The House Freedom Caucus is Revolting

David Super

     I could not resist.

     Last week, eleven House Members aligned with the House Freedom Caucus voted down the “rule” allowing debate on several hyper-partisan Republican message bills.  Because all Democrats also opposed the rule – a resolution limiting time and amendments in a debate – the rule failed.  The Republican rebels told the leadership they would block any other rule sent to the floor, and the House largely shut down. 

     Speaker Kevin McCarthy worked through the week to try to win back the dissidents, to no avail.  He and House Majority Leader Steve Scalise then traded blame in the news media.  That is not altogether surprising as Rep. Scalise has spent the year watching Rep. McCarthy like a cat eying the failing door to a canary’s cage.  Eventually, the leadership sent Members home with no prospect of being able to hold votes. 

     Last night, the Freedom Caucus rebels agreed to support a rule to allow a few select bills to move forward.  No doubt they were moved by the importance of these measures:  to prohibit the government from outlawing gas stoves (which it has no plans to do), to completely break administrative law (not being satisfied with the efforts of the Supreme Court and agency sclerosis in that regard), and to prevent federal agencies from outlawing gun braces favored by mass shooters.  The rebels indicated that this was a one-off agreement and they would continue to prevent the leadership from bringing most legislation to the floor until they perceived a return to the power-sharing agreement they believe they negotiated in January in exchange for making Rep. McCarthy speaker. 

     The immediate effect of this rebellion is real but hardly cosmic.  None of the bills they blocked has any chance of passing becoming law, even in modified form.  Because bipartisan compromise has become hypertoxic in the GOP, most of the House’s “work” consists of labor-intensive publicity stunts, never designed to change this nation’s laws.  Even bills that are real, such as appropriations bills, do not need to pass for several months.  House and Senate appropriators have often worked out de facto conference agreements on bills that had passed neither chamber. 

     And the House still has several ways to pass legislation.  Legislation with substantial bipartisan support can be brought up under a motion to suspend the rules.  Suspension requires a 2/3 majority, but that does not require any Freedom Caucus votes.  The Republican leadership also could negotiate with Democrats on rules to bring legislation to the floor.  By tradition, the majority party refuses to negotiate with the minority about the terms of a rule and the minority party unanimously votes against that rule.  Nothing in the structure of House procedure, however, entrenches that tradition.  Democrats will not agree to rules to bring up absurd Republican messaging bills, but they would on significantly bipartisan bills and they might even on some bills with wholly Republican support if given a fair chance to offer amendments.  If this episode opens the door to the kind of negotiated procedural agreements that are common in the Senate, it will make the House a much better place.

     Nonetheless, this is enough of a thorn in the leadership’s side that this impasse surely will not last.  The Freedom Caucus Members’ anger springs in part from their dissatisfaction with the debt limit deal Speaker McCarthy negotiated with President Biden.  They are demanding that the House unilaterally reduce discretionary spending far below the agreed-upon levels.  And on Monday, House Appropriations Chair Kay Granger promised to do just that.  The White House howled that this violates the Biden-McCarthy agreement. 

     It is difficult to predict where appropriations will end up.  This obviously illustrates the pitfalls of bitter opponents reaching an agreement that they know from the start will be represented very differently by both sides.  Speaker McCarthy did this with the Freedom Caucus in January and again with President Biden last month.  I suspect he is busily trying to do it a third time with the Freedom Caucus now. 

     The levels Rep. Granger is proposing could force Members to vote for painful cuts that interest groups and donors may dislike.  If they believe that those cuts will not survive negotiations with the Senate and the White House, they may resist “walking the plank for nothing.”  On the other hand, Rep. Granger may be able to take most of the cuts out of environmental, anti-poverty, civil rights, and other activities largely undefended by Republican-aligned interest groups.  

     Freedom Caucus Members may be satisfied with voting for austere appropriations bills in the House and accept conference agreements conforming to the Biden-McCarthy agreement, but that would be out of character.  Therefore, a government shutdown seems very possible in October.  Because Democrats agreed to an automatic, year-round continuing resolution with one-percent nominal (about five percent real) across-the-board cuts if full appropriations bills are not agreed by January 1, they may be reluctant to pass stop-gap extensions postponing the shutdown deeper into the fall.  On the other hand, the prospect of a five-percent real cut in defense spending may bring Republicans with bases or defense factories in their districts to the bargaining table. 

     Papering over unresolved differences through his phantom agreement with Speaker McCarthy did allow President Biden to avoid a national default.  A partial government shutdown will be far less damaging to the nation and hence a better venue for this fight.  On the other hand, using technical means or the Fourteenth Amendment to smite the debt limit dragon once and for all would have accomplished the same thing – and would have avoided the other substantive and rhetorical concessions be made in that deal.   

     More broadly, the Freedom Caucus revolt is taking us incrementally closer to a de facto multi-party system.  Speaker McCarthy lacks a loyal majority and will need the support of either the Freedom Caucus or the Democrats to pass anything.  Overwhelmingly he will choose to negotiate with the Freedom Caucus because many of his loyalists are vulnerable to primaries should they vote with Democrats and because significant Republican support is needed in the Senate for anything to become law.  But the more the Freedom Caucus begins to act like an independent party, and the more it changes House rules and customs to accommodate its desire to exercise an independent check on Speaker McCarthy, the more other factions may be inclined to do the same in the future.  As someone who believes our nation’s political differences are now too broad to be accommodated within two parties – and someone who believes most Republicans will not denounce right-wing demagogues without a safe political home in another party – I regard that as good news. 

     One immediate lesson I hope progressives will take from the Freedom Caucus’s revolt is that it is both wrong and dangerous to assume that the far right is foolish.  Some Freedom Caucus Members certainly are (although some Democrats are not the brightest bulbs in the chandelier, either).  But overall, the Freedom Caucus Members have shown impressive strategic judgment.  Perhaps most importantly, while some of its Members were blocking Speaker McCarthy’s accession in January and bringing the House to a halt last week, others with just as extreme views – such as Reps. Jim Jordan and Marjorie Taylor Greene – have been gaining influence within the leadership by steadfastly defending the Speaker.  If we end up seeing social programs and general government cut much more than President Biden claimed his deal allowed, I hope some progressives will ask themselves if they really are so much smarter than Reps. Andy Biggs and Marjorie Taylor Greene.  The far right’s effective inside-outside game demands a much more strategic response than posting videos in which this or that conservative is inarticulate or gets “taken down” by some progressive. 

     @DavidASuper1