House Republicans tumble into disarray yet again

House Republican leaders planned to spend this week holding votes on bills to stifle the executive branch’s authority to issue regulations and to pass legislation granting special protections for dangerous gas stoves. After a revolt by members of their caucus, they instead sent everybody home for the weekend without even debating those bills.

This is only the latest example of a Republican majority in disarray.

On Tuesday, Republicans brought to the floor a proposed rule to establish the schedule for debate and votes on four bills. Two, the Save Our Stoves Act and the Gas Stove Protection and Freedom Act, would limit federal health and safety oversight of kitchen appliances. The REINS Act of 2023 would require congressional approval of future major regulations, and the Separation of Powers Restoration Act would eliminate a longstanding principle that courts typically let executive branch agencies interpret laws unless they make a glaring error.

Rules are typically approved along party lines; before this week, none had been rejected in a floor vote since 2002. But 11 right-wing Republicans voted with all 208 Democrats present to defeat the proposal, citing discontent with last month’s bipartisan debt ceiling deal between President Joe Biden and House Speaker Kevin McCarthy. The Republican dissidents claimed that the Fiscal Responsibility Act of 2023 was passed in violation of a secret agreement McCarthy (R-CA) made to secure the speakership. They also said that Georgia Republican Rep. Andrew Clyde had been threatened that if he didn’t help pass it, House leadership would not allow a vote on his bill to repeal a gun safety rule regulating pistols with stabilizing braces. Minority Leader Steve Scalise, who supported the rule, also voted no, to ensure that he could move to reconsider and bring the rule up again in the future.

Florida Republican Rep. Matt Gaetz indicated that the group of Republicans that had helped defeat the rule would continue to block action, tweeting: “House Leadership couldn’t Hold the Line. Now we Hold the Floor.”

When the GOP leadership was unable to resolve the standoff on Tuesday and Wednesday, it opted to give up and canceled all votes for the week. “We’re going to come back on Monday,” McCarthy explained. “There’s a little chaos going on.”

“This is, in my opinion, political incontinence on our part,” Republican Arkansas Rep. Steve Womack told reporters on Wednesday. “We are wetting ourselves and we can’t do anything about it.”

Since winning a narrow five-seat majority in the 2022 midterm elections, House Republicans have struggled to govern.

The GOP majority spent the first several days unable to decide on who to elect speaker of the House. After making secret deals with his critics, McCarthy was elected to the post on the 15th ballot.

The majority caucus was then unable to pass much of its “first two weeks” agenda, bringing up only six of the 11 items Scalise (R-LA) had promised would be “ready-to-go.”

After three months, their agenda remained stalled. McCarthy shared a misleading list of 11 promises he said had been kept, including many outright false claims.

They barely passed the Limit, Save, Grow Act of 2023, which would have rolled back climate investments, safety net programs, and veterans benefits while raising the debt ceiling, on a 217-215 vote.

When Biden and the Democratic majority in the Senate refused to accept the bill, McCarthy negotiated a compromise with the administration. Many members of the House GOP caucus opposed the eventual deal and called it a win for Biden. The bill survived only because 52 Democrats backed the GOP majority’s rule to bring it up for debate  — infuriating opponents of the package — after 29 Republicans voted against considering the legislation.

In the last Congress, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and the Democrats themselves held a narrow five-seat majority. Over those two years, they were able to enact much of Biden’s agenda, including pandemic relief, a bipartisan infrastructure package, and clean energy and health care investments, and never faced an internal revolt.

“Extreme MAGA Republicans have hijacked the House Floor,” House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries tweeted on Wednesday. “They are determined to inflict painful cuts on the American people. We will stop them again.”

Published with permission of The American Independent Foundation.