House Republicans are set to meet Thursday morning to consider rule changes for their conference next year, setting the stage for a compromise that could preserve Speaker Mike Johnson’s (R-LA) job.
Lawmakers will consider several proposed rule amendments, including some floated by members to punish their fellow colleagues if they seek to disrupt business in the lower chamber. This past Congress was marked by chaos on the House floor, culminating in Kevin McCarthy’s ouster as speaker.
One such proposal would permit members to be removed from their committee assignments if they vote against procedural steps that allow GOP priorities to reach the House floor. Hard-line members repeatedly did so over the last two years as a form of leverage in talks with leadership.
That proposal, along with others, prompted backlash from some conservative members, with a number even going so far as to say they would withhold support from Johnson’s speakership bid if he didn’t shoot them down.
“We’ll see,” Rep. Chip Roy (R-TX) told the Washington Examiner when asked if Johnson will face significant opposition to his bid. “The rules were a bad start.”
Johnson met with members of both the conservative Freedom Caucus and the centrist Main Street Caucus on Wednesday to broker a deal ahead of leadership elections, several sources involved in the talks told the Washington Examiner. In that meeting, centrist lawmakers agreed to drop their proposed amendments to punish House rabble-rousers in exchange for a new threshold to the motion to vacate, a procedure that allows members to vote on removing the House speaker.
Current rules allow just one member to introduce a resolution to oust the speaker, as was the case with McCarthy last year. However, under the new deal, that threshold would be raised to nine.
“They worked together collaboratively to work with members across the conference with very different ideas and perspectives and come to an agreement about what all that would entail,” Johnson said of the talks on Wednesday.
Johnson won his conference’s nomination for speaker in a unanimous vote on Wednesday, overcoming his first obstacle to secure a second term in the chamber’s top leadership position. However, some members have indicated they need to see more from Johnson before they can commit their full support when his speakership comes up for a floor vote in January before the entire House.
For example, Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-FL) is pushing for a rule change that allows lawmakers who go on maternity leave to vote by proxy, allowing them to cast a ballot on key pieces of legislation even if they cannot be at the Capitol. Some lawmakers, including Johnson, have expressed concerns about such a change, arguing it could lead to future exceptions for proxy voting.
“I want it to be in the rules package. I don’t think that it’s fair that women can’t vote if you’ve given birth,” Luna told the Washington Examiner. “There’s a lot of members that support it, and I think Johnson should be if he really wants to unify the conference.”
Still, Johnson received a boost to his speakership bid after President-elect Donald Trump endorsed him inside a closed-door meeting with House Republicans on Wednesday morning.
Rep. Tim Burchett (R-TN) told the Washington Examiner he believes that endorsement “sealed it for him,” noting that he supports the president-elect’s choice.
But could Johnson still face a challenge? Burchett doesn’t think so.
“Somebody said to me, ‘Who’s going to run?’” Burchett said. “I said, ‘Mike Johnson and [whoever] Mike Johnson is going to beat.”
Rep. Troy Nehls (R-TX), a staunch Trump ally, also urged his conference to stand behind Johnson’s speakership, arguing GOP lawmakers must coalesce around what the president-elect says to promote his agenda.
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“If Donald Trump says, ‘Jump 3 feet high and scratch your head,’ we all jump 3 feet high and scratch our heads,” Nehls told reporters. “That’s it.”
However, Johnson will not be able to secure the position until Jan. 3, when the entire House will hold its speaker election. That vote will come when Republicans are once again managing a slim majority, so Johnson will need to keep his conference in line to avoid the 15 rounds of voting it took for McCarthy to become speaker.
