As House Speaker, Kevin McCarthy wields a massive amount of power. But one Republican is threatening to derail it all.
And Kevin McCarthy just got the shock of his life from the last person he ever expected.
Early this year, McCarthy barely scraped up enough votes to ensure his role as the Speaker of the House.
Since then, he has been on the war path against Biden’s agenda.
But not every Republican is happy with his leadership, despite his war with Democrats.
Rep. Matt Gaetz vowed to depose House Speaker Kevin McCarthy on Tuesday if he does not keep his promises to GOP hardliners.
If McCarthy (R-Calif.) allows a stopgap measure or continuing resolution to be voted on the floor, Gaetz (R-Fla.) has promised to move forward with the motion to vacate the chair.
“No continuing resolutions, individual spending bills, votes on balanced budgets and term limits,” Gaetz warned.
“Subpoenas for Hunter Biden and the members of the Biden family. Impeach Joe Biden. Do these things or face a motion to vacate the chair.”
McCarthy has stated that he supports a continuing resolution to avoid a government shutdown by the end of the month.
Every fiscal year, Congress must fund the government or the government will shut down. During the debt ceiling debate, both parties agreed to fund the government through 12 appropriations bills rather than one large omnibus package.
However, Congress is still a long way from completing this before the fiscal year ends. This is why several politicians have supported a continuing resolution in order to keep the government operating and buy more time.
Even Gaetz acknowledged that reality in his floor speech.
“There is no way to pass all the appropriations bills now,” Gaetz conceded. “And it’s not like we didn’t know when Sept. 30 was going to show up on the calendar.”
The government will shut down if Congress does not act by September 30, either through the 12 appropriations bills or a continuing resolution.
The approval of the appropriations bills is complicated by a significant difference in spending levels between the House and Senate.
Despite the fact that the two chambers agreed to top-line expenditure levels in the Fiscal Responsibility Act, which broke the debt ceiling crisis, McCarthy has bowed to conservative hardliners’ pressure and directed his appropriators to create smaller bills.
McCarthy’s right flank, the House Freedom Caucus, has called for even larger expenditure cutbacks.
Given the GOP’s razor-thin majority in the house, which Republicans control 222 seats to 212, a motion to vacate requires just one vote to commence and would only require a few Republicans to band together with Democrats to oust him.
McCarthy downplayed Gaetz’s threat to remove him as speaker on Monday, while Gaetz said he was thinking about forming a coalition with Democrats to do so.
Real conservative of you, Matt. Teaming up with Democrats to kick a Republican to the curb.
Stay tuned to the DC Daily Journal.
