Speaker Mike Johnson’s ability to lead the House of Representatives is growing even more tenuous, and he’s getting hit from all sides.
Johnson is currently facing a possible forced vote, initiated by House Democrats, to pass the Senate’s bipartisan border bill, especially because it includes now desperately-needed funding for Ukraine. House members from both parties are being urged by Democrats and Senate Republican Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, to sign a discharge petition, against Johnson’s wishes.
“Senate GOP Leader Mitch McConnell [is] making multiple public calls just now for House Speaker Mike Johnson to allow a vote on a Senate-passed Ukraine/Israel aid bill. ‘Let the House speak,’ McConnell told reporters,” Jamie Dupree reports. ‘We don’t have time for all of this.'”
Early Monday morning Punchbowl News reported Johnson “said he’d actively work against any and all discharge petitions to bring a bill to a vote.”
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The petition needs 218 votes to pass. Once it does Johnson would have seven days to put the bill on the floor for a vote. It is widely expected it would pass by a large margin, although House members have been slow to sign the petition that’s been open for a few hours.
If Johnson is concerned about his “razor-thin” majority, he just got more bad news. U.S. Rep. Ken Buck (R-CO), who transformed from a wild Freedom Caucus member into a wildcard, had already announced he would not seek re-election. On Tuesday afternoon he announced he is leaving Congress “at the end of next week.” That means after next week, on any given vote Johnson can afford to loose just two members‘ votes, “and that’s if there aren’t any absences.”
Some speculate that with a special election next month in New York, Johnson in theory could be facing a 218-214 majority. “That means Johnson could afford ONE defection at most, since a 216-216 tie kills a bill.”
To make matters worse, Johnson says Buck did not tell him he was pulling up stakes and leaving early, although Buck reportedly left Johnson a voicemail 30 minutes before his announcement.
“I was surprised by Ken’s announcement,” Johnson admitted to reporters.
Buck blasted Republicans, including Donald Trump, in his CNN interview Tuesday.
“It is the worst year of the nine years and three months that I’ve been in Congress. And having talked to former members, it’s the worst year in 40, 50 years to be in Congress,” Buck said.
The bad news for Johnson’s grip on the GOP conference and his speakership continues.
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This week is the House Republicans’ retreat, in West Virginia.
Less than half of the House Republicans are expected to attend.
“Less than 100 House GOP members are going to the Republican retreat in West Virginia this week, per source familiar,” Politico’s Olivia Beavers reports.
“’I’d rather sit down with Hannibal Lecter and eat my own liver,’ said one House Republican when asked if they are attending the House GOP retreat,” Beavers adds.
Putting the state of Johnson’s leadership in context, Aaron Fritschner, the deputy chief of staff to Democratic U.S. Rep. Don Beyer offers this observation: “Retreat is a week after the House GOP conference largely blew off Johnson’s request that they ‘behave themselves’ during the State of the Union, which they interrupted many times with shouting and boos.”
Some Republicans appear to be celebrating Johnson’s slipping grip.
Republican lobbyist and former Jeb Bush campaign senior advisor Al Cárdenas, the former chairman of the American Conservative Union (ACU), the group that puts on CPAC, was quick to weigh in.
Calling Congressman Buck a “fine servant of the people,” Cárdenas surmised: “If 3 more gop members resign; then leadership of the House changes and we can vote on budget; aid to our allies; border security and immigration reform. Sad but true that the gridlock at a specially critical time is a Trump-Johnson maneuver. Rep Buck did the right thing short term; although the best are leaving and that means more of an effort to rebuild the place later on.”
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