House Republicans have voted on a short-term funding stopgap, dividing the GOP conference and eliciting opposition from conservatives.
On Tuesday around 2:30 p.m., the House was supposed to vote on the rule to allow the GOP continuing resolution (CR) proposal to advance, but the procedural vote was not mentioned in an update that was sent out just before the afternoon.
Republican House Speaker Kevin McCarthy and the GOP had anticipated that the conference would coalesce around the stopgap proposal in order to strengthen their power in future negotiations with the Senate and White House. However, the postponement represents a loss for the party.
“I’m just recircling it; we have people talking together,” McCarthy told reporters when asked about pulling the rule.
The procedural vote was already in danger as members exited Tuesday morning’s full GOP conference meeting. According to lawmakers, there were few indications that the holdouts were shifting their positions.
South Carolina Rep. Ralph Norman, a member of the Freedom Caucus, said that while he “loves” the 8 percent cuts in the resolution, he would oppose the rule if it required leadership to provide hardliners access to the top-line figures for each of the 12 appropriations bills. For months, conservatives have been requesting those figures.
“I just want to see the total,” Norman told reporters. “A pie has a lot of different ingredients. I want to see all the ingredients that leadership will commit to putting in this pie.”
Texas Rep. Chip Roy also expressed his frustration with the opposition to the CR, calling the rule a “malpractice.”
“I find it extremely difficult to explain or defend opposition to an 8 percent cut over 30 days in exchange for the most conservative and strong border security measure we’ve ever passed out of this body,” Roy said. “I think that is inexplicable. I think it’s malpractice. And I think that there are some outside groups who are trying to advance themselves that are a part of this that are pushing this narrative, that it’s somehow malpractice to do that.”
The Democratic Whip’s office confirmed that “The House GOP Leadership” made changes to the floor schedule, but the office’s updated schedule did not include the rule vote.
