House GOP leadership is projecting confidence that a bill to raise the debt ceiling will pass the House on Wednesday.
But the number of Republican votes the legislation attracts will have consequences beyond avoiding a devastating default. It could very well determine the fate of Kevin McCarthy’s (R-CA) early speakership.
BIDEN WORKS TO PUSH DEBT CEILING DEAL OVER THE FINISH LINE
Democrats are expected to deliver over 100 votes for the legislation, crafted as a compromise between McCarthy and the White House, but the whip count is pretty opaque on the Republican side.
The speaker has been able to win over key conservatives, including Reps. Jim Jordan (R-OH) and Thomas Massie (R-KY), but most of the Freedom Caucus and the lawmakers aligned with it are expected to vote “no.”
More concerning for McCarthy is the string of loyalists who have come out against the deal in the last 24 hours, the most recent being Rep. Jim Banks (R-IN), who is running for Senate in Indiana next year. The common gripe is that the plan’s modest spending cuts do not go far enough.
The early announcements, which started streaming in when lawmakers returned to Washington on Tuesday, have created a clouded picture of how the conference will vote on Wednesday night. The Problem Solvers Caucus, for example, announced hours before the vote that it would support the deal, adding dozens of centrist Republicans to the “yes” column.
Contributing to the suspense is GOP leadership’s reluctance to say how many votes it thinks it can wrangle. Nonetheless, House Republicans have two numbers in mind, 112 and 150, as McCarthy’s whip operation works to lock down support.
The rock-bottom floor for the speaker is 112, or half of the Republican conference in the House.
McCarthy agreed in January not to put bills up for a vote if they cannot attract a “majority of the majority,” one of the many promises he made to conservatives to win the speakership.
If he falls short of that benchmark, which Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) said would amount to a “black letter violation” of their agreement, McCarthy risks a “no confidence” vote that could lead to his ouster.
McCarthy says he’s not concerned about such an outcome, and senior Republicans are signaling they have enough votes to keep his speakership intact.
But whether McCarthy can heap votes on top of that number will say a lot about the confidence Republicans have in his leadership.
Majority Whip Tom Emmer (R-MN) says he’s whipping for 218, the votes needed to pass a bill in the House. But it’s virtually impossible for him to reach that target.
A more plausible number is 150, or roughly two-thirds of the GOP conference. Leadership won’t say if they have that level of support, but Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY), who will deliver the Democratic votes needed to get McCarthy across the finish line, is demanding that he get there if he doesn’t.
He told reporters on Wednesday that the speaker made that promise to him in negotiations.
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER
Jeffries has only committed to providing votes for final passage, leaving it up to McCarthy to clear a procedural hurdle on Wednesday afternoon with Republican support. But if he falls short, Democrats may have to swoop in anyway.
The last major debt ceiling episode, which brought the country to the brink of default in 2011, passed the House with a majority of Republicans along with half of the Democratic caucus. The Republican speaker at the time, John Boehner, would last another several years despite a rocky relationship with his right flank, only to resign in 2015 under threat of a no-confidence vote.
