Speaker Johnson’s honeymoon phase comes to an end as spending bill progress hits a snag

House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) appears to have reached the end of his honeymoon phase after being elected to the top leadership position after the lower chamber adjourned early for its Thanksgiving recess without voting on a slate of appropriations bills, setting the stage for a drawn-out spending battle when lawmakers return later this year.

The House on Wednesday shot down an effort by GOP leaders to begin consideration of the Commerce, Justice, and Science Appropriations bill after 19 Republicans joined all Democrats to oppose the rule, stalling its chances of passing and complicating Johnson’s path forward on must-pass legislation.

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Republican hard-liners voted down the rule for several reasons, with several citing frustration with the speaker for passing a clean continuing resolution under suspended rules the day before.

Leading the charge was Rep. Chip Roy (R-TX), who was upset after Johnson’s decision to pass a stopgap funding measure on Tuesday with no spending cuts or conservative policy riders attached under suspension of the rules. However, Roy’s effort to block the rule on the clean CR was foiled after Johnson brought the spending package to the floor under suspension, allowing him to skate around the procedural motion with the requirement of a two-thirds vote to pass.

In doing so, Johnson placed the fate of the legislation into Democrats’ hands, as it required the opposing party’s support to pass. This angered Roy, who vowed there would be consequences for Johnson for doing so. Conservatives then blocked a procedural motion on the floor Wednesday for the appropriations bill in a harsh rebuke of Johnson.

“That’s not the way to do business, and let me be very clear, doing a suspension of the rule on $400 billion for a continuing resolution is a violent abuse of regular order,” Roy said after blocking the rule. “There has to be an understanding that that is not going to be the way we do things in this House.”

The failed vote dealt a blow to Johnson’s initial plan to advance at least two appropriations bills this week, prompting the speaker to cancel votes for the rest of the week and send lawmakers home until Nov. 28.

The rebellion was made up of a GOP bloc of 15 conservatives and four centrist Republicans, who all cited different reasons for their opposition. While several of the conservatives cited similar frustrations as Roy over the CR, some of the moderates said they fundamentally disagreed with the spending bill itself.

“I think that if you’re going to be intellectually honest with your constituents, you need to have appropriations bills that have a chance of getting to 218 votes,” said Rep. Nick LaLota (R-NY), who represents a district won by President Joe Biden in 2020. “The bill, the CGS bill, and others that are in the pipeline have no chance of getting those requisite number of votes, and we shouldn’t engage in a process that’s just purely wasting time.”

Another New York Republican, Rep. Anthony D’Esposito (R-NY), said he thinks there has been too much effort to try and please the right flank of the conference by “putting ridiculous amendments on the floor that are never going to pass as part of a bill that’s not going to pass” instead of working to “get substantial appropriations on the floor, so we could actually do the work.”

The failed rule vote on Wednesday is not the first appropriations bill to face major opposition under Johnson. The speaker has already had to pull two other appropriations bills — Transportation, Housing, and Urban Development, and Financial Services and General Government — from the schedule last week, and the House is seemingly stalled on its Labor, Health and Human Services bill as well due to intraparty opposition within the House GOP.

The failed vote also deals a blow to Johnson’s initial plans to get all 12 of the must-pass spending bills through the lower chamber before lawmakers adjourn for the Thanksgiving holiday, teeing up a busy agenda for when they return.

“Yes, the honeymoon is probably over, but that’s probably not a surprise,” LaLota said.

This revolt across the Republican ideological spectrum is something former Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) never had to face. His opposition was solely among the hard-line conservatives. They were the ones who tanked three rules under his leadership, held up appropriations bills, and tanked a continuing resolution stacked with conservative policies.

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Now Johnson has to deal with a rebellion from both sides of the ideological spectrum. If he moves to the center to help court the centrists, he risks upsetting the hard-line conservatives. On the contrary, if he moves further to the right to win back the conservatives, he could in turn lose the centrists.

“Losing one side of the conference is to be expected. Losing both is a serious red flag,” a senior GOP aide said. “When everyone is a king, no one is.”