Some House Republicans Try To Set Themselves Up To Not Be Completely Useless As A Majority If They Keep House

Last updated: 2024/10/24 at 10:33 PM

If House Republicans manage to hang onto their majority next month, that’s just the beginning of House Speaker Mike Johnson’s (R-LA) problems.

Johnson and other members of Republican leadership have been open about the fact that the complete and utter dysfunction that’s plagued their slim-majority the last two years must be remedied, if things go in their favor. More specifically: they want to rid themselves of former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy’s (R-CA) greatest mistake, once and for all — raising the threshold for a motion to vacate the speakership.

But even that minor ambition is already running into the same set of problems that has made their now-three-vote majority useless for the last several months; a handful of the hard right members are opposed to changing the rule back to what it was before McCarthy gambled away his entire political career to keep the small-but-mighty group of hardliners happy, giving unprecedented power over the speakership to the blow-everything-up caucus.

According to a new Politico report, there are currently enough far-right lawmakers opposed to raising the number of members required to force a vote to oust the speaker to squash any efforts to change the rules next year. And Republicans can’t be confident that they’ll secure a large enough majority on November 5 — if they secure a majority at all — for that to not be a problem.

Johnson’s rationale for wanting to change the dynamic is obvious. The current rule was designed to give a small-but-annoying group of conservative rebels outsized power over House Republicans’ legislative agenda and leadership as a whole. McCarthy accepted the rule change only to secure enough votes to be elected speaker after an unprecedentedly embarrassing 15 rounds of votes.

The result has been a House majority that is incapable of getting on the same page to pass any legislation without help from Democrats the last two years, as the far-right flank hijacks the legislative process to score extremist messaging points and push their far-right agenda further into the mainstream. Johnson has said that the one-member motion to vacate rule has “harmed this office and our House majority.”

It’s personal for Johnson, too. The very members who want to keep the one-vote rule intact are also the ones who have not publicly endorsed his bid to keep the gavel if they keep the House. Per Politico:

Right now, there are enough conservatives who oppose changes to block any adjustments to the status quo. In interviews with POLITICO, five Republicans said they believe that group is big enough that it would also be highly difficult to change the rule next year. One GOP lawmaker said there are at least eight members who will automatically oppose any adjustments.