federal government. The vote was 203–216 with 14 members not voting.
“Welcome to 2024,” Rep. Shontel Brown (D-Ohio) said to Once Upon a Hill as she walked off the House floor. “Another repeat performance, another prime example of the Republicans not being able to govern.
The protest vote has ground House business to a halt less than a full day after the chamber officially kicked off its new session. House Republican leadership canceled a previously scheduled afternoon vote series while it met with members in an attempt to find a path forward.
And it’s an indication that the House GOP’s far-right rabble-rousers plan to deploy some of the same tactics they resorted to last year in what several members described as one of the least productive Congresses in modern history.
A rule allows immediate consideration of a bill and sets the parameters for its debate and amendment. It is usually reported by the Rules Committee and takes effect when approved—or “adopted”—by a simple majority in the House.
Rules are necessary because House members, unlike senators, are prohibited from unlimited debate on a bill. A rule can limit the number of types of amendments, the sections of a bill that can be amended, or if amendments will be allowed at all. The Rules Committee can also determine the amount of time allocated to a debate bill.
Not all House bills require a rule though. In fact, most bills pass the chamber under a procedure called “suspension of the rules.” Suspension bills require a vote of two-thirds if all members are present and voting, limit debate to just 40 minutes and can only be considered on Mondays, Tuesdays, and Wednesdays.
The conventional Hill wisdom if you opposed a bill was to join the majority to pass the rule, but vote against the underlying legislation. But logic was tossed when conservatives began weaponizing rules last session to express displeasure not just with specific bills but what they perceived as their leadership’s overall mishandling of their policy priorities.
While the rule takedowns generated news cycles and caught the attention of party leaders, they’re also the simplest form of legislative self-sabotage. Why work so hard to win the majority to squander it in such dysfunctional ways that may play well on conservative TV and radio but fail to meaningfully serve constituents?
After Republicans retook the majority last year, former Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) had lost three rules by September. Before that, a rule had only failed right times since 1995–each under a Republican-controlled House. Former Speakers John Boehner (R-Ohio), Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) never lost a rule while holding the top gavel.
The caps deal Johnson and Schumer agreed to mostly reflects the agreement McCarthy reached with President Joe Biden last May with a few slight tweaks. It allows for $806 billion in defense funding and almost $773 billion to invest in domestic programs. The deal also accelerated cuts to IRS funding passed in the Inflation Reduction Act in 2022 to audit wealthy tax cheats. The Biden-McCarthy agreement called for $10 billion in cuts in 2024 and another $10 billion in 2025; now the full $20 billion will be slashed this year. Add that to the $6.1 billion in unspent COVID-19 money Johnson was able to claw back, and the speaker secured around $16 billion in cuts.
Speaker McCarthy endured similar struggles in fully funding the government before bringing a short-term extension passed with a majority of Democratic votes and was used by members of his far-right flank as justification for removing him from the speakership. Some House conservatives have already begun to float the idea of booting Johnson for the caps deal.
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