In October of last year, then-House Speaker Kevin McCarthy was ousted from his position after a group of Republican representatives rebelled against party leadership and joined with Democrats to remove him from his post.
House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) is facing many of the same hurdles in the position that his predecessor faced.
A group of Republicans in the House are angry about the spending deal Johnson reached with House Democrats earlier this week, particularly Rep. Chip Roy (R-TX) who would not rule out a motion to vacate on a recent podcast.
“If they totally botch it, we get no policy reforms, and we spend $1.66 trillion, I don’t know why we would keep him as Speaker,” he said.
A group of conservatives have been negotiating with Johnson after protesting the spending deal by derailing procedural votes for Republican bills. They are demanding that the House Speaker pull out of the deal he made with Democrats and enact deeper spending cuts.
The deal Johnson cut with Democrats is largely in line with the one his predecessor agreed to with Democrats in the fall. That deal ultimately led to his ouster as House Speaker after Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) called for a motion to vacate and several Republicans joined with every House Democrat to vote for his ousting.
Gaetz, who has become one of Johnson’s strongest allies among the more conservative wing of the Republican party, said he does not think his colleagues will go through with ousting Johnson.
But Rep. Marjorie Taylor-Greene (R-GA) recently added her name to the list of Republicans who expressed a willingness to call for a motion to vacate after expressing hesitancy to do so earlier this week.
“I don’t know, that could be something,” she said when asked about the possibility. “If those deals are going to be made, then absolutely that’s on the table.” Previously, Greene said the last motion to vacate plunged the GOP into “utter chaos” and said another motion would be the “dumbest thing that could happen.”
With House Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-LA) out while undergoing cancer treatments, it would only take three Republicans to join with every Democrat to remove Johnson from his leadership position.
In McCarthy’s last days as speaker, it was floated that Democrats could strike a deal with him and vote to keep him in the post. That did not happen, but the possibility has been raised again with Johnson.
“Just like I told McCarthy: Talk to [House Minority Leader] Hakeem [Jeffries], and there are some of us that can support you,” Rep. Henry Cuellar (D-TX) said. “I’ll say the same thing [to Johnson].”
But Rep. Juan Vargas (D-CA) said that despite his close personal relationship with Johnson, he would not hesitate to vote him out.
“Oh, we’d vote to vacate the chair — I think uniformly — because we disagree on everything,” Vargas said. “You can’t vote for somebody you disagree with. I think we’d all vote against him for that reason alone.”
Johnson said of the negotiations with members of his party that he is open to some changes but has not committed to anything. He pointed to spending cuts to the IRS and pandemic funding as wins for Republicans in his current deal and insisted it was the best deal Republicans can get while Democrats control the Senate and White House.
Parts of the government will be shut down on January 19 if a spending bill is not passed before then. A more extensive shutdown will occur if a deal is not reached by February 2.
