House Is Paralyzed as Far-Right Rebels Continue Mutiny Against McCarthy
The New York Times Members of the ultraconservative House Freedom Caucus refused to surrender control of the floor, forcing G.O.P. leaders to scrap votes for the week and leaving the speaker facing what he conceded was chaos.
Hard-right Republicans pressed their mutiny against Speaker Kevin McCarthy into a second day on Wednesday, keeping control of the House floor in a raw display of their power that raised questions about whether the speaker could continue to govern his slim and fractious majority.
Mr. McCarthy, who enraged ultraconservative Republicans by striking a compromise with President Biden to suspend the debt limit, has yet to face a bid to depose him, as some hard-right members have threatened. But the rebellion has left him, at least for now, as speaker in name only, deprived of a governing majority.
House Leadership couldnt Hold the Line, Representative Matt Gaetz, Republican of Florida and a leader of the rebellion, tweeted on Wednesday. Now we Hold the Floor.
After being forced for the second day in a row to cancel votes as they haggled privately with members of the House Freedom Caucus to get them to relent, leaders told Republican lawmakers on Wednesday evening that they were scrapping votes for the remainder of the week. In a remarkable act of intraparty aggression, about a dozen rebels ground the chamber to a halt on Tuesday by siding with Democrats to defeat a procedural measure needed to allow legislation to move forward, and business cannot resume until they relent and vote with their own party.
