House GOP braces for bitter fight over the power to oust a speaker

House Republicans are gearing up for an intra-party war early next year over the ability to defenestrate a speaker. While the majority of Republicans despise the tool, which has single-handedly caused repeated chaos this Congress, a number of conservatives are prepared to fight to keep it.

Speaker Mike Johnson and other leadership allies have openly signaled that they want to raise the number of members required to force a vote on deposing a speaker; currently, a single lawmaker can call for a referendum. But that fight is inextricably tied to Johnson’s ambitions to remain speaker — the members who want to see the rule to remain as it is are some of the same ones who haven’t committed to supporting his bid for the gavel, and they’re not afraid to leverage that power.

It’s not hard to see why most Republicans want to change the rule. The so-called motion to vacate allows a small faction of lawmakers to highly influence the agenda and strips power from leadership. Johnson himself has publicly said that the tool has “harmed this office and our House majority.”

Right now, there are enough conservatives who oppose changes to block any adjustments to the status quo. In interviews with POLITICO, five Republicans said they believe that group is big enough that it would also be highly difficult to change the rule next year. One GOP lawmaker said there are at least eight members who will automatically oppose any adjustments.

Of course, House Republicans have to keep control if they want to set the rules — but if they succeed in November, it all sets the stage for a huge fight in the coming months. The debate would not only influence whether Johnson could be speaker in the next Congress, but also leadership’s power to shape the conference’s agenda over the wishes of frequently rebellious hardliners. In short, if Johnson or other leaders can’t overcome the right flank’s red line, they’re set for another potentially chaotic Congress.

Members of the ultra-conservative House Freedom Caucus, as well as some hardliners outside of the group, are having private discussions about what they want to see in the rules package next year. That includes keeping the current ouster rule at the same threshold.

“I think it’s going to be very difficult to change,” Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas) said. “I think we’re just going to have to just move forward.”

Another Freedom Caucus member, granted anonymity to speak candidly, was more direct: “If they are going to go back to the way things were pre-McCarthy, then I don’t care who the speaker is, they will have that same fight.” That’s a reference to the 15 rounds of ballots it took former Speaker Kevin McCarthy to secure the gavel.

Meanwhile, a larger segment of the conference wants the rule overhauled. Republicans in and out of leadership are calling for a hard reset on the power dynamics that have plagued their conference since January 2023, when they believe McCarthy bent too far to his right flank. The vast majority of House Republicans see another extended speakership brawl, like the three-week episode triggered by McCarthy’s ouster, as a nightmare scenario.

Still, reality favors the hardliners here. Johnson has a basic math problem — he only has a three-vote margin, so he doesn’t currently have the votes within his own conference to raise the ouster threshold. His best chance is growing his majority significantly in November, which could be a tall order. Democrats will vote in unified opposition to a GOP rules package in January, meaning Johnson can only depend on Republican votes.

“It depends on how big the majority is,” Rep. Morgan Griffith (R-Va.), who has his own ideas about how to change the motion to vacate rule, said about leadership’s chances of successfully batting down hardliners.

He added of rules and leadership battles generally: “If we have a majority of 15 ... there’s not going to be any successful fights.”

Private discussions about rule changes go beyond the motion to vacate. While conservatives have their own conversations behind the scenes about how to further empower rank-and-file members, centrists and leaders are gaming out their own plans with an eye towards limiting potential chaos in the next Congress.

Conservatives, for their part, want to place new limits on what bills can pass under the higher two-thirds suspension threshold, a tool that GOP leadership has used several times this Congress to leapfrog holdouts and rely on Democratic help, particularly to pass spending bills.

Meanwhile, a group of centrists has been discussing their own rules ideas — including the formation of a formal working group that was first reported by POLITICO. Those proposals include setting repercussions for members who vote against bringing a GOP bill to the floor, a tactic conservatives used against both McCarthy and Johnson to repeatedly sink leadership priorities.

Republicans, including members of leadership, are separately discussing raising the threshold for a so-called discharge petition, a procedural mechanism that can force floor action on a bill if it reaches 218 signatures, regardless of leadership objections.

Still, it’s the rules regarding ousting a speaker that would likely grab the most attention in the GOP’s potential rules fight. And everyone is already seemingly dug in.

Republicans can set a higher ouster threshold as part of their own internal conference rules debate in November — like they did after the 2022 election. But that’s just the opening act; the House’s rules aren’t official unless they’re adopted by a full chamber vote in January. Last time, conservatives refused to vote for McCarthy until he made several of their demanded changes to the rules, including lowering the speaker-ousting threshold to one member, which were ultimately adopted.

“I agreed with what we did in conference,” said Rep. David Joyce (R-Ohio). “There has to be a better standard than just having a couple of renegades joining with the other side.”

Rep. Don Bacon (R-Neb.), another centrist, has floated that leadership should make a deal with Democrats, asking the other party to help raise the motion-to-vacate threshold in exchange for giving them more seats on committees.

“I would make the deal and put that thing behind me,” Bacon said. “But I got huge push back: ‘You can’t make a deal with Democrats.’”

Conservative Rep. Ralph Norman (R-S.C.) said in a brief interview that he does not support raising the threshold, adding “there’s a group of us,” mainly within the Freedom Caucus, that are already looking at the ouster rule and others “pretty carefully.” Asked if he thinks the threshold will change come January, he replied: “I don’t think it will.”

Further complicating matters for Johnson and other leaders: A broader group of Republicans would like to see changes to the motion to vacate, but not to the fact that just one member can force the vote.

Griffith, for example, floated what he described as a “hybrid” model: Keeping the current ability for any one member to trigger an ouster vote, but limiting how often it can be used. He proposed that it couldn’t be used against a new speaker for his or her first six months on the job, and setting a period of time before it could be used again if one is brought up and fails.

Some supporters of the current rule have floated that they would be willing to discuss raising the threshold in exchange for other priorities. Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) has said he would be open to raising the motion-to-vacate threshold in exchange for ethics and campaign finance reforms — though it’s far from clear such an offer would move the larger group of holdouts.

And Roy, while cautioning that “all things can be discussed,” said that a change “would “have to come with something, if it changes at all.”

“I think it is an uphill climb to change it,” he added.