The Archive

News: House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy will gather key Republican lawmakers on a 1 p.m. conference call to discuss major changes to the chamber’s rules. This call comes just days ahead of next Tuesday’s speaker vote on the House floor, a make-or-break moment for the California Republican.

McCarthy has been negotiating for weeks over House rules changes with a handful of conservative hardliners who oppose his ascension to speaker. Unless he’s able to win over these holdouts, McCarthy cannot capture the speakership. But if he gives away too much, McCarthy risks alienating more moderate Republicans while also undermining his own ability to run the House.

In recent weeks, House conservatives have asked McCarthy to agree to raise the threshold for discharging a bill from committee from a simple majority to two-thirds of the chamber’s lawmakers. The discharge-petition process is used to bring bills to the floor that don’t have the support of House leaders. This demand from conservatives hasn’t been previously reported.

Some in the House GOP have seen a discharge petition as a way to lift the debt ceiling in 2023. Under this scenario, all House Democrats can join with five House Republicans to bring a debt limit increase to the floor and avert a potentially disastrous debt crisis, even if the leadership opposes the move.

Agreeing to the conservatives’ request to modify the discharge-petition process would change the fabric of the House from a majority-rule institution to one where a two-thirds majority is needed to bring legislation to the floor.

McCarthy has balked at this change, multiple sources have told us. In the leadership’s view, GOP leaders can’t agree to a two-thirds requirement to bring a bill to the floor. You can read about the discharge petition in this CRS report.

However, McCarthy has also tentatively agreed to a five-person threshold to force a vote on a “motion to vacate the chair,” essentially a no-confidence vote on the speaker.

Current House rules dictate that only a party leader can seek such a vote. Hardline conservatives have demanded the rule be changed to allow any member to offer such a motion, as it was under the previous GOP majority. This is a major sticking point for McCarthy detractors among House Republicans. This new proposal represents a serious concession by McCarthy.

The way McCarthy’s orbit sees it, any five moderate Republicans can join with Democrats to pass a piece of policy with the discharge petition set at a simple majority. And any five Republicans can seek a vote to remove the speaker. It is mutually assured destruction, as one McCarthy ally put it.

Our friend Melanie Zanona at CNN was the first to report the five-vote threshold proposal on the motion to vacate.

McCarthy is also considering a “Church-style” committee to investigate the Biden administration and what conservatives say is the “weaponization of government.” Also, McCarthy is considering writing into the House rules that legislation needs to focus on one single subject and germane amendments to bills must be made in order, according to sources close to the talks.

The simple fact is this – there are just four days until the vote for speaker and McCarthy is still short of the support he needs to win that vote. McCarthy’s team has gained access to the speaker’s office suite on the second floor of the Capitol. But whether he takes possession of it for good isn’t entirely clear.

McCarthy has spent all of the Christmas break negotiating with House conservatives. It’s become conventional wisdom in McCarthy’s circle that the California Republican may not win the speakership on the first ballot. But McCarthy’s team is hoping this trade – a five-vote threshold on the motion to vacate – will help him seal the votes he needs to win the gavel.

Yet the five-vote threshold presents a whole new reality for McCarthy. It means that if five members believe he has slipped up or not upheld a promise, 2% of the House GOP can force a vote of no confidence and try to boot McCarthy from the speakership.

– Jake Sherman and John Bresnahan