Republican disarray over the debt ceiling deal has some fun twists. The Freedom Caucus is furious—but despite all the concessions won by far-right Republicans that allowed Kevin McCarthy to eke out the votes he needed to become speaker of the House, they don’t seem to have the leverage they were expecting.
The big weapon the extremist Republicans demanded from McCarthy (and got) was the motion to vacate the chair, a rule that would allow anyone to call for a new speaker vote at any time. That was supposed to keep McCarthy in line—too afraid of being replaced in humiliating fashion to go against the Freedom Caucus and its close allies. But that weapon isn’t looking so potent now; while plenty of Republicans are angry about McCarthy’s debt ceiling deal, there aren’t any plausible candidates to replace him.
Reps. Ken Buck and Paul Gosar have floated the idea of using the motion to vacate, or at least the threat of it, and Rep. Dan Bishop said it was “absolutely” on the table. But for all the yelling and rage about the debt deal, the motion to vacate is not getting a lot of traction. “It would fail,” Rep. Matt Gaetz tweeted. Rep. Andy Ogles told a reporter, “I don’t see that happening.”
Even in January, as they showed their strength by forcing McCarthy to go through 15 votes before becoming speaker, the far-right Republicans never managed to coalesce around an alternative candidate for speaker, with none of the people who could potentially have gotten the needed support—like House Majority Leader Steve Scalise—willing to challenge McCarthy or having any interest in the job. That should have been their warning sign about the limits of the power they were amassing through the concessions they got from McCarthy. But these are not people who think beyond destruction, and they figured they had the power they needed to be destructive.
Rep. Chip Roy is claiming that the deals McCarthy made prevent the bill from getting to the House floor without the support of every Republican on the Rules Committee, a deal other Republicans don’t seem to have known about. Considering the pathetic bargaining McCarthy engaged in back in January, it’s not surprising to have new concessions coming out of the woodwork, but Roy is also not necessarily the most reliable source here. While his fellow Freedom Caucus/Rules Committee member Rep. Ralph Norman said Tuesday he would work to stop the deal in committee, he didn’t mention that supposed agreement.
Although the motion to vacate doesn’t look likely and Roy doesn’t seem to have support for his claim that Republican unanimity on the Rules Committee is required, the party’s disarray over the debt ceiling deal isn’t abating. Every member of the Freedom Caucus appears to be sprinting out in front of TV cameras to denounce the deal, and McCarthy for making it, offering their speaker a solid reminder of why his Republican predecessors, Paul Ryan and John Boehner, both left rather than deal with the infighting in their caucus. Luckily for him, the Freedom Caucus itself has descended into the same level of chaos it usually inflicts on House Republican leadership.
Worse yet for McCarthy, the opposition isn’t only coming from the Freedom Caucus and its allies. Rep. Nancy Mace, who occasionally likes to try to position herself as a voice of reason, says she’s a no on the deal. So does Rep. George Santos, despite owing his political survival to McCarthy. Rep. Victoria Spartz is also opposed. The level of Republican opposition leaves McCarthy relying on Democratic votes to pass the bill, and relying on Democratic votes has been anathema to Republicans in recent years. It would be a serious blow to McCarthy’s speakership … if the Republicans angry about it had any capacity to organize their opposition enough to take him down.
We speak with Anderson Clayton, the 25-year-old chair of North Carolina’s Democratic Party. Clayton has a big-picture plan for 2024, and explains the granular changes needed to get out the vote on college campuses and in the rural communities of the Tar Heel State.
