WEST SULPHUR SPRINGS, West Virginia — An ousted speaker. An expelled member. A growing number of lawmakers leaving office before their term expires. The House has undergone a tumultuous year under Republican control — but GOP leaders are still confident in their chances to grow their narrow majority.
As House Republicans gathered for their annual retreat at The Greenbrier resort in West Virginia this week, party leaders outlined their strategy to unify messaging and campaign priorities as they court voters. But the party has been plagued by infighting and lingering disagreements for months, leading to criticism from their Democratic colleagues that they are unfit to lead the lower chamber.
Republicans, on the other hand, argue their unruly dynamics are a model of how democracy is meant to work.
“Democracy is messy,” Johnson said. “Sometimes it’s very messy. This is part of that process. But I think what you’ve seen is that even though we live in a time of divided government, and even though Republicans have quite literally almost the smallest majority in U.S. history, in an effort that some deem to be impossible, we are actually moving the ball forward and getting the job done. We are governing.
“While you might describe it as chaotic, the Republican-led majority has gotten a lot of really important substantive work done,” Johnson said.
During the two-day trip in West Virginia, Johnson sought to project a sense of unity even as he gave a forceful message to members urging them not to get involved in other incumbents’ primaries, according to a source in the room. The message was met with applause from members in the room, who largely agreed with his message.
Still, several of Johnson’s most rebellious members were not in attendance at the annual retreat. Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL), for one, was campaigning with a Republican candidate challenging Rep. Tony Gonzales (R-TX) in Texas in lieu of attending the conference.
Roughly 100 GOP lawmakers attended the yearly issues retreat this week, a source familiar told the Washington Examiner. That is less than half the entire House GOP conference, which has 219 members.
Party leaders brushed off concerns about the low attendance, noting several members are busy with campaign events as they face competitive races.
“It’s a later conference retreat,” House GOP Conference Chairwoman Elise Stefanik (R-NY) said. “It’s in the midst of primaries in these districts. It’s a lot of new members who feel the need to go home or are facing their current primaries as incumbents.”
Stefanik also pushed back on the perception of disunity stemming from GOP members seeking to oust their fellow incumbents, noting primary challenges are not specific to the Republican Party.
Still, House leaders acknowledged the lack of “normal process” in the House over the last several months — hinting that some changes may be made should Republicans maintain their majority in the lower chamber.
“I just think it’s something that a lot of members on both sides of the aisle talk about openly that they have a desire for a more normal process on the House floor again,” Johnson said. “We’ll be looking at that on the House rules package in our respective caucus and conference packages as we go into the new Congress. And that’s just something we should do in due course, be good stewards of the institution.”
Among those possible rule changes is the threshold to vacate a sitting speaker. Under the current rules, any one member can propose a motion to remove the House speaker. That rule was agreed to by former Speaker Kevin McCarthy in exchange for support for his speakership bid — before being ousted by that mechanism just nine months later.
The House was upended into chaos last October after McCarthy’s ouster, which marked the first time a sitting speaker was removed from the position and resulted in weeks of stalled progress as Republicans scrambled to elect a new leader, prompting some members to suggest a rule change to avoid repeating that fate.
“The motion to vacate is something that comes up a lot amongst members in discussion, and I expect it will probably be a change to that as well,” Johnson said.
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER
But even amid the unpredictability under House Republicans, party leaders have expressed confidence they will not only hold on to their slim majority but that they will expand their narrow margins.
“I believe that we will have an even larger majority, and it’s going to be very important to have a large majority in the next Congress because I do believe we’re going to flip the Senate,” Stefanik said.
