Holding the house together

MYRNA BROWN, HOST: Coming up next on The World and Everything in It: Keeping the Republican House majority together.

Back in January, Representative Kevin McCarthy was elected Speaker of the House by his peers after 15 ballots. In order to get the Speaker’s gavel, McCarthy made significant concessions to win over some of the most conservative Republicans.

PAUL BUTLER, HOST: But now almost six months on, the Speaker is finding it challenging to keep his House majority united.

WORLD’s Washington Bureau reporter Leo Briceno reports:

LEO BRICENO, REPORTER: Kevin McCarthy is one of the most powerful people in Washington, D.C. As the Republican Speaker of the House of Representatives, He decides the policy priorities of the chamber. He appoints members to committees. He controls what votes come to the floor.

KEVIN MCCARTHY: Those in favor say ‘Aye.’ Those opposed? The ‘Ayes’ have it. This portion of the resolution is agreed to, and without objection, the motion to consider it is laid on the table. Now if we could just have all votes like that.

BRICENO: But it only takes five stray Republican votes to derail that power. That’s because the GOP holds one of the slimmest majorities ever in the House of Representatives—tied for the fifth smallest in American history. Without a majority consensus, the chamber can’t consider or pass legislation.

Dr. Matthew Green is the chair of the department of politics at the Catholic University of America. Green says that keeping that small majority working together makes up a large part of McCarthy’s job as speaker.

MATTHEW GREEN: The speaker has to find how to keep his or her party unified on key issues. And so there’s what we in political science call a coalition management job. You’ve got to keep the moderates happy, you’ve got to keep folks from rural areas and urban areas happy, and you’ve got this diversity you have to deal with.

BRICENO: That job got harder earlier this month when a group of eleven conservatives temporarily brought the camber to a sudden stop. Together, they derailed bills that had been expected to pass by refusing to vote alongside the rest of the GOP … and so turned the majority into a minority.

These Republicans strongly object to McCarthy’s leadership when it comes to spending. To become Speaker, McCarthy promised to cut the national deficit. After almost half a year of his leadership, many of the GOP’s members don’t think he’s done enough to make good on that promise. And Republicans more broadly have mixed perspectives on the job he’s done thus far.

In late May, Chip Roy, a member of the powerful House Rules Committee, took issue with McCarthy’s recent deal with President Joe Biden to suspend the debt ceiling.

CHIP ROY: My beef is that you cut a deal that should have never been cut.

Green says that frustration is to be expected.

GREEN: The assumption is often when people talk about compromise that it’s compromise between parties. But because our political parties are relatively diverse, it also requires compromise internally. That’s where it gets really challenging to make deals is with members like that.

That poses a question about McCarthy’s ability to lead on future pieces of legislation. That agenda could include things like the Federal Aviation Administration Reauthorization Act for funding and managing the nation’s airports; The Farm Bill that helps maintain the country’s agricultural industry; And the National Defense Authorization Act, which supplies the military’s needs. But perhaps the greatest challenge for McCarthy will be passing the nation’s appropriations bills.

GREEN: Appropriation bills are what are required to fund the government for the following fiscal year which starts from the end of September in one year to the end of September in the next year, and those have to pass every year.

BRICENO: Green explained that Congress has twelve separate bills it passes to fund the government. Each bill funds an area like defense, healthcare, transportation, and so on.

GREEN: If any of those bills are not enacted into law that agency that’s funded by that bill, and all the programs it runs, have no money and then they simply cannot operate.

That could lead to a partial or whole government shutdown. Green explained that because these bills hit close to home for Republicans who want to see a more fiscally conservative government, McCarthy may have trouble getting GOP Representatives on the same page. McCarthy has impressed many onlookers by threading the needle on negotiating with a Democratic president and Democratic senate. But appeasing them and maintaining Republican support behind him is a challenge that isn’t likely to go away any time soon.

GREEN: I do think it’s too early to say that McCarthy is the master of his party, because it’s June 2023, there’s a year and a half left to go in his first term as speaker. Having said that, I think it is safe to say that he has defied expectations. He’s certainly defied my expectations.

Reporting for WORLD, I’m Leo Briceno in Washington D.C.

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