Hockey brawls to debt limit: Emmer wrangles House GOP votes

WASHINGTON (AP) — The way Republican Rep. Tom Emmer tells it, the lousiest job he ever had — he has a saltier way of describing it — was running the House Republican campaign committee.

But after having helped lead his party back into control of the House in November, the former youth hockey coach now must round up votes from those Republicans, as the majority whip, in order to pass GOP priorities.

Corralling colleagues for their support on the debt ceiling, spending cuts and investigating the Biden administration will be tough work for the third-ranking leader who has served in

Congress since 2015. With Republicans holding only 222 seats in the 435-member House, almost everyone is needed to reach the 218 votes needed for approving most bills.

Just agreeing to elect California Rep. Kevin McCarthy as the House speaker took 15 ballots.

Emmer was a central negotiator in that effort, hammering out the side-deal to win over holdouts after endless meetings in his firstfloor office at the Capitol. It was a crash-course for the budget battles and showdowns ahead.

A look at how the roughand-tumble Minnesotan told The Associated Press

he plans to tackle the job.

SPEAKER’S ELECTION AS HOCKEY BRAWL

Before joining Congress, Emmer was a lawyer and state legislator. Some of his most applicable professional experience, however, comes from coaching hockey.

When McCarthy failed to win the speaker’s race on the first votes, Emmer convened the holdouts in his still new Capitol office, so bare there are no pictures hanging on the walls.

“Good teams are always going to have differences of opinion,” Emmer said. “If you don’t let them express that, you are never going to succeed.”

Emmer told the story of a fabled hockey coach who would let players fight it out during practices — almost encouraging it, he said — much the way Republicans nearly came to blows on the House floor during the speaker’s election.

“You know what, these guys actually become closer,” Emmer said.

BRACING FOR BUDGET BATTLES

Emmer is not part of the conservative House Freedom Caucus. In fact, some Republicans did not think he was conservative enough for the leadership post.

But he won his own internal GOP election to become the whip, brushing back two challengers. When it came time to broker the deal for McCarthy’s election, Emmer had to win over some of those same conservative holdouts.

One of the many key concessions McCarthy made to earn the votes of his detractors was a commitment to return to federal spending to 2022 budget levels. Cuts of that size would amount to an 8% reduction in domestic defense, veterans and domestic accounts — or even more, 17%, if the Pentagon money is spared.

The Republicans also agreed to aim for a balanced budget in 10 years.

From Emmer’s point of view, much of what was agreed to with the holdouts is “aspirational.”

“Some might criticize me when I say it’s an aspirational document because they think it’s more than that, and they’re right,” Emmer said. “Because we now have to hold ourselves to this.”

SPEAKER BOEHNER, SPEAKER RYAN AND DEBT CEILINGS PAST

One of the biggest challenges Emmer will face is rounding up the votes for the coming debt ceiling showdown.

Congress is being asked by the Treasury Department to raise the nation’s debt cap so it can borrow more money to pay off the nation’s already accruing bills.