Table Of Content
- Why Arnold Schwarzenegger’s 2003 tabloid deal came up at Trump’s hush-money trial
- Robert Citron was a hard-to-hate villain in O.C.’s bankruptcy
- Political activity
- Spending bill vote shows limits of political brinksmanship for House Freedom Caucus members
- More Must-Reads From TIME
- Betting on Trump to fail has made his stock shorters millions
- House Freedom Caucus pushes back on Baltimore bridge funding
To avoid a catastrophic default, the Speaker, John Boehner, made a deal with the White House, and cobbled together a majority by trading conservative Republican votes for moderate Democratic ones. In 2015, they retaliated against Boehner, who eventually retired, and, in the process, created the House Freedom Caucus, a group of ideologues and extremists who made it their mission to antagonize Party leadership. Nonetheless, the caucus’s ability to sway House leadership elections and legislative priorities quickly established it as a power center within the GOP.
Why Arnold Schwarzenegger’s 2003 tabloid deal came up at Trump’s hush-money trial
Lawmakers will return to Washington after Labor Day and won’t have time to get all 12 government funding bills approved before the new fiscal year begins on Oct. 1. McCarthy last week floated the prospect of a short-term bridge that would give the House and Senate more time to reach a compromise on final spending levels for the year. From the start, it appeared the Freedom Caucus and its like-minded colleagues were going to call the shots, and at times, they did. But after the House passed a massive $1.2 trillion spending package on Friday, those rebels were dealt a decisive defeat with no clear strategy to pressure leadership to cave to their demands.
Robert Citron was a hard-to-hate villain in O.C.’s bankruptcy
The funders backing the new super PACs also typically donate to leadership-aligned super PACs and party committees. But while most of these donors have given to groups tied to McCarthy, a source close to the former speaker said he is not involved in this effort. “The final [defense spending] bill, it will be bipartisan,” House Rules Committee Chairman Tom Cole (R-Okla.) told reporters Wednesday afternoon. “No matter what we come out of here with, we’re going to sit down and negotiate with a Democratic Senate and a Democratic president.
Political activity
If Republicans keep the House in the November election, it’s possible the next majority could be similarly slim. And the new super PACs appear to be trying to make sure the Freedom Caucus’ ability to tank legislation or threaten speakers doesn’t grow in the next Congress. Freedom Caucus members aren’t particularly worried about political blowback from a government shutdown. In fact, many of them believe that triggering shutdowns has worked for them in the past. A lot of people bet that the Republican from Bakersfield would be unable to keep his factionalized majority in line.
Spending bill vote shows limits of political brinksmanship for House Freedom Caucus members
Nearly all of the 20 or so Republican House members who threatened to torpedo Kevin McCarthy’s speakership bid belong to the Freedom Caucus or are closely aligned with it (though more than half of caucus members and allies did back McCarthy from the start). "It comes at a moment of grave urgency, with Israel facing unprecedented attacks from Iran, and Ukraine under continued bombardment from Russia," Biden said. The package contains a fourth bill aimed at implementing sanctions and policies to counter China, Iran and Russia.
Republican Jewish group endorses House Freedom Caucus chair Bob Good's primary rival over vote against Israel aid - New York Post
Republican Jewish group endorses House Freedom Caucus chair Bob Good's primary rival over vote against Israel aid.
Posted: Mon, 22 Apr 2024 22:58:00 GMT [source]
In recent weeks, the trio has increasingly used their power to effectively block Johnson from carrying out his agenda. "I hope they will not move forward with that," he said of the GOP trio that is sponsoring the motion to vacate resolution. "I think we ought to have a contest in November, a deliberative process to select, hopefully, the speaker of the House majority. But I don't think it'd be a wise course of action to do that now." "Our process, in the end, ensured that each member was able to consider the individual supplemental elements on their own merits, which is exactly how the House is supposed to work," Johnson said after the vote on Saturday afternoon. "I know there are critics of the legislation. I understand that — it is not a perfect piece of legislation. We're not ensured that in a time of divided government."
On Wednesday evening, Rep. Mike Lawler, a New York Republican who represents a swing district, said the three lawmakers should either resign from the panel or be formally removed by their colleagues. Earlier this week, Rep. Thomas Massie, a Kentucky Republican with a libertarian bent, became the first Republican to pledge to join Greene's effort publicly. Massie is also not a member of the Freedom Caucus, whose membership is technically secret, but he does support many of the caucus' broader aims. According to Politico, this group will make sure that no other Republicans try to rush through changes that would make it harder for lawmakers to oust Johnson from power or that would strip three Freedom Caucus members of a powerful perch they all hold.
House Freedom Caucus pushes back on Baltimore bridge funding
Notably, however, the districts from which they come, while solidly Republican, are only slightly more conservative than the typical GOP district. The average HFC district voted 14 percentage points more Republican than the country as a whole in 2012, as compared 11 percentage points in other districts won by the GOP that year. The average HFC member is in his third term, as compared to an average 4.6 terms for the overall House Republican caucus.
House Freedom Caucus Holds News Conference on Budget
Not all the races with candidates backed by the House Freedom Fund have been decided. Freedom Caucus members and allies are more likely to come from the South than non-Freedom Caucus Republicans. Nearly two-thirds of the Freedom Caucus members and allies we identified (32 of 49) represent districts in the 16-state Southern region, as defined by the Census Bureau. Freedom Caucus members and allies are somewhat more likely than other House Republicans to be from the West, and less likely to be from the Midwest. Only one Freedom Caucus member, Chairman Scott Perry of Pennsylvania, comes from the Northeast. The 118th Congress hadn’t even officially gotten underway before the House Freedom Caucus began exercising its influence.
The analysis also used a dataset called DW-NOMINATE to compare the ideologies of Freedom Caucus members and allies with those of other House Republicans in the 118th Congress. DW-NOMINATE assigns each representative a score ranging from -1 (most liberal) to +1 (most conservative) based on their roll call voting patterns. The scores are as of the end of the 117th Congress and exclude newly elected members (nine new Freedom Caucus Republicans, 30 other Republicans and 34 Democrats). For members who served before the 117th Congress but have returned to serve in the current 118th Congress, their most recent score is shown.
Though it represents less than a sixth of House Republicans, by acting as a bloc (decisions agreed to by 80% of the caucus are supposed to be binding on all) and choosing their fights carefully, the Freedom Caucus has certainly made an impact since its formation. The group’s defiance of Speaker John Boehner, over issues such as fast-track trade authority and defunding Planned Parenthood, contributed to Boehner’s decision last month to quit the job. And the group’s decision not to back House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy prompted McCarthy to pull out of the race and positioned the Freedom Caucus as a kingmaker. FART is also worried that more centrist GOP lawmakers could move to strip Massie, Rep. Chip Roy, and Ralph Norman from the powerful House Rules Committee. In another McCarthy-era concession, Republicans allowed the three conservative lawmakers to serve on the panel responsible for determining how most legislation reaches the floor.
Rep. Tim Burchett, R-Tenn., one of the eight Republicans who voted to remove McCarthy, said he is “currently no” on vacating McCarthy and expressed concerns that ousting Johnson could see House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., elected as speaker. Other Republicans say the Freedom Caucus’s failures are a product of its own making after shooting down rule votes. Johnson himself has said he lost significant negotiating power with Democrats because of the dysfunction that has roiled the House.
The caucus, an outgrowth of the 2009 Tea Party movement, represents a shift toward more ideologically driven and less compromise-oriented politics within Congress. Donald Trump and the MAGA movement and its role in engineering the departures of two Republican speakers of the House. While the caucus has purposely chosen to keep its formal roster a secret, journalistic accounts put the number at roughly 40.
The caucus does not publish a list of its members, and membership is reported to be by invitation only. But some members have made their affiliations public, including Rep. Jim Jordan of Ohio and Rep. Lauren Boebert of Colorado. In 2023 Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia became the first member to be voted out of the Freedom Caucus, after she had a public dispute with Boebert on the House floor. House of Representatives made up of the most conservative wing of the Republican Party’s congressional members.
Former Speaker Kevin McCarthy initially resisted setting the "motion to vacate" at the threshold of just a single lawmaker before reversing himself to wrap up the votes to what ultimately became his doomed speakership. Rep. Matt Gaetz of Florida made history by successfully using the motion to vacate to force McCarthy's ouster. Gaetz teamed up with seven other House Republicans and House Democrats to boot McCarthy from power. There was speculation that Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene would trigger a motion to vacate the speaker after Saturday's vote. Greene first filed the motion to vacate resolution a month ago, in part over frustration with the speaker on how he handled a $1.2 trillion spending package.
Though a red wave did not materialize, the House Freedom Caucus is likely to play a major role in the House where new members could rise to prominence. The exact composition of the House Freedom Caucus in the next Congress is also not yet clear as some races have yet to be decided. Representative Lauren Boebert, a prominent member, is locked in a tight race in Colorado's 3rd district against Democrat Adam Frisch. The House Freedom Caucus appears poised to play a major role in the next Congress after Republicans performed less well than was widely expected in Tuesday's midterm elections.
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