If there’s one lesson from Kevin McCarthy’s speakership, it’s this: In order to stay in power, you have to give up control.
Facing the prospect of yet another conservative mutiny that would derail the House floor, McCarthy once again conceded to far-right demands and set up votes on controversial topics that conservatives want to go on the record about and GOP moderates wanted to avoid.
In doing so, McCarthy is exposing some of his most vulnerable members to votes that could be used against them in their re-election campaigns while also threatening the overall passage of the annual Pentagon policy bill.
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But like he’s done time and again, McCarthy is handling the most immediate problem first: the prospect of losing control of the House floor. And he’s handling secondary problems—like helping Republicans retain control of the House—second.
The National Defense Authorization Act, a sprawling Pentagon policy bill that has become the closest thing to an annual must-pass bill over the last five decades, was in danger earlier this week because conservatives weren’t getting votes on all the amendments they wanted. That’s typical enough. Lawmakers usually set up debate on hundreds of amendments for the NDAA, while also denying consideration to hundreds more proposals.
But instead of just accepting that some amendments weren’t going to make it into the defense policy bill—or even get a vote—conservatives banded together and threatened to stymie the legislation before it even reached the floor. It would have been another embarrassing failure for McCarthy, who has endured embarrassing setback after embarrassing setback already.
So McCarthy did what he’s had to do multiple times this year: He caved. And in caving, he may have imperiled the legislation anyway—all while still exposing members to tough votes that frontline members would have preferred to avoid.
The Speaker gave conservatives the votes they wanted on dozens of amendments, including ones targeting the Department of Defense’s abortion reimbursement policies, access to transgender health care, slashing Ukraine aid, diversity initiatives at the Pentagon, and plenty more.
Democrats are already indicating they will make Republicans pay politically for advancing extreme policies out of step with the majority of America.
“If they choose to undermine the values of our military and the values of our community and to attack our military families and the men and women who have sworn to give so much, if that is their choice, then they have to live with that choice,” Rep. Jason Crow (D-CO), a retired Army Captain, told reporters Thursday.
“They’re gonna have to deal with it on their own,” Crow added.
Indeed, not only are these votes jeopardizing the GOP’s political prospects come next November, they’re also jeopardizing passage of the overall bill.
The most controversial amendment—the one barring the Pentagon from paying for abortions—was narrowly adopted on Thursday. Just two Republicans, John Duarte (R-CA) and Brian Fitzpatrick (R-PA), voted against the amendment, while just one Democrat—Rep. Henry Cuellar (D-TX)—voted for it. It was adopted 221-213.
But with the inclusion of that policy in the overall bill, just about every Democrat is now expected to vote against final passage of the NDAA.
That means that, unless McCarthy can convince nearly every Republican to support the defense bill—a tough prospect in a five-seat majority—the entire effort this week of allowing these amendment votes will be for naught. The amendment will either have to be stripped, or the House GOP will cede ground to the Democratic Senate, which is working on its own defense policy bill. (Usually, both chambers pass their versions of the defense measure, and then the leaders in each chamber come together in a conference to work out the differences before final passage near the end of the year.)
“They are putting culture wars ahead of national security,” Rep. Elissa Slotkin (D-MI) told reporters Thursday. She added that Republicans “will not stop until there is a federal ban” on abortion.
But Republicans—at least the most conservative ones—seemed mostly unbothered by the potential political and practical ramifications of the abortion amendment.
Rep. Tim Burchett (R-TN) told The Daily Beast that it could be “a defining moment.”
“Or defining amendment, or whatever you want to call it,” he said. “But I think eventually we're gonna have to say, ‘Are we the party of life?’”
Of course, it’s not just the abortion amendment. Rep. Matt Rosendale’s (R-MT) proposal targeting gender transition surgeries and hormone therapy in the military was also narrowly adopted, 222-211.
Still, Republicans were generally standing behind McCarthy’s decision to allow these votes.
“It’s the far left that has created these problems in the first place,” Rep. Dan Crenshaw (R-TX) told The Daily Beast. “So I view these new amendments as simply fixing it and putting the military back to a regular working order.”
Crenshaw continued that he didn’t think it was “correct to write the story as if Republicans are, you know, playing culture war games.”
“Like that’s just not true,” he said. “We’re responding to culture war games.”
Rep. Chip Roy (R-TX), one of the Freedom Caucus members who has most ardently pushed McCarthy to open up the amendment process, said the American people he talks to wanted to see the Pentagon “focusing on defense and not on social engineering.”
“So, you know, saw some good votes today,” he said.
But whether these votes ultimately prevent Republicans from passing the defense bill is an open question.
It would be a fitting conclusion to the episode, after McCarthy gave conservatives what they wanted, because not setting up votes on their amendments would have sunk the legislation. In the end, McCarthy may have gotten the worst of both worlds: exposing his vulnerable members to tough votes while also setting up another embarrassing floor defeat.
At the moment, Republicans are simply trying to navigate the situation as best they can—while not trying to get too much egg on their face.
The fluid situation—where Republicans take hard lines and then go back on their word—has already crossed up one vulnerable GOP member.
Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC), who has been pushing her party to find a “middle ground” on abortion, told reporters on Thursday that she was aghast at the abortion amendment.
“I have strong misgivings about targeting women in the military,” she said. “What message does that send to women who are willing to take a bullet for our country?”
And yet, just hours later in the day, Mace voted in favor of the abortion amendment. She later told reporters “the military doesn’t reimburse travel for elective procedures, as a general policy rule.” She said the amendment preserved that precedent.
(As one reporter pointed out to Mace, elective procedures are not broadly illegal in states, and therefore don’t often require travel.)
But Mace went on, at one point repeating her earlier question on what House Republicans have done for women this year—if anything.
“It’s not gonna pass the Senate anyway. It doesn’t matter. It’s not getting through in the final NDAA,” Mace said. When another reporter pointed out the abortion amendment could sink the bill, Mace responded, “Again, Democrats are smarter than that. Everybody knows that amendment will not stay when it goes to the Senate.”
The amendment might not even stay in the House bill. If McCarthy can’t get sufficient support for NDAA final passage on Friday—which is when the House is supposed to take its final vote—the Speaker may eventually try to strip the abortion amendment in a concession to Democrats.
Such a move would almost certainly cost McCarthy GOP votes, and could damage his standing with his own conference, but it would likely attract more Democratic votes than whatever he loses on his side.
The other option—perhaps the likeliest one—is that Republicans stick together and pass the defense bill on essentially a party-line vote. It would mean exposing his members to these tough votes, and almost all of them going on the record in support of an $886 billion defense budget, which could be yet another tough thing to explain to voters.
But that’s tomorrow’s problem.
