Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas) was the loudest Republican critic of Speaker Mike Johnson’s alternative CR plan. But he was hardly alone in opposing it.
A whopping 38 House Republicans rebelled against the stopgap spending measure, handing the speaker an embarrassing floor defeat after House GOP leadership spent all day scrambling to find an internal agreement on a path forward. Government funding runs out at midnight tonight.
The “no” votes largely consisted of conservatives who detested the idea of raising the debt limit for two years without any offsets or spending cuts. That includes GOP Reps. Scott Perry (Pa.), Eli Crane (Ariz.), Thomas Massie (Ky.), Tim Burchett (Tenn.), Andy Ogles (Tenn.), Ralph Norman (S.C.), Andy Biggs (Ariz.) and Kat Cammack (Fla.).
But there were also some Republicans beyond the usual suspects who opposed the bill. One that especially caught our eye was Rep. Blake Moore (R-Utah), a member of the House GOP leadership team. Rep. Andy Harris (R-Md.), who chairs the Freedom Caucus but is also an appropriations cardinal, voted against it too.
Meanwhile, retiring Reps. Debbie Lesko (R-Ariz.), Jeff Duncan (R-S.C.) and Doug Lamborn (R-Colo.) all rejected the CR. Why vote no when you’re about to leave Congress?
And then there’s Rep. David Schweikert (R-Ariz.), who narrowly won his reelection and will be a top target for Democrats again next year, still opposed the plan.
These are Republicans who theoretically should have been in Johnson’s corner on the CR. But there’s been widespread frustration with how Johnson handled this entire process. Even Rep. Dan Meuser (R-Pa.), one of Johnson’s supporters, said “mistakes were made” by the speaker.
The final vote tally also shows some limits to President-elect Donald Trump’s influence, although he’ll undoubtedly still be running the show next year. Yet Trump is the one who demanded a debt limit increase and endorsed a plan that later failed.
Trump’s target list. The question now is whether any of the Republicans who dared to defy Trump will face repercussions. Trump already called for a primary challenge to Roy, who excoriated his Republican colleagues in a blistering floor speech.
Some Republicans were irritated by Roy’s actions. Rep. Ryan Zinke (R-Mont.) suggested Roy “thinks he’s more important than the incoming president.” Rep. Scott DesJarlais (R-Tenn.), a fellow Freedom Caucus member, told us he thought Roy could have used more “finesse” or been “gentler” in how he communicated his opposition.
But plenty of Freedom Caucus members rallied to Roy’s defense. Perry called him a “friend” and “good man.” Ogles praised Roy for “working diligently.” Rep. Eric Burlison (R-Mo.) predicted it would be difficult to defeat Roy in a primary.
And Massie said once you survive a Trump-fueled primary challenge — like he did — then you have the “antibodies.” Massie also said Trump can’t primary every single Republican who opposed the CR since there were so many of them.
Roy downplayed the threats and whether he’d need to repair his relationship with Trump. “We’ll figure all that out going forward,” he said. “Politics doesn’t drive me. What drives me is saving the country and more debt isn’t going to save the country.”
As far as other forms of blowback, we asked whether Massie, who won’t back Johnson for speaker, was worried about being kicked off the House Rules Committee. But Massie told us he already offered to be taken off the panel next year. He said Johnson is “thinking” about following through on this offer.
