There are legislative standoffs and there are legislative standoffs where several dozen Republicans have paralysed the House floor for weeks by blocking procedural votes to demand the Senate pass a bill the Senate has already voted down three times and then left town for 19 days, while the Speaker describes the situation as a work in progress, the president calls his own allies grandstanders, and the vice president cancels a planned Capitol Hill visit to break the impasse, which is one way to not break the impasse.
House GOP leaders are attempting today to end a conservative revolt that has stalled the House floor since late June, per Fox News. The rebellion, led by Rep. Chip Roy of Texas and dozens of aligned conservatives, has repeatedly forced Speaker Mike Johnson to pull votes on key legislation, including the NDAA, appropriations bills, and the State Department funding bill. The conservatives say they will not allow procedural votes until the Senate passes the SAVE America Act, which is the House-passed voter ID legislation that the Senate has blocked three times, and which the Senate is not currently in Washington to reconsider because it left for a 19-day recess. The Senate returning is a condition of the House resuming work. The Senate is on vacation. The House is frozen. This is the plan.
JD Vance had planned to attend a House Republican conference meeting Tuesday to pressure holdouts, per Fox News, and then canceled the visit, per Politico, which is the leadership maneuver that produces the same result as attending but generates a news story about the cancellation instead of a news story about failure. Trump previously called conservative rebels to “stop grandstanding,” which is the instruction a president gives to members of his own party who are grandstanding on his behalf, which is a distinction that the rebels apparently found insufficient motivation to stop.
Johnson is trying this week to advance the State Department funding bill and permanent daylight saving time legislation, both of which are blocked by the revolt that is blocking everything. The daylight saving time bill is a “long priority” of Trump’s, per Fox News. It is currently hostage to a dispute about Senate voter ID legislation in a country where the House cannot pass its own speaker’s priorities. The clocks, for now, remain where they are.
The conservatives blocking the floor describe themselves as standing on principle. The legislation they are blocking includes a veterans’ bill that allies have described as “life-saving.” The veterans’ bill is stuck behind the daylight saving time bill, which is stuck behind the SAVE America Act, which the Senate is not in Washington to consider.
When Republican holdouts block Republican legislation to demand the Senate pass a bill the Senate already rejected three times, and the vice president cancels his visit to fix it, what exactly is the House for?
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