GOP lawmakers pass overhaul of rules
McCarthy sidesteps doubts in first test of his speakership
WASHINGTON — House Republicans on Monday pushed through an overhaul of operating rules for the new Congress, overcoming the concerns of some rank-and-file members about concessions that Speaker Kevin McCarthy made to the hard right last week in the desperate and drawn-out process of securing his job.
McCarthy clinched the speaker’s gavel early Saturday after a historic 15 rounds of voting that stretched across five days, and after giving in to a series of demands from the ultraconservative rebels who opposed him, including allowing any single lawmaker to call a snap vote to oust him. The struggle underscored how difficult it would be for him to corral his narrow majority, and in the hours before the vote on Monday, he was confronting his first challenge, uncertain whether he would have the votes even to approve the rules that would allow the House to begin legislative business.
In the end, a handful of holdouts dropped their opposition and supported the measure, putting aside reservations about McCarthy’s concessions, including some that they worried could lead to deep cuts in military spending.
The package passed on Monday evening in a mostly party-line vote of 220-213, with just one Republican voting “no.” It includes the so-called Holman rule, which allows lawmakers to use spending bills to defund specific programs and fire federal officials or reduce their pay; makes it harder for lawmakers to raise the debt limit; and paves the way for the creation of a select subcommittee under the Judiciary Committee focused on the “weaponization” of the federal
government.
Taken together, the rules increase transparency around how legislation is put together. But they could also make it difficult for the House to carry out even basic duties in the next two years, such as funding the government or avoiding a catastrophic federal debt default.
“Bills appear by dark of night; bills that nobody’s read that are thousands of pages long,” said Representative Steve Scalise of Louisiana, the majority leader. “Today starts that process — of fixing what’s broken in Washington so that Washington can finally start working for the people of this country who are struggling.”
Even as Republicans praised the rules, the full extent of concessions McCarthy had made to appease the hard-right rebels was not yet fully known. Details were trickling out in the hours before the scheduled vote, and some lawmakers expressed doubt that they would ever know the entirety of what the speaker had privately promised.
Many concessions — such as allowing the party’s right wing a critical bloc of seats on the panel that decides which bills can be considered on the House floor and which amendments may be offered — were not included in the package that passed on Monday, but instead were approved in closed-door negotiations with a handshake agreement.
“Some sort of deal was hashed out for the majority of the 20 to vote for McCarthy for speaker, but this deal was crafted in private, behind closed doors,” Representative Nancy Mace, a South Carolina Republican, wrote in a letter to her constituents on Monday. “We can’t think of anything more ‘swampy’ than a member of Congress who tells the American people they’re holding up the speaker vote because they’re ‘fighting’ the ‘swamp’ only to broker some back-room deal, hidden away from the American people.”
Still, Mace, who had initially signaled she might oppose the rules package because she and other rank-and-file lawmakers had yet to be briefed on the full extent of McCarthy’s concessions, supported the legislation after all.
Democrats opposed the rules but said they were even more worried about what else the speaker had agreed to in exchange for crucial support.
“I’m concerned by the backroom deals that Speaker McCarthy made with the Freedom Caucus in exchange for their votes,” Representative Jim McGovern of Worcester, the top Democrat on the Rules Committee, said as he gestured at the rules package.
The Democrats were joined by one Republican. Representative Tony Gonzales of Texas opposed the legislation, citing concerns that McCarthy’s agreement with the rebels on spending changes would lead to a significant cut to the nation’s defense budget. That prospect was a “horrible idea,” he said.
“I’m going to visit Taiwan here in a couple of weeks,” he said on CBS. “How am I going to look at our allies in the eye and say, ‘I need you to increase your defense budget,’ but yet America is going to decrease ours?”
But McCarthy’s team successfully kept defections to a minimum. It was a preview of the task the speaker faces as he works to appease the far right while maintaining the backing of a much larger group of more mainstream conservatives to pass any legislation on the House floor, where he can afford less than a handful of defections.
The concessions enumerated in the rules measure included provisions that conservatives have sought for years in an effort to increase transparency around the legislative process, such as requiring that lawmakers receive the text of bills 72 hours ahead of a vote. It ends proxy voting, a procedure instituted by Democrats during the coronavirus pandemic.
It also includes the stipulation that legislation must address a “single subject,” in an attempt to discourage the introduction of sprawling legislation that mashes together numerous pieces of unrelated bills.
“Kevin has given us so many changes to this institution that will outlast him — whether he lasts six years, two years, or six days into his speakership,” Representative Thomas Massie, a Kentucky Republican, told Spectrum News. “These changes are fundamental.”
House Republicans also pushed through several changes to the way ethics investigations are handled, including setting up a process for the Ethics Committee to receive complaints directly from the public. Ethics watchdog groups have raised alarms about some of the changes, however, arguing the new package could hamper investigations by the Office of Congressional Ethics, which undertakes bipartisan inquiries and then makes recommendations for discipline to the Ethics Committee.
One rule imposes term limits for board members, a move that would have the effect of removing all but one Democrat from the board at a time when it is considering whether to launch an inquiry into certain Republican congressmen over their conduct related to the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol. The rules also require the office to hire investigators within the first 30 days of a new Congress, a deadline watchdogs say may be difficult to meet.