McCarthy Passes First Test as House Approves Rules Package

Speaker Kevin McCarthy passed the first test of his House leadership as Republicans backed a new set of rules for how the chamber operates, including one that will make it easier for dissidents to challenge him.

Despite some grumbling from swing-district Republicans, the rules were passed on a largely party line vote, 220-213, with Democrats unified in opposition.

A failure to pass the rules package would have halted all work in the House and added to the humiliation McCarthy suffered last week when it took 15 rounds of voting to elect him speaker.

McCarthy is working with a slim 222-212 Republican majority, meaning he can afford no more than four Republican defections on any party-line vote.

Kevin McCarthy

Photographer: Al Drago/Bloomberg

Moderate Texas Republican Tony Gonzales, who had said he objected to conservative threats to cut defense spending, was the lone GOP vote against the rules package.

South Carolina Representative Nancy Mace threatened to reject the changes, but ended up supporting them after she was able to register her objection to the process of secretive talks with conservatives, her office said.

The rules package contains a provision that gives greater power to an ultraconservative GOP faction that wants a confrontation with Democrats that could lead to a market-rattling standoff later this year over the nation’s debt ceiling and legislation keeping the government running.

One of the most significant changes would let just one lawmaker call for an immediate vote of no confidence in the speaker, effectively giving McCarthy’s detractors within his party a veto over his actions.

The threat from a similar rule was part of what drove former Speaker John Boehner from power in 2015, and many Republicans prefer a far higher threshold to prevent a small group of lawmakers from having outsize influence. Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi had changed it to require majority backing when Democrats controlled the House.

The new rule gives McCarthy very little leeway to negotiate any compromises on legislation with the Democratic-controlled Senate without risking a challenge to his authority.

That raises the possibility of a stalemate over the debt ceiling and government funding later in the year. Members of the conservative Freedom Caucus want to leverage any debt ceiling increase — needed sometime after July 1 — to force spending cuts. A similar push by Tea Party Republicans in 2011 threatened a payment default and caused S&P Global Ratings to downgrade the US credit rating.

Republicans also removed a rule that raised the debt ceiling upon adoption of a budget resolution, creating another hurdle to averting fiscal catastrophe.

There is a procedure available to House Democrats to try to force a debt ceiling vote, however. They can file a discharge petition, and if that gets more than 218 signatures, including from moderate members of the GOP, then a bill can be brought to the floor over the speaker’s objections. But that move would require advanced planning given built-in delays in the procedure and could provoke primary challenges to any Republicans who go along.

The House has also adopted several spending provisions that are anathema to Senate Democrats and will add new complexity to reaching accord on spending bills.

One, known as the “Holman Rule,” would allow Congress to use appropriations bills to reduce the salary of or fire specific government officials. With that Republicans could target administration officials they oppose, such as Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas.

Another rule, known as “cut-go,” would require any new spending to be offset by cuts elsewhere in the budget. Deficit-increasing tax cuts are exempt from the new rule.

“The rules reduce the centralization of power in the office of speaker,” Arkansas Republican French Hill, who fashions himself as a watchdog of federal spending, said.

Outside of the formal rules changes, McCarthy agreed separately on a deal with dissidents on future fiscal policy. It commits leadership to seek a $130 billion cut to the fiscal 2024 top-line spending levels. The speaker also agreed to change the way appropriations bills are handled, including allowing unlimited amendments.

Ethics Change

The new rules also change the independent Office of Congressional Ethics in ways watchdogs say weaken its ability to investigate allegations of abuse by members of Congress — which comes as lawmakers wrestle with how to handle newly sworn-in Representative George Santos, a New York Republican who has admitted making up much of his resume.

The changes would effectively remove the current Democratic members of the office and require bipartisan agreement to hire a new staff. In addition, there will now be a 30-day deadline for hiring the staffers, which critics say will be hard to meet.

“When Americans went to the polls last November, they voted to uphold our core democratic values— a government that is accountable to the people,” said Aaron Scherb, senior director of legislative affairs at the watchdog Common Cause. “Now, on the very first day of a new Congress, Republicans have put ethics, accountability, and transparency on the chopping block.”

To contact the reporter on this story:
Erik Wasson in Washington at ewasson@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story:
Joe Sobczyk at jsobczyk@bloomberg.net

Romy Varghese

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