Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) just took a page out of predecessor Kevin McCarthy’s playbook. And it looks like conservatives are letting him get away with it this time. Sort of.
While Johnson seems to have weathered the storm of conservative ire last week, this week he faced the challenge of swerving a partial government shutdown and keeping his job while doing it.
Without the time or consensus to pass all 12 government funding bills individually—as conservatives have demanded for years—Johnson had to pass another short-term spending bill that extends last year’s budget for another six weeks. The move marks the third time since September that House Republican leadership has agreed to continue a spending plan championed by its nemesis, former Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA).
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In a desperate attempt to cinch a much-needed GOP win, House Freedom Caucus Chairman Bob Good (R-VA) met with Johnson Thursday to press the speaker to attach a bill jam-packed with fanciful GOP immigration policies onto the stopgap funding plan.
“We believe that’s a win for the country,” Good told reporters as he left the meeting while ignoring questions about what repercussions would look like for Johnson if the speaker didn’t get on board with their plan.
Given that Good and his conservative allies asked Johnson to consider the strategy just hours before the House and Senate were slated to leave town ahead of a snowstorm, his proposal didn’t stand a chance. Johnson has expressed little appetite for shutting down the government in the name of hard-right policies that will never pass in the Senate.
Instead, Johnson proceeded with the short-term government funding extension—without any Republican immigration policies attached—to the House floor Thursday evening. To even get the bill on the floor, Johnson had to use a procedural maneuver requiring a two-thirds majority for passage to avoid a partisan vote—the so-called rule vote—where he would have needed the support of virtually every Republican. He knew he wouldn’t get it, so Johnson relied on Democratic support instead, ultimately getting more Democrats to vote for the bill than Republicans.
Since they didn’t get their way—and since they didn’t even get a chance to wreak havoc on the process and block the bill from coming to the floor, like they did last week with an effort to overturn Biden administration policies—conservative hard-liners blasted Johnson. The House Freedom Caucus chairman told reporters that, going forward, Johnson shouldn’t presume his faction would play along on rule votes.
“Don’t presume you’re going to have our votes for the messaging bills that don’t matter,” Good said.
Ultimately, only 107 House Republicans voted for the stopgap measure—just one more than the number of Republicans who voted no. Meanwhile, only two Democrats opposed the legislation.
“The founders gave us the power of the purse in our chamber to stop an out-of-control executive branch. We should dang well use it,” Rep. Chip Roy (R-TX) said during an impassioned floor speech full of angry finger pointing.
If shirking conservative demands to keep the government open sounds familiar, that’s because McCarthy did just that back in September. And as a token of their appreciation, conservatives repaid McCarthy’s act by removing him from the speakership days later.
But with Johnson in the position now, conservatives seem to be much more restrained about booting the speaker. For the most part, the Republican rabble rousers are just shrugging at reporter questions.
“I don’t know right now,” said conservative Rep. Byron Donalds (R-FL) when he was asked about whether the House GOP is heading toward a motion to remove Johnson. “The specifics? I’m not sure. But putting everything on suspension and passing it out? No, this is not sustainable by any stretch of the imagination.”
Influential Freedom Caucus member Rep. Ralph Norman (R-SC) told The Daily Beast that his question was, if you were doing a motion to vacate the chair to remove Johnson, “name somebody that could get the votes.”
Even though McCarthy and Johnson found themselves facing conservative outrage over the same government spending jam, Republican lawmakers suggested the vitriol toward McCarthy was much more personal.
“The motion to vacate was never about a stopgap funding measure,” Rep. Dusty Johnson (R-SD)—chair of the Republican Main Street Caucus—told The Daily Beast. Specifically, he pointed to the grudge that Matt Gaetz held against the speaker.
“Everybody knew that Gaetz was gunning for Kevin McCarthy, even before the January vote,” Johnson said.
Rather than yank the gavel from Johnson, conservatives seem mostly satisfied to raise procedural hell by blocking GOP bills from getting to the floor.
But even if Republicans aren’t willing to oust Johnson and plunge the House back into chaos now, the speaker isn’t out of the woods just yet.
Rep. Eli Crane (R-AZ)—one of the eight Republicans who voted to oust McCarthy—told reporters Wednesday that he thinks the rule allowing a single member to bring a speaker removal vote is “a great tool.”
“I want it to stay in place. And if things continue to go the way that they’re going, do I think that’s a possible outcome? Absolutely,” Crane said.
(Roy conspicuously liked a Punchbowl reporter’s post on X, formerly known as Twitter, quoting Crane’s endorsement of the motion to vacate.)
While Johnson appears likely to survive a the short-term spending deal and perhaps even a long-term agreement with Democrats, for now, the more dangerous legislative item for Johnson appears to be Ukraine aid.
Speaking to reporters after a meeting with the White House, Johnson signaled he is open to passing aid, mentioning “the necessity about Ukraine funding.” But the speaker was clear that he will only take up that assistance if it's coupled with sweeping, conservative immigration reforms.
As the Senate hammers out the details of their national security supplemental—which includes Ukraine, Israel, Taiwan and immigration provisions—Johnson dodged questions this week about whether he would bring that package to the House floor.
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) has threatened that if Johnson does advance Ukraine aid in any form, she will pursue a motion to boot him.
“My red line is the funding of Ukraine,” Greene told The Daily Beast, specifying that no amount of conservative immigration provisions could sway her opposition.
While Donalds said he’s not interested in taking down Johnson over Ukraine or any other legislative item, Donalds said he’s taking Greene’s threats seriously and that conservatives aren’t pleased with the idea of sending assistance to Kyiv.
“Marjorie, she’s serious. That’s not something I want to see happen,” Donalds told The Daily Beast. “But at the same time, our conference is clear. There is not support for Ukraine aid, especially while our border is a mess.”
While there is a growing “America First” sentiment in the House GOP opposed to foreign aid, plenty of House Republicans are open to—even supportive of—passing Ukraine aid, especially if it is paired with immigration restrictions.
Even if that gives the unpopular President Joe Biden a boost in an election year, many Republicans claim to be serious about actually passing immigration policies. If that means funding Ukraine’s defense, so be it.
“If we get meaningful border policy with Ukraine aid, you’re not going to vote for that? Do you want Russia to win more than you want border policy changes? That’s tough, you defend that,” said Rep. Dan Crenshaw (R-TX)
“Some people say, ‘Well, you know, Biden wants it now because it’s helpful to him politically.’ OK. I want border security. That’s what I want,” Crenshaw continued. “That’s what I told my constituents that I would do for them. So if we can get that deal, that’s a no-brainer.”
Even if ousting Johnson isn’t popular, it only takes a handful of disgruntled Republicans to remove the speaker if Democrats get on board like they did against McCarthy. If GOP hardliners try to kick Johnson out of the speaker’s office, some Democrats told The Daily Beast they would be open to keeping him around.
Leadership ally Rep. Dan Kildee (D-MI) said that, if Johnson were to work with Democrats in a bipartisan way, they may consider saving him. One of those potential areas of alignment, he said, could be advancing the Senate’s national security supplemental.
“He would have to incorporate some of our interests into his legislative agenda,” Kildee said of Johnson. “And if he’s not willing to do that, I’m not sure why we would bail him out of a jam that he created for himself.”
But other Democrats were clear they would want to help Johnson save his job if conservatives tried to remove him over crossing some arbitrary, far-right red line.
Rep. Jared Moskowitz (D-FL) was emphatic that, if Greene leads an effort to remove Johnson, he would have the speaker’s back.
“I will never let, and go along with, and participate in Marjorie Taylor Greene vacating any speaker, deciding the speaker, being involved in the removal or appointment of a speaker if my vote can stop that,” Moskowitz said.
