Last edited:
Follow along with the video below to see how to install our site as a web app on your home screen.
Note: This feature may not be available in some browsers.
For some context who the Republican House member Don Bacon is:Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) was forced to give in to a series of demands from detractors to win the support necessary to win the Speaker’s gavel after a historic week of failed ballots.
While most GOP lawmakers are downplaying the significance of McCarthy’s concessions, the changes — which are designed to empower rank-and-file members at the expense of his own leadership authority — are also raising concerns that they could cripple the governing functions of the lower chamber
One change in particular — which empowers a single lawmaker to launch the process of ousting the Speaker — is giving heartburn to lawmakers in both parties, who fear a hard-line group of conservatives will use it repeatedly to browbeat McCarthy into keeping crucial must-pass bills off the floor.
The result, they say, will be a heightened risk of shuttering the government, defaulting on federal debts and grinding the business of the House to a screeching halt.
“I think it’s a terrible decision,” said Rep. Don Bacon (R-Neb.).
“If one person can push a motion to vacate, we’ll do this again. How would you like to do this every week?” he said, referring to the internal battle that delayed McCarthy’s Speakership victory for days. “I think that’s the future with a few of these individuals. … It weakens the Speaker, and it strengthens the smallest caucus of all the caucuses.”
Some of McCarthy’s conservative critics have also demanded that any move to raise the nation’s debt ceiling — which allows the government to borrow money to pay its obligations — must be accompanied by cuts in the nation’s entitlement programs, including Social Security and Medicare. And a provision of the new House rules package requires a separate vote on hiking the debt limit.
“It’s safe to say that we believe there ought to be specific, concrete limits on spending attached to a debt ceiling increase,” Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas) told reporters in the Capitol on Thursday.
“There will be no clean debt ceiling increase, that’s for sure,” echoed Rep. Scott Perry (R-Pa.), another McCarthy opponent who was brought around to support him by the new concessions.
That demand has prompted howls from Democrats, who want to protect the nation’s safety net programs and fear the heightened risk of a federal default if McCarthy yields to the conservatives’ wishes.
“If they do the debt ceiling, we’re screwed,” a Democratic lawmaker said Friday.
Another major concern for centrist Republicans throughout the week’s marathon negotiations was the conservatives’ push to win more subcommittee gavels for themselves — an idea that infuriated those already in line for those seats.
Bacon had called it “a non-starter,” particularly among the more moderate Republicans who have worked their way up the ladder into those seats.
“If you’re talking about chairmanships and things like that, they’re gonna have to still earn it,” Bacon said. “I call it affirmative action for [the] smallest of the caucuses to put them in leadership roles when they’ve not earned it. We believe in a merit-based system on the GOP side.”
Rep. Ann Wagner (R-Mo.), who has served in the House since 2013, also highlighted the “seniority process” for chairmanships.
“Everybody has to work their way through the seniority process and earn positions on both committees and gavels and things of that nature,” she said.
The other changes adopted by Republicans as they open the 118th Congress are less controversial. They include a guaranteed floor vote to establish term limits for all House lawmakers; an open amendment process, providing rank-and-file lawmakers with more power to alter legislation; adoption of the so-called Holman rule, which grants Congress new powers over federal agencies; and a 72-hour rule, which requires a full three days to allow lawmakers to read bills before they hit the floor.
Those changes have all been adopted at points in the past. And most Republicans are brushing aside any narrative that McCarthy gave too much up for the gavel in return.
“No, I don’t think so,” said Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.), who emerged as one of McCarthy’s most vocal advocates amid the Speaker’s race.
“These concessions have been agreed to by our conference, and ultimately I believe it’s going to lead to a more people-driven legislative process,” said Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-Wash.). “It’s about restoring more power and decision-making to the members.”
Rep. Dan Crenshaw (R-Texas) downplayed concerns about even the single-member motion to vacate, saying there is little difference between a one-person or five-person threshold, which was the minimum in the initial rules package.
“You already agreed to five. What’s the difference between five and one?” he said. “It’s an accountability issue. So let’s just all work as a team, and it’ll be fine.”
McCarthy himself is also defending the ninth-inning negotiation, assuring that the key concession will not make him a “weaker Speaker.”
“It would only be a weaker Speaker if I was afraid of it,” he told reporters Thursday night. “I won’t be a weaker Speaker.”
“That’s the way it’s always been except for the last Speaker. I think I’m very fine with that,” he added.
But Democrats are sounding the alarm, warning that the California Republican’s offer to his right flank diminishes his authority at the detriment of stable governance.
Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), who had eliminated the single-person vacate rule as Speaker in the previous two Congresses, called its reinstatement “ridiculous.”
Rep. Steny Hoyer (D-Md.), the previous House majority leader, said the deal gives too much power to the Republicans’ far-right fringe.
“I think he gave away much more than I wish he’d given,” Hoyer said. “I think it does give to a small, willful faction of his caucus, a negative faction of his caucus, a faction of his caucus that has been almost uniformly obstructionist, more authority than they ought to have.”
Stuff like the term limits and Texas Border Plan won't ever pass a House vote courtesy of the Dems, but rules changes and the like will prove to be a serious thorn. McCarthy can renege on them by next week and have to fight, beg, and plead for every bill as Gaetz goes scorched earth, or commit to them and have to do the same when someone decides they've had enough with him as Speaker (or a Dem screams racism, whichever happens first). Either way nothing of substance gets done.
- As has been reported, it will only take a single congressperson, acting in what is known as a Jeffersonian Motion, to move to remove the Speaker if he or she goes back on their word or policy agenda.
- A “Church” style committee will be convened to look into the weaponization of the FBI and other government organizations (presumably the CIA, the subject of the original Church Committee) against the American people.
- Term limits will be put up for a vote.
- Bills presented to Congress will be single subject, not omnibus with all the attendant earmarks, and there will be a 72-hour minimum period to read them.
- The Texas Border Plan will be put before Congress. From The Hill: “The four-pronged plan aims to ‘Complete Physical Border Infrastructure,’ ‘Fix Border Enforcement Policies,’ ‘Enforce our Laws in the Interior’ and ‘Target Cartels & Criminal Organizations.'”
- COVID mandates will be ended as will all funding for them, including so-called “emergency funding.”
- Budget bills would stop the endless increases in the debt ceiling and hold the Senate accountable for the same.
Fair, but my point is due to the make up of the senate, they can't achieve much even if they wanted to. If the Senate was also republican? Oh they could cock block a mean storm, but the Dem senate will already take care of that anyway. Change the 20 for rinos and the only thing passing through house and senate is bipartisan stuff that in a healthy environment would just be normal negotiations, but in our current setup it just translates to uniparry shit were the left and right hand can get along.@ShitLurker the recent omnibus bill is a bad example to bring up since it was already passed before this Congress began its session. I understand your sentiment nonetheless. All I'm saying is that they could be a thorn on the RINO side. I'm not counting on that though, and even if they were, we all know the RINOs will find a way to enough Leftists to join their side provided they offer them a lot of concessions.
Proposed is a powerful word, promised or guaranteed are more so though.
Sounds great, but I need to know how enforceable this is. I remember I think Gehena saying that a republicans value within the party is only as relevant as it's ability to keep promises, but I was also told the Maralago raid was a big deal for the republicans and it ended up being a non issue for them since it hit "the outsider". Why would they keep promises for what they see as a tumor? What is stopping them? What are the consequences? And how can democrats abuse any of those points as well?
It's much easier to mindlessly "doompost" than to think logically.Loads of retards here falling for doomer and blackpilling memes without actually thinking about the situation. You guys are massively misunderstanding how these votes work, and how politics themselves are supposed to work.
I can't believe I pine for the days when we were head over heels for Israel.
Amazing how the khokhols have managed to out-Jew the Jews, isn't it?I can't believe I pine for the days when we were head over heels for Israel.
No shit, but rules for thee and not for me make "if a right wing did that, it would be totes different!" be irrelevant. Never forget, you live in anarcho tyrany.@ShitLurker if babit's mom deserves to be ahot, so does the 2020 rioters considering the damage they caused compared to babi's mom jaywalking.