A group of right-wing House Republicans tanked a vote on GOP-backed legislation Tuesday to protest House Speaker Kevin McCarthy’s debt ceiling deal with President Joe Biden.
Nearly a dozen conservative lawmakers banded together with Democrats in a vote on a procedural push to protect gas stoves, blocking the advancement of the bills. Most of the rebelling congressmembers belong to the pro-Trump House Freedom Caucus, including well-known right-wing firebrands like Reps. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., and Lauren Boebert, R-Colo.
A so-called rule vote has not failed in over 20 years.
“Today we took down the rule because we’re frustrated at the way this place is operating,” Gaetz said, according to multiple reports.
The vote was a clear rebuke of McCarthy, who in January pushed through 14 failed votes across five days to win the speaker’s gavel. The right-wing Republicans who opposed McCarthy at the time agreed to back him after he offered the coalition multiple concessions, including the reinstitution of a single-vote motion to vacate the chair, which lawmakers can use to remove the speaker.
McCarthy and Biden reached a deal last month on raising the limit on how much the government can borrow. The package – which passed with bipartisan support in both chambers – was viewed as a major win for McCarthy, who managed to negotiate spending concessions out of the White House after Biden initially refused to bargain.
But the hard-right dissidents in McCarthy’s ranks weren’t satisfied with the agreement, saying the spending cuts McCarthy brokered didn’t go far enough. Their protest Tuesday suggests the coalition won’t go down without a fight.
“We’re concerned that the fundamental commitments that allowed Kevin McCarthy to assume the speakership have been violated as a consequence of the debt limit deal,” Gaetz said Tuesday. “The answer for us is to reassert House conservatives as the appropriate coalition partner for our leadership, instead of them making common cause with Democrats.”
