House Speaker Kevin McCarthy’s compromises with far-right members of his own Republican party to gain leadership of the House in January may be coming back to haunt him.
Last week, 11 members of the far-right GOP contingent known as the House Freedom Caucus expressed their displeasure with McCarthy, voting with Democrats to block a procedural vote on two Republican bills to limit regulations on gas stoves, as well as halting business on the House floor for days in what has been described widely as a revolt.
Seemingly innocuous legislation restricting regulations on gas stoves would, in theory, be popular among Republicans. Scientific findings suggesting that such appliances can cause health problems became a major touchstone in the right’s culture war earlier this year, with Republicans falsely claiming that the government would ban gas stoves.
Those bills, however, became collateral damage, at least for now, in the ongoing fight between McCarthy and the far-right wing of the Republican party — a fight that has threatened to boil over since McCarthy and the White House managed to avoid a cataclysmic national default with their debt limit deal late last month. With House Republicans in disarray, leadership announced it would meet Monday to attempt to move forward with planned votes.
Ultimately, the drama isn’t just about a vote to advance legislation on gas stoves; it’s a referendum on McCarthy’s leadership, and whether he can keep his conference on his side to maintain his position and pass critical legislation as the end of the government’s fiscal year draws nearer.
McCarthy’s power is contingent on a number of compromises he made with Freedom Caucus members in January, including a concession to the motion to vacate. That would allow any one member to offer a motion to “vacate the chair,” initiating a new election for speaker at any time, according to Vox’s Andrew Prokop. Now that possibility hovers in the background as the…
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