Some Republicans Hint at Reckoning With McCarthy After Debt Ceiling Vote

House Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) (R) talks to Rep.-elect Chip Roy (R-Texas) (C) and Rep.-elect Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) in the House chamber during elections for Speaker of the House at the U.S. Capitol Building on Jan. 4, 2023. (Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)

The tension between House Republican leaders and the House Freedom Caucus resurfaced with the passage of the Fiscal Responsibility Act on June 1.

The law resulted from negotiations between House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) and President Joe Biden over terms for raising the nation’s $31.4 trillion debt ceiling. It was approved by a wide margin in both the House and the Senate.

Yet the bill angered the most conservative members of the House, and some in the Senate, who believe the speaker sacrificed too much to close the deal.

Some members of the House Freedom Caucus mounted a spirited effort to derail the legislation and nearly succeeded in killing it in committee.

Now, a few of those members have hinted at a reckoning with McCarthy for his handling of the negotiations.

Showdown Looming

“More Democrats voted for this bill than Republicans,” Rep. Ken Buck (R-Colo.) told CNN on June 4. “This bill is a Democrat bill. It is a bill that not only avoided a default but also locked in the progressive gains that the president made in the last two years.”

Rep. Ken Buck (R-Colo.)  speaking at the 2017 Conservative Political Action Conference in National Harbor, Md. (Gage Skidmore /CC BY-SA 2.0)

Nearly half of the 71 Republicans who voted against the bill are members of the House Freedom Caucus.

Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas) also aired his grievance over the legislation.

“[House GOP leadership] were all working together ... and figuring out how to work the best deal that we could,” Roy said in a June 1 radio interview. “[GOP leadership] broke from that, and we need to get back with the program, or we need to kind of have a little bit of a reckoning over it.”

Roy might have been hinting at a vote to vacate the speaker’s chair, which can be called by any member of the House. GOP hard-liners won that right in negotiations with McCarthy during his election as speaker in January.

The narrow GOP House majority, 222-213, in the 118th Congress allowed a small group of conservatives to block McCarthy’s election for several days. McCarthy was eventually elected on the 15th ballot after making various concessions to the group.

Asked whether a move against McCarthy by his own party is likely, Buck left the possibility open.

“I don’t know if a motion to vacate is going to happen right away,” he said. “A lot of people voted for this because they have other interests that Kevin McCarthy has assured them. But that doesn’t mean that they are satisfied with his leadership.”

House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) speaks at the U.S. Capitol in Washington on May 31, 2023. (Mandel Ngan/AFP via Getty Images)

McCarthy’s credibility with members of his party is in question, according to Buck, because he initially said he would reduce 2024 federal spending to the 2022 level, but settled for a smaller reduction.

McCarthy Not Worried

House leaders also took to the airwaves after the passage of the bill, warning hard-liners that future attempts to hold up their party’s legislation won’t be tolerated.

“We can’t continue to see challenges like that,” Rep. Garret Graves (R-La.) said during a June 4 interview with CBS.

“Their goals are trying to change the trajectory of spending, transform Washington in a way that’s more responsive, long term, thinking about the next generation and the fiscal crisis that we’re approaching,” he said. “In this case, I think that leverage was trying to be exercised that really threatened the economy in a large way.”

Graves worked closely with McCarthy on the debt ceiling measure, serving as one of two lead negotiators with the White House.

McCarthy seemed unperturbed when asked about the possibility of a motion to vacate the chair.

“Everybody has the ability to do what they want,“ McCarthy told reporters on June 2. ”But if you think I’m going to wake up in the morning and be worried about that, it doesn’t bother me. If someone thinks that, they have the right to do it. Call the vote.”

Buck, however, sees McCarthy as weakened by his dependence on Democrats to pass the bill.

In a procedural vote to allow the Fiscal Responsibility Act to be heard by the full House, the speaker relied on 52 Democrats to vote yes.

“That’s really unheard of. And it shows weakness,” Buck said. “And I think that’s the sort of weakness that Republicans are looking at, and trying to make a determination whether he will be fit to serve.”

While the House Freedom Caucus may not be prepared to challenge McCarthy’s speakership at present, Buck believes the group remains a force to be reckoned with.

Sen. James Lankford (R-Okla.) speaks during a Senate Finance Committee hearing in Washington on Oct. 19, 2021. (Mandel Ngan/POOL/AFP via Getty Images)

“I think the House Freedom Caucus, with a five-vote [Republican] majority in the House, still retains a lot of influence in the House,” he said. “The key is that we use that influence in a way that brings us conservative results.”

Senate Republicans

Senate Republicans have no authority over the House speaker, yet their rhetoric and votes on the Fiscal Responsibility Act reveal that some are unhappy with its provisions.

A group of Senate Republicans, led by Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), initially opposed the bill because of concerns about the level of defense spending. They were brought on board by assurances from Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) that emergency defense appropriations could be added later if needed.

Sen. James Lankford (R-Okla.) opposed the bill, saying it would actually increase, and not decrease, federal spending.

GOP senators voted against the bill by a margin of 31–17.