Speaker Johnson loses key vote as House GOP leaders struggle to contain rebellion
Speaker Mike Johnson is once again battling hard-line conservatives for control of his House floor, and he has no clear way out.
A small group of GOP supporters, led by firebrand Rep. Anna Paulina Luna of Florida, voted decisively against Johnson on Tuesday, refusing to allow him to bring up their own party’s priorities until Republican leaders come up with a plan to pass President Donald Trump’s proposal. federal elections revision bill.
More than a dozen House Republicans blocked Johnson from taking the floor for the annual Pentagon policy bill, in a major setback for GOP leaders. 198-224 failed.
Multiple GOP sources told CNN it’s not clear how to resolve the weeks-long dispute with Luna, who has enjoyed media attention. Some predicted that Republicans might be forced to send their members home early for the second week in a row, with no plans to return until mid-July.
Even Johnson, the famously cool talker, was visibly frustrated that his own members were derailing the GOP’s agenda on the floor.
Referring to hard-line members, Johnson said, “We have the smallest margin in the history of the United States. We are approaching an election. People get very emotional about events and sometimes make irrational decisions.” Hours earlier, he had said that Luna’s antics were a “self-inflicted wound” for his party.
But Luna doesn’t pay attention to criticism.
“I’m being ostracized because I know the procedure because I’m not stupid. I’m going to fight on behalf of the American people,” Luna said, promising to back down from the chamber protest if GOP leaders agree to add Trump’s voter ID and proof of citizenship measure to the defense bill. “They say they won’t, so now you’ve seen what’s on the ground.”
The problem for GOP leaders: Congress, in its current structure, cannot pass the bill Trump wants; despite having a GOP majority in both chambers, it lacks the votes.
But Luna and others have demanded that Senate GOP leaders take extreme steps, such as changing chamber rules, to strengthen Trump’s primacy. Senate GOP leaders also opposed it and said they did not have the votes to change the chamber’s rules.
All of this adds up to an intense summer conflict that has jammed the House and ratcheted up tensions in the already tense GOP conference. For Johnson, this means the Pentagon won’t be able to table critical bills like the annual policy bill and annual appropriations bills. That wastes valuable meeting time as he and his leaders prepare for their last major legislative push ahead of the November midterm elections.
Without specifically calling out Luna, Trump publicly encouraged GOP defectors to back down. But these hardliners also know this: The president remained steady. He does not accept the election bill and I do not believe he is sincere in asking them to withdraw.
This story has been updated with additional developments.
CNN’s Manu Raju, Morgan Rimmer and Ellis Kim contributed to this report.
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