difficult

–

line conservatives have once again thrown the House of Representatives into chaos, and Speaker Kevin McCarthy is once again struggling to face the same people who almost denied him the job six months ago.

The hardline House Freedom Caucus

S

The latest uprising against McCarthy (R-Bakersfield) is about the National Defense Authorization Act, the law that approves the annual budget for the US military.

That bill has historically passed with bipartisan support, and Republicans and Democrats had reached broad consensus on this year’s version, with plans to pass it by the end of the week. But Freedom Caucus members demanded a slew of controversial last-minute amendments, including measures that would ban the military from paying service members who travel for abortions and ban the armed forces from paying for gender-affirming care. If Republicans pass these amendments, Democrats have pledged to pull their support out of the defense spending bill, forcing Republicans to pass it themselves.

McCarthy has tried to exude composure despite the hardliners’ latest demands. He has managed to weather the House’s tumultuous crises so far without losing his job or incurring US debt. And after enduring the public embarrassment of his 15 vote fight to become speaker and a recent Freedom Caucus tantrum over his debt ceiling deal with President Biden, he seems resigned to the chaos.

“This just seems like another week in Congress,” he told reporters

on

Tuesday. I’ll get through it, we’ll figure it out along the way.

But even if McCarthy can successfully pass the defense spending bill, a bigger battle awaits after Congress returns from recess in August.

Congress must pass a government finance bill by the end of September to avoid a government shutdown, and Freedom Caucus members are gearing up to use those negotiations as leverage to cut government spending further.

On Monday, 21 of their members sent McCarthy a letter with a list of demands for the government’s funding bill and a threat to vote against the defense bill if they don’t get what they want. The letter, organized by Freedom Caucus Chairman Scott Perry (R-Pa.) and Policy Chairman Chip Roy (R-Texas), demanded that McCarthy renege on the agreement he had made with

President

Biden to avoid debt and approve spending at lower levels earlier this summer.

Roy shrugged when asked about concerns that the Freedom Caucus could lead to a government shutdown.

Everyone gets so excited about oh it’s a shutdown drama, Roy told The Times. You only have so many leverage points here. At some point, wallet strength has to mean something.

The Freedom Council

S

The latest protest has forced House GOP leaders to negotiate a host of potential last-minute changes to the defense bill. House GOP leaders agreed

on

Wednesday to allow votes on 80 different amendments to the legislation, a process likely to drag on late into the night

on

Thursday.

Even if the House conservatives manage to make their favorite changes to the spending bill, though the current battle is unlikely to end in their victory. The Senate is still in the hands of Democrats, as is the White House, and Democratic negotiators will push to get the most controversial measures out before the bill becomes law.

McCarthy’s key allies recognize that reality. The final NDAA bill will be bipartisan, House Rules Committee Chairman Tom Cole (R-Okla.) told reporters Wednesday afternoon. Whatever we come out with, we sit down and negotiate with a Democratic Senate and a Democratic President. The bill will therefore move.

We are working hard, I think harder than we should be working, but everything is hard in this Congress, Cole added ruefully a minute earlier.

The Freedom Meeting’

// is this how we characterized this group? “difficult right”?//

The decision to turn the defense bill into just another partisan brawl indicates that the looming fight against the government shutdown will worry ugly, moderate lawmakers.

It’s really disheartening to see that even this can be partisan. This has always been a place where we have come together as a country, Rep. Scott Peters (D-San Diego)

T

The times.

The members of the Freedom Caucus are not particularly concerned

a

political backlash from a government shutdown. In fact, many of them believe that activating shutdowns has worked for them in the past. In 2013, Roy served as Senator Ted Cruz’s (R-Texas) chief of staff and helped convince House Republicans to enforce a 17-day shutdown in an effort to repeal Obamacare.

At the time, House GOP leaders hoped that ordinary Republicans would feel the pain and never want to shut down the government again. But the stunt had no obvious political ramifications. Republicans did extremely well in the next midterm elections and hardline Republicans internalized the opposite lesson.

When we started that shutdown, we called it a “touch the stove” moment, said Doug Heye, a Republican strategist who worked for the GOP House leadership at the time. And the reality is that they were not burned. It’s not that they didn’t learn their lesson, they learned the wrong lesson.

The Freedom Caucus helped then-speaker John Boehner retire in 2015, then blocked McCarthy from becoming a speaker not long after

war

Because they didn’t trust his conservative bona fides. They even caused havoc for

Than-

President Trump at times demanded that his Obamacare repeal plan go hard to the right to earn their support.

But their power to wreak havoc has grown this year because of the House GOP’s razor-thin majority. Republican leaders can afford to lose only four of their members in every House vote, so about a dozen

legislators real bombers //please use a different term than this one. readers can take it literally lm//

to the right of their caucus to disrupt the room at any time.

Hardliners forced McCarthy to make deep concessions before allowing him to become

S

speaker after 15 rounds of voting in five days earlier this year. They were unhappy that McCarthy’s deal with

President

Biden did not go far enough earlier this summer to avoid hitting the debt ceiling, but became enraged when he used Democratic votes to overcome their objections. They responded by withholding support for any GOP bills for more than a week, bringing the house to a standstill in a warning

shot

to McCarthy.

Roy credited McCarthy for listening more closely to his group lately

after follow

their show of power after the debt ceiling.

He’s much more inclusive and open about taking us in and sitting down at the table and going through everything. I mean, pretty open kimono

//what does “open kimono” mean in this context? can this quote end with “everything”? I’ve never heard of this term and I’m not sure how many readers would know what it meanslm//

about this, he said.

Given the current circumstances, McCarthy is handling it as best he can and as best anyone can, Heye said.

But Heye warned that the possibility of a government shutdown by the end of the year is very real because of the Freedom Caucus, which he called the nothing will ever be good enough caucus.

And the group’s latest antics are frustrating

more // is “more” needed here?//

mainstream Republicans.

When

asked the Times

Rep. David Valadao (R-Hanford), an ally of McCarthy who represents a swing district,

what early

or the Freedom Caucus

S

pressure the speaker was sane or helpful, he offered a deadpan response.

I mean, they think so. Some of us would disagree, he said. I am one of those who disagree.