House GOP reaches deal to make it harder to oust speaker

Thursday at 01:25 AM

Washington — House Republicans said they have reached a deal to raise the threshold to oust their speaker on Wednesday as the party seeks to project a unified front after winning control of the White House and both chambers of Congress.

The leaders of the House Freedom Caucus and the Main Street Caucus, two influential factions, said they have an agreement to change the rule that allowed a single member to trigger a no-confidence vote to remove the speaker.

The House Freedom Caucus agreed to increase the threshold to nine members. In exchange for the increase, the Main Street Caucus would drop proposed rule changes that sought to punish those who defied the majority of the party.

“We’ve been able to work across the conference to eliminate the controversial issues that could have divided us,” Rep. Andy Harris of Maryland, who chairs the House Freedom Caucus, said.

Rep. Dusty Johnson of South Dakota, who leads the Main Street Caucus, said Harris reached out to him Wednesday morning to broker a deal, telling him “unity is important.”

Johnson conceded that some of the proposed rule changes “probably would have divided this conference.”

“Because of this agreement, we are in a better position to move forward the Republican agenda,” Johnson said.

Rep. Don Bacon of Nebraska, a member of the Main Street Caucus, said the proposals were made because they wanted members who rebelled to be held accountable.

“We were very let down by the actions of some in…this current Congress,” he said.

Infighting has made it difficult for Republicans, who have a razor-thin majority, to govern over the last two years.

In January 2023, former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy of California finally won the speaker’s gavel after 15 ballots amid a prolonged — and public — fight with conservatives who demanded concessions, including allowing a single member to trigger a no-confidence vote to oust the speaker.

Nine months later, the deal led to McCarthy’s downfall after he relied on the votes of House Democrats to temporarily avert a government shutdown. It was the first time in U.S. history a House speaker was ousted by such a motion.

Though House Speaker Mike Johnson of Louisiana has faced similar issues as McCarthy and has had to rely on Democratic votes to pass legislation, Republicans on Wednesday backed him for another term leading the party.

House Republicans are again expected to have a narrow majority in the next Congress, which will temporarily be made more difficult by President-elect Donald Trump’s offers to several members to serve in his administration.

Johnson said he changed his plans to spend to the weekend with Trump at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida so that he can “be there while more of these decisions are being made.”

“He’s very aware of the margin, the size of the margin, but he has an administration to fill, a Cabinet to fill,” Johnson said at a news conference with House Republican leaders. “Everyone in this room is keenly aware of it as well, and that’s why we’re emphasizing unity right now.”

Jaala Brown

contributed to this report.

Caitlin Yilek

Caitlin Yilek is a politics reporter at CBSNews.com, based in Washington, D.C. She previously worked for the Washington Examiner and The Hill, and was a member of the 2022 Paul Miller Washington Reporting Fellowship with the National Press Foundation.

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