Fascist Rebels Shut Down The House
A dozen neo-fascists in the House showed how they can ground the chamber to a halt if MAGA Mike doesn’t do what they want— which is shut down the government, to help make a case about chaos and dysfunction without Trump. What they did yesterday was an act of revenge for MM making a deal with Schumer to keep the government functioning.
Bob Good, Scott Perry and the others aren’t ready to depose MAGA Mike yet. But they want to make sure he knows they can do it at any moment of their choosing. Thirteen of them used a procedural vote of the rule to allow debate to commence on a trio of bills unrelated to the budgetary beef they have with their party leadership, forcing a cancellation of voting for the day. The final score— 203-216. The culprits:
Bob Good (R-VA)
Scott Perry (R-PA)
Andy Biggs (R-AZ)
Paul Gosar (R-AZ)
Eli Crane (R-AZ)
Chip Roy (R-TX)
Marjorie Traitor Greene (R-GA)
Andy Ogles (R-TN)
Anna Paulina Luna (R-FL)
Matt Rosendale (R-MT)
Ralph Norman (R-SC)
Eric Burlison (R-MO)
Blake Moore (R-UT) voted with the rebels, which allows him to bring up the rule for another vote.
Good, now chair of the Freedom Caucus, announced to a gaggle of reporters: “We’re making a statement that the deal, as has been announced— that doesn’t secure the border and doesn’t cut out spending and is going to be passed apparently under suspension of the rules with predominantly Democrat votes— is unacceptable.”
When asked by a reporter if his band of extremists will continue to tank rules as a sign of opposition against MAGA Mike’s spending deal, Good said, “My hope is to persuade the Speaker and the leadership and the entire Republican conference to not follow through with the deal as it’s been announced.”
MAGA Mike reminded everyone that they have a weak hand— with just one chamber and only a 2-vote majority and the deal he made is the best they could get. “I’m also a conservative hardliner; that’s been my entire career in Congress and all of my years as a legislator. Cutting spending, this is a big priority for us, the Republican Party. What we negotiated in the topline agreement for the appropriations going forward is an innovation. We’re trying to get back to 12 appropriations bills instead of ruling and governing by omnibus spending bills. We’ve done that, we achieved that at the end of last year and now we have to get into the individual spending bills… Chip [Roy] and Ralph [Norman] and others are frustrated it doesn’t go far enough, I’m frustrated too, but remember we have a two-vote margin and only one chamber, only in the House is where we have the majority. And so we have to work with the numbers we have and get the best we can.”
Asked, he insisted his deal will “survive” and said he’s not in jeopardy of a vacate the chair motion.
After the vote, I spoke with a couple of members. Pramila Jayapal, chair of the Progressive Caucus, told me that “Today’s rule went down because MAGA extremists who are there to carry out Trump’s bidding were upset that their new Speaker realized the reality of a 2-vote margin in the House and control by Democrats in the other chamber and the White House. Their new Speaker actually agreed to live by the agreement that the now-ousted Speaker made with President Biden on top-line spending numbers. He did that because he realized that it would be terrible for Republicans to shut down the government over ridiculous demands that could never pass both chambers or be signed into law by a Democratic president. So, for punishment, these MAGA extremists are just pushing chaos and dysfunction— like Trump did for the entire four years he was in office. It’s not a governing strategy. In fact, Republicans have literally gotten NOTHING done: no appropriations bills to fund government, no surveillance reform, no Farm Bill reauthorized. Instead of any of these things, today, we wasted more time on absurd contempt resolution on Hunter Biden (led by a Chairman who himself is in contempt of a subpoena issued by the Jan. 6 committee) and impeachment of Biden and Mayorkas. It’s a sad state of affairs.”
Ted Lieu, a member of House leadership, put it like this: “Today in the Republican-controlled House we all experienced deja vu. House Republicans lost control of the House Floor, AGAIN, by failing to pass a rule to allow voting on subsequent bills. There is a civil war in the Republican caucus between extreme Members of the GOP caucus and very extreme Members of the GOP caucus. These very extreme Members, who are part of the Freedom Caucus, are doing Trump's bidding by causing chaos. These Republicans want dysfunction because they are carrying out Trump's desire to crash the economy to hurt Biden, which would also hurt all Americans. House Republican have shown repeatedly that they cannot govern. It is time to kick them out of office this November and return control to Democrats, who put people over politics and want to pass laws to move the American family forward.”
UPDATE from Ro Khanna:
Ro Khanna dropped me a note after this post went up. “This Congress,” he wrote, “has been one of the least productive in history. A majority of Americans are living paycheck to paycheck. People working full-time jobs can’t even afford rent or think of owning a home. The American people want to see Congress function and pass bipartisan legislation to bring down costs to help the working class. But as we saw yesterday, radical conservatives are more concerned with their own political agenda and cutting funding for programs that help struggling families.”