The GOP’s “big, beautiful bill” hit a wall late Wednesday night when a group of hardline conservatives and moderate Republicans combined forces to stall the sprawling package.
Lawmakers returned to the House chamber at 9:30 p.m. — after an hours-long delay — to hold a procedural vote that would open up debate on the megabill and tee up a vote on final passage.
The effort, however, stopped in its tracks after three hardline conservatives — Reps. Keith Self (R-Texas), Andrew Clyde (R-Ga.) and Victoria Spartz (R-Ind.) — voted against the rule, along with centrist Republican Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick (Pa.). Nine other Republicans declined to vote altogether, denying Republican leaders the majority needed to open debate on the megabill.
With all Democrats opposing the package, the vote remained stuck at 207-216 for a time, before Rep. David Valadao (R-Calif.) voted to support the measure shortly after 11 p.m. That momentum in favor of the bill was quickly negated, however, when Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.), who voted against the megabill in the House last month, switched his vote on the rule from “yes” to “no,” setting GOP leaders back some more.
As of just before midnight, the vote stood at 207-217, with five GOP “no” votes and eight Republicans not yet having voted.
Those eight were: Reps. Josh Brecheen (R-Okla.), Tim Burchett (R-Tenn.), Eric Burlison (R-Mo.), Michael Cloud (R-Texas), Andy Harris (R-Md.), Bob Onder (R-Mo.), Scott Perry (R-Pa.) and Chip Roy (R-Texas) had not yet voted as of 11:45 p.m.
The impasse has forced Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) into a game of chicken, with leaders vowing to hold the vote open indefinitely in an effort to force the holdouts into a change of heart.
“I’ll keep it open as long as it takes to make sure we’ve got everybody here and accounted for and all the questions answered,” Johnson told Fox News’s Sean Hannity just before 11 p.m. “I made that commitment to my members.”
“This is part of the process,” he added. “We are tying up some loose ends. We had a Senate bill that was sent over that was modified from the House version. We liked the House version better, no surprise about that, and we had reached a very delicate balance on it, so it’s taken a little while to go through the changes and to have everybody fully process that and figure out what that means for them and their districts.”
The Speaker said he spoke to three of the GOP “no” votes, calling some of their positions a “placeholder.”
“I’ve spoken to “three of the four, I’m trying to find the fourth one,” Johnson said. “But a couple of those are still waiting for some of those questions to be answered, and they’re just sort of putting placeholders on the board and I think they're open for conversation. Everybody’s here in good faith, everybody wants to get to yes, everybody wants to deliver this agenda for the people and we’re gonna give them every opportunity to do that.”
The logjam did not come as a complete surprise. Shortly before leaders called the procedural vote, a handful of hardline conservatives announced that they would not vote on the effort if top lawmakers called the referendum on Wednesday, contending that they needed more time to receive clarity about the policy details of the package — and (perhaps) ease their qualms and win their votes.
Johnson, however, tried to call their bluff, convening the vote despite the threats.
Some Republicans, including Rep. Ralph Norman (R-S.C.), relented on their initial opposition, supporting the procedural vote after hours of bashing the bill throughout the day on Wednesday.
“We got clarification of what's going to be enforced,” Norman told reporters. “We got clarification on how the IRAs are going to be dealt with. We got clarification on the tax cuts. And still we’ll be meeting tomorrow on the specifics of it. But no, I feel comfortable with this.”
It is unclear what leaders will do next. As the clock approached midnight, lawmakers of both parties were milling around the chamber even as the vote tally remained frozen.
Johnson said Trump offered Wednesday night to call the remaining holdouts to try and get them on board.
“He has been, in fact, he called me most recently about an hour ago and said who else needs to have a discussion, I’m ready to get on the phone. And I said, ‘Mr. President, you’ve done your job and we’ll do ours here,'” Johnson told Hannity.
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