Eight House Republicans scored one of the greatest political own goals of our time on Oct. 3. Alongside every House Democrat, they booted Rep. Kevin McCarthy from the Speaker’s chair, plunging the chamber into chaos. Unsurprisingly, the arsonists had no plan to quench the fire they lit. For three weeks, the House was paralyzed as Speaker nominee after Speaker nominee fell short of the 217-vote threshold to win the top job. Eventually, the calculus became quite simple: the next Speaker would be the first person to prove that they had fewer than five enemies in the House GOP. Mike Johnson was the man. The unheralded Louisiana lawyer launched from the seventh position in Conference leadership to second in the Presidential line of succession. Now, he needs to jumpstart a stalled appropriations process and stave off a government shutdown while navigating the same minefield that ended his predecessor’s career.
Even with a new face on top, the fundamental dynamics in the House have not changed. Freedom Caucus members on the right flank of the Republican Conference continue to derive maximum political utility from blanket opposition to spending bills. They’d rather swing for the moon and strike out than compromise and head to first base. As Donald Trump’s continued domination of the GOP primary reminds us, a large chunk of the Republican base prefers a principled loss to a practical victory. That segment of the base, too, seems to be the one that responds to the fundraising emails and tunes into the Fox News hits, wielding outsized power in our modern political process.
Unable to carry the load on appropriations with Republican votes, then, the Speaker’s natural play would be to look across the aisle and ask Democrats to help shoulder the burden. Indeed, that’s what the last Speaker did, as reported by The New York Times. For that very reason, he’s not the Speaker anymore. And the math problem that bedeviled Kevin McCarthy has not changed.
A fight about trains outlines the problem: last week, a Transportation, Housing and Urban Development (THUD) bill was pulled from the House floor at the last minute. Why? As Rep. Tom Cole recounted to a Politico reporter, eight to ten House Republicans opposed the bill because it cut Amtrak funding, and another eight to ten opposed it because it funded Amtrak at all. The reporter wryly noted in a post on X, formerly Twitter, that “[Cole] needs both to vote for the bill.”
Even if Speaker Johnson could solve the math problem that sent the THUD bill spiraling and pass appropriations bills with Republican votes, though, it wouldn’t matter. With Democrats controlling the Senate and the White House, any bill that successfully funds the government will require their support. There’s simply no chance that the Freedom Caucus will vote for such a bill. A bipartisan solution is the only one.
Ultimately, then, the functioning of the House and the funding of the government will come down to Mike Johnson’s personal politics. Will he be able to pass bipartisan spending bills without suffering Kevin McCarthy’s fate, just because the most conservative members of the House see Johnson as one of their own? It’s entirely possible that the answer is yes. Speaker McCarthy, in an interview with CBS News, emphasized that Rep. Matt Gaetz’s charge to oust him was “personal” rather than policy-driven. Likewise, Rep. Tim Burchett told CNN that he voted to remove McCarthy at least in part because of a “condescending” remark McCarthy made about Burchett’s faith. It’s safe to assume that Johnson won’t make a similar mistake: in his first speech as Speaker, he emphasized his devout Christianity.
The personal nature of these disputes reinforces the futility of the entire motion to vacate. But it is simultaneously true that Johnson’s honeymoon period might give him the critical room to maneuver. Johnson, remember, rose to the Speakership because he had no enemies within the House GOP. Kevin McCarthy had many — the Freedom Caucus simply did not trust him as a faithful supporter of their cause. When McCarthy made the snap call to pass a stopgap funding bill with near-unanimous Democrat support, the rebels felt he was selling them out. Johnson’s conservative bona fides make such a reaction far less likely. With him atop the Conference, the Oct. 3 renegades might see a bipartisan spending deal for what it is: a simple acknowledgment of political reality.
