Conservative rebellion over spending and debt ceiling deal adds to House GOP woes.

House Speaker Kevin McCarthy Faces Challenges After Debt Limit Deal

House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) recently won plaudits for negotiating a deal with President Joe Biden to raise the nation’s borrowing capacity while also freezing big chunks of federal spending, a key GOP priority.

Now, McCarthy and his House Republican leadership team face a new series of political and policy challenges, including an internal GOP rebellion from the most boisterous House conservatives angry about the late-May deal that lifts the current $31.4 trillion debt limit into 2025. The law also caps nondefense discretionary spending at $704 billion for fiscal 2024. But House Freedom Caucus members and assorted other conservatives want a return to fiscal 2022 spending levels ($689 billion).

Internal GOP Rebellion Threatens McCarthy’s Leadership

With House Republicans holding a tight 222-213 majority over Democrats, dissident Republicans have the leverage to hold up the chamber’s business. And they did for a time with procedural votes involving the rule needed to bring pieces of legislation up for a vote on the House floor. Rule votes usually are exercises in partisan loyalty, with a passage rate well over 99%.

Yet members of the McCarthy-skeptical GOP faction surprised Republican leadership by helping to kill a rule that would have allowed consideration on a bill to restrict federal regulation of natural gas stoves. The episode marked the first time a rule vote has failed in two decades. After shutting down the vote on June 6, the rowdy crowd went on to cancel all floor business for the rest of the week, highlighting the seemingly tenuous hold McCarthy has on his members.

“Today, we took down the rule because we’re frustrated at the way this place is operating,” Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) told reporters. “We took a stand in January to end the era of the imperial speakership. We’re concerned that the fundamental commitments that allowed Kevin McCarthy to assume the speakership have been violated as a consequence of the debt limit deal.”

The debt limit deal, which McCarthy did his best to argue was a win for Republicans that conceded almost nothing to Democrats — most significantly by forcing Biden to renege on his position that he wouldn’t consider any kind of negotiation — has haunted the speaker since it became law. And despite it keeping the country from careening over a fiscal cliff, it could have knock-on effects that last into 2024.

“I think it’s going to be a continuing problem,” Democratic strategist Brad Bannon told the Washington Examiner. “Because what has happened in the last week indicates that the House Freedom Caucus types can, if they want, blow McCarthy up.”

Debt Ceiling Chaos Boosts Democrats’ Political Position

Close on the heels of debt ceiling chaos, Hart Research Associates, a Democratic-aligned polling group, touted the ways in which the Fiscal Responsibility Act was a political coup for Democrats that will energize candidates next year when every seat in the House is up for grabs.

“Front-line Democrats running for reelection next year will now be able to say that they voted for the bipartisan Fiscal Responsibility Act that will cut $2.1 trillion in spending over the next six years,” according to a memo released by the group. “If Republicans were planning on using the issue of federal spending as a sword against Democrats next year, they now have conspired to give Democrats a shield with which to combat those attacks.”

McCarthy came under fire for the bill that earned overwhelming support in the House, particularly from the Freedom Caucus, whose members weren’t pleased that the bill earned more Democratic support (165 votes) than Republican (149 votes).

Over the course of negotiations, those Freedom Caucus members voiced a willingness to blow up the process, and Democrats plan to remind voters about their intransigence.

“It seems to me, the events of last week, the hold the Freedom Caucus types put on House activity demonstrated they can control the agenda,” Bannon said. “And that agenda is the extremist agenda that basically prevented Republicans from winning a big majority in 2022.”

Supreme Court Ruling Adds to Republican Challenges

Compounding the problem for McCarthy and Republicans, across the street from the Capitol, the Supreme Court issued a ruling on how House districts in Alabama are drawn that could make it more difficult to hold the majority in the 2024 elections.

Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Brett Kavanaugh, both appointees of Republican presidents, sided with their three liberal colleagues as the court deemed congressional maps for Alabama’s seven House members violated Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act. As a result, the state will have to redraw its maps ahead of the 2024 contest, creating a new “minority-majority” district that is likely to squeeze out one of its safe Republican seats.

That would have the practical effect of shifting the Alabama delegation from 6-1 in Republicans’ favor to 5-2. The ruling also could possibly force redrawing of districts in other GOP-heavy states such as Louisiana and South Carolina. And in a narrowly divided 435-member House, every seat counts.

“Any state that has a meaningful minority population is at risk” of having its House maps upended, Richard Raile, an election law attorney, told the Washington Examiner.

Following the ruling, at least four districts in deep-red Alabama and Louisiana, which has its own congressional maps case pending before the Supreme Court, were reclassified from “lean Republican” to “toss-up.” One “toss-up” seat in North Carolina flipped to “lean Democrat,” according to rankings by the nonpartisan Cook Political Report.

Most at risk in a looming Alabama House map redraw are Reps. Jerry Carl (R-AL), representing the greater Mobile 1st Congressional District, and Barry Moore (R-AL), in the southeastern Alabama 2nd Congressional District. The east-central Alabama 3rd Congressional District seat, held by House Armed Services Committee Chairman Mike Rogers (R), could also be affected.

Cook Political Report’s Dave Wasserman projected that in Louisiana, Reps. Julia Letlow (R) and Garret Graves (R), a key member of McCarthy’s negotiating team during the debt ceiling fight, could see their districts diluted in Republican voting strength if litigation over the state’s map goes the same way as Alabama’s.

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