One of the two dozen Republican holdouts in the House who wanted concessions before voting for Rep. Kevin McCarthy as speaker vowed Sunday that he and his colleagues will hold the California Republican to his word.
While appearing on CNN’s “State of the Union,” Texas Representative Chip Roy said, “I’m not going to play the ‘what if’ games on how we’re going to use the tools of the House to make sure that we enforce the terms of the deal.” “But we will use the House’s tools to enforce the accord,” they said.
In order to win over Mr. Roy and others in the conservative House Freedom Caucus and clinch the speaker’s gavel after 15 speakership ballots held over five days, Mr. McCarthy was forced to make major concessions, including weakening his own position by allowing any one of his members to call for a vote on his ouster.
To secure enough votes for his narrow majority, Mr. McCarthy made a number of compromises with the conservative holdouts, some of which are still secret. This included pledges to reduce federal spending and secure GOP policy triumphs through the use of potentially veto-proof legislation, such as looming deadlines for funding the government and raising the debt ceiling.
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Mr. Roy contended last week’s intense intraparty fighting and pushing Mr. McCarthy’s feet to the fire were vital because they ultimately resulted in him giving in to their demands.
A fellow Republican had to physically remove McCarthy supporter and Florida lawmaker Mike Rogers from the House floor when Rogers confronted Gaetz.
A small amount of that is what we need. We need a little of this breaking the glass to get us at the table, to fight for the American people, and to change the way this place is functioning, Mr. Roy added. The city can’t be prevented from running roughshod over the American people without a little temporary friction.
