Republicans in the House of Representatives are gearing up for an intraparty war early next year over the ability to defend a speaker. While the majority of Republicans despise the instrument that has single-handedly caused repeated chaos in this Congress, some conservatives are willing to fight to preserve it.
Speaker Mike Johnson and other leadership allies have openly indicated they want to increase the number of members needed to force a vote on removing a chairman; Currently, one parliamentarian can call for a referendum. But that fight is inextricably linked to Johnson’s ambitions to remain chairman – the members who want the rule to remain as it is are among the same ones who have not committed to supporting his bid for the gavel, and they are not. afraid to use that power.
It’s not hard to see why most Republicans want to change the rule. The so-called motion to evict allows a small faction of lawmakers to strongly influence the agenda and takes power away from the leadership. Johnson himself has said publicly that the instrument has “harmed this office and our majority in the House of Representatives.”
Right now, there are enough conservatives who resist change to block adjustments to the status quo. In interviews with POLITICO, five Republicans said they believe that group is large enough that it would also be very difficult to change the rule next year. One Republican lawmaker said there are at least eight members who will automatically oppose any changes.
Of course, Republicans in the House of Representatives will have to keep control if they want to set the rules — but if they succeed in November, this all sets the stage for a huge fight in the coming months. The debate would impact not only on whether Johnson could be a speaker in the next congress, but also on the leadership’s power to shape the conference’s agenda, taking into account the wishes of often-rebellious hardliners. In short, if Johnson or other leaders cannot overcome the right flank’s red line, they are set for another potentially chaotic Congress.
Members of the ultra-conservative House Freedom Caucus, as well as some hardliners outside the group, are holding private discussions about what they want to see in next year’s rules package. This means, among other things, that the current impeachment rule must be kept at the same threshold.
“I think it will be very difficult to change,” said Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas). “I think we just have to move on.”
Another Freedom Caucus member, granted anonymity to speak candidly, was more direct: “If they go back to the way things were before McCarthy, I don’t care who the speaker is, they’re going to have the same fight. That’s a reference to the fifteen rounds of voting it took for former Speaker Kevin McCarthy to secure the gavel.
Meanwhile, a larger part of the conference wants the rule revised. Republicans inside and outside the leadership are calling for a hard reset of the power dynamics that have plagued their conference since January 2023 when they believe McCarthy has leaned too far to his right flank. The vast majority of Republicans in the House of Representatives see another protracted speaker battle, like the three-week episode sparked by McCarthy’s impeachment, as a nightmare scenario.
Yet the reality here favors the hardliners. Johnson has a fundamental mathematical problem: He only has a three-vote margin, so he doesn’t currently have the votes within his own conference to raise the impeachment threshold. His best chance is significant majority growth in November, which could be a tall order. Democrats will vote unanimously in opposition to a GOP rules package in January, meaning Johnson can only rely on Republican votes.
“It depends on how big the majority is,” Rep. Morgan Griffith (R-Va.), who has his own ideas on how to change the motion to leave the government, said of the leadership’s chances of successfully to defeat the hardliners.
On rules and leadership battles in general, he added: “If we have a majority of fifteen … there will be no successful battles.”
Private conversations about rule changes go beyond just the motion to vacate. While conservatives have their own behind-the-scenes conversations about how to further empower rank-and-file members, centrists and leaders are playing out their own plans to limit the potential chaos in the next Congress.
Conservatives, in turn, want to set new limits on what bills can pass under the higher two-thirds suspension threshold, a tool Republican leadership has used several times this Congress to bridge holdouts and rely on Democratic help, especially to pass spending bills . .
Meanwhile, a group of centrists have been discussing their own ideas on rules — including forming a formal working group, first reported by POLITICO. These proposals include instituting repercussions for members who vote against bringing a Republican bill to the floor, a tactic conservatives have used against both McCarthy and Johnson to repeatedly sink leadership priorities.
Republicans, including members of the leadership, are separately discussing raising the threshold for a so-called discharge petition, a procedural mechanism that can force action on a bill if it reaches 218 signatures, regardless of leaders’ objections.
Still, it’s the rules regarding ousting a speaker that would likely draw the most attention in the Republican Party’s potential rules battle. And everyone is apparently already dug in.
Republicans could set a higher impeachment threshold as part of their own internal conference rules debate in November — as they did after the 2022 election. But that’s just the opening act; The rules of the House of Representatives will not be official until they are adopted by a full chamber vote in January. Last time, Conservatives refused to vote for McCarthy until he made some of their requested changes to the rules, including lowering the threshold for removing speakers to one member, which were ultimately passed.
“I agreed with what we did at the conference,” said Rep. David Joyce (R-Ohio). “There has to be a better standard than just a few renegades joining the other party.”
Rep. Don Bacon (R-Neb.), another centrist, has suggested that the leadership should make a deal with Democrats, asking the other party to help raise the threshold for motions to leave in exchange for giving more seats on committees.
“I’d close the deal and put that thing behind me,” Bacon said. “But I got a huge pushback: ‘You can’t make a deal with the Democrats.’”
Conservative Rep. Ralph Norman (R-S.C.) said in a brief interview that he is not in favor of raising the threshold, adding, “There is a group of us,” mainly within the Freedom Caucus, who already the impeachment rule and others looks. “pretty careful.” Asked if he thinks the threshold will change in January, he said: “I don’t think it will happen.”
Complicating matters for Johnson and other leaders, a broader group of Republicans would like to see changes to the motion to vacate the election, but not to the fact that only one member can force the vote.
For example, Griffith launched what he described as a “hybrid” model: retaining the current ability for any member to trigger an impeachment vote, but limiting how often this can be used. He suggested that it could not be used against a new speaker for the first six months of his or her employment, and that a period of time would be set before it could be used again if one is raised and fails .
Some proponents of the current rule have suggested that they would be willing to discuss raising the threshold in exchange for other priorities. Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) has said he would be open to raising the threshold for a motion to leave in exchange for ethics and campaign finance reforms — though it is far from clear that a Such an offer would mobilize the larger group of stragglers.
And Roy cautioned that “all things are open to discussion,” but said any change “should be accompanied by something, if anything changes at all.”
“I think it’s an uphill climb to change this,” he added.
