Paul Ryan’s ability to get re-elected as House Speaker next year may hinge on his willingness to abandon a rule change aimed at making it harder for lawmakers to unseat him.
Assuming Republicans hold the House, Ryan, R-Wis., is expected to run again for speaker, and is the odds-on favorite to win his job back. But with the likelihood of a smaller Republican majority, Ryan will need all the help he can get, including from the 40 or so members of the conservative House Freedom Caucus.
The Freedom Caucus, however, opposes a proposed rule change that would prevent individual lawmakers to call up a motion to vacate the speaker’s chair, a move that automatically triggers a vote on whether to back the speaker. Under the proposed change, offered by House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes, R-Calif., individual lawmakers would no longer have this ability, and a vote could only be triggered if it first receives the support of a majority of the party in power.
House Freedom Caucus members met on Capitol Hill Wednesday to discuss their opposition to the rule change, and how they could stop it from moving ahead. Under one emerging plan, the HFC would withhold its support for Ryan when the speaker’s election is held, unless GOP leaders agree to drop the rule change.
During the meeting, Freedom Caucus members “reiterated that doing away with it or stripping it’s privileged nature is a no-go for them,” according to a source familiar with the private meeting.
It’s unclear when Republican leaders will decide whether to push for the rules change, which would get a vote in January. But assuming the GOP retains the majority, the rules changes will be part of party discussions in November on organizing for the 115th Congress, and will happen as GOP leaders hold elections including the choice of House speaker.
Ryan will be running for a second term as speaker, and he would easily win the support of the majority of the GOP conference. However, he must be elected by the entire House, which means Republicans, with what is expected to be a thinner majority next year, can not lose many GOP votes.
As a result, he will likely need the backing of most of the nearly 40 members of the House Freedom Caucus, who won’t likely give their support for free.
“Something like that becoming a bartering chip can’t be ruled out,” one top GOP aide told the Washington Examiner. “They’ve obviously made it clear they don’t like this. They want to hold onto this rule.”
The Freedom Caucus used the rule to push for the ouster of House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, who stepped down in 2015 in part because of a looming threat from Freedom Caucus members that they would call for the motion to vacate the chair.
When Ryan negotiated his rise to speaker a year ago, he had to back down from a plan to weaken the motion. So far, he has not weighed in on the latest attempt to change the rule, but many GOP lawmakers are backing Nunes.
“It seems to us if you want to do something as drastic as taking down the speaker, it’s perfectly reasonable you would need a majority of your caucus, to do something so drastic,” the GOP leadership aide said.
