January 10, 2024 03:16 PM UTC

Conservatives Inevitably Revolt Against Mike Johnson

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• by: Colorado Pols

As CNN’s Lauren Fox reports, Republican Speaker of the House Mike Johnson is facing a revolt from conservative lawmakers, incensed that America’s “First MAGA Speaker” has cut a spending deal with Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer that will not fulfill the Freedom Caucus’ impossible vision of drowning the federal government in the bathtub:

Johnson…faced backlash during a private conference meeting Wednesday morning, the first opportunity the full conference had to discuss spending since Johnson announced a deal Sunday that would fund the government at $1.59 trillion, but would also reprogram roughly $70 billion to fund non-defense programs.

“We need more communication in our conference. Mike Johnson doesn’t work for (Senate Majority Leader) Chuck Schumer and the White House,” GOP Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia said. “He needs to work with our conference on deals that he’s making.”

During the meeting, Rep. Jim Jordan, an Ohio Republican and chairman of the powerful Judiciary Committee, engaged in a back and forth with the speaker about why he’d agreed to allowing a so-called “side deal” and why he hadn’t insisted that $1.59 trillion was the ceiling. Jordan also insisted that a one-year continuing resolution would have put them in a better position because of automatic cuts that would have kicked in to save money.

Conservative media outlets like the Daily Caller are softening the ground for the next logical step, the call for Mike Johnson’s head on a metaphorical pike:

The defeat comes at a difficult time for Johnson, who is facing threats of a motion to vacate the chair to remove him from office over the deal. “I’m leaving it on the table,” Roy said on Tuesday of a motion to vacate, [Pols emphasis] which was last used to remove Kevin McCarthy as the Speaker of the House in October of 2023 after he approved a continuing resolution to avoid a government shutdown.

Breitbart:

“Before we could even get together, he announced the terms of the surrender,” Rep. Warren Davidson (R-OH) said after leaving the GOP conference meeting. Davidson was a staunch supporter of Rep. Jim Jordan’s (R-OH) bid for Speaker.

Davidson said Johnson “should have never been hired” when asked if Johnson should lose his position as Speaker. [Pols emphasis]

Today as The Hill reports, the dissatisfaction went on the record as a faction of Freedom Caucus Republicans flipped a procedural vote to protest Johnson’s spending deal:

The final tally was 203-216. Republican leadership canceled an afternoon vote series following the revolt.

The show of opposition came days after Johnson unveiled a deal on top-line spending numbers for the remainder of fiscal 2024. Conservatives have railed against the deal for not cutting spending enough…

“We’re making a statement that what the deal, as has been announced, that doesn’t secure the border and that doesn’t cut our spending, and that’s gonna be passed apparently under suspension of the rules with predominantly Democrat votes is unacceptable,” Rep. Bob Good (R-Va.), the newly minted chairman of the House Freedom Caucus, told reporters.

The thirteen Republicans who joined in this protest vote did not include either of Colorado’s Freedom Caucus members Lauren Boebert or Ken Buck. Even though this deal would appear to violate all of Boebert’s stated principles we don’t expect her to turn on Johnson, whose support Boebert is counting on after Boebert’s desperate switch to the crowded CD-4 GOP primary. If Johnson is ousted, that support could become yet another albatross around Boebert’s neck. Ken Buck will no doubt vote against Johnson’s spending deal like basically every spending deal ever put before him, but we don’t think Buck will vote to plunge the House majority into chaos once again on his way out the door like he did last year to Kevin McCarthy.

But it doesn’t really matter. The margin of survival is so narrow, and the task of pleasing a faction of his tiny majority too far detached from reality to please sufficiently impossible, that Colorado’s compromised conservatives in Congress won’t have to take part in bringing Johnson down.

This fate was predictable for Johnson from the moment he took the job.