House Leaders Cancel Votes for the Entire Week, Citing 'Chaos' on the Floor
Floor votes in the House have been canceled for the week as House Speaker Kevin McCarthy tries to quell a Republican revolt from the House Freedom Caucus.
The conservative group of lawmakers took the unusual step of torpedoing a rule in a Tuesday vote to get McCarthy’s attention and let the California GOP leader know that concerns over the debt ceiling compromise bill that Congress passed last week are not going away.
That led to a series of Wednesday meetings until McCarthy admitted more time was needed.
“What we’re gonna do is we’re gonna come back on Monday, work through it and be back working for the American public,” the speaker said, according to The Hill.
“Just like every time we go through it here — we’ve got a small majority. There’s a little chaos going on,” McCarthy said. “But the focus I always keep is right in front of the windshield of the American public, and we’re gonna work to solve the American public’s problems.”
He said the demands of Freedom Caucus members are hazy.
“This is the difficult thing,” he said, according to The Washington Post. “Some of these members, they don’t know what to ask for.”
Caucus members disagreed.
Republican Rep. Ken Buck of Colorado said he knows exactly what he wants – less spending.
“There was an agreement in January and it was violated in the debt ceiling bill,” he said, according to The New York Times.
Buck said his goal in working with McCarthy is “how to restore some of that agreement.”
“There are over a thousand unauthorized government programs that continue to be funded without oversight, congressional hearings or a reauthorization vote. Promises were made earlier this year regarding spending; I expect those commitments to be kept,” Buck said, according to the Post.
Establishment Republicans said the Freedom Caucus is making all House Republicans look bad.
“This is, in my opinion, political incontinence on our part. We are wetting ourselves and can’t do anything about it,” Republican Rep. Steve Womack of Arkansas said. “This is insane. This is not the way a governing majority is expected to behave. And frankly, I think there’ll be a political cost to it.”
He added, “You got the tail wagging the dog. You got a small group of people who are pissed off that are keeping the House of Representatives from functioning today, and I think the American people are not going to take too kindly to that.”
But Republican Rep. Matt Gaetz of Florida said the Freedom Caucus needs to make a stand, according to Fox News.
“Kevin can’t choose House conservatives as his coalition partner on things that are messaging bills and facial in nature, and then choose to keep [House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries] as his coalition partner on consequential $4 trillion decisions,” Gaetz said.
Our message to Speaker McCarthy is simple: he has to be in a monogamous relationship with one coalition or the other.
He can’t parade around with House conservatives on his arm for five months, and then jump in the backseat with Hakeem Jeffries when he wants to do a $4 trillion… pic.twitter.com/74S1Y7JXkC
— Rep. Matt Gaetz (@RepMattGaetz) June 7, 2023
“Right now, you know, we see Hakeem Jeffries as the more consequential coalition partner in Kevin’s eyes, and we don’t want that to be true. We want Kevin to be our speaker, not Hakeem’s speaker,” Gaetz said, referring to the New York Democrat.
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