Speaker Mike Johnson has once again lost a battle against hardline conservatives for control of his own House floor — and he has no clear way out.
A small group of GOP hardliners, led by firebrand Rep. Anna Paulina Luna of Florida, effectively seized the floor from Johnson this week, refusing to allow him to move on their own party’s priorities until Republican leaders come up with a plan to pass President Donald Trump’s federal elections overhaul bill.
By Tuesday afternoon, Johnson was forced into one of the most humiliating possible positions for a House speaker: He conceded he could not regain control of the chamber and instructed members to leave Washington early. It’s the second straight week that GOP leaders have had to scrap their plans, this time losing out on nearly an entire week’s agenda.
Many of Johnson’s members are fuming at the impasse. The House is not scheduled to return until mid-July — leaving just two more scheduled weeks of work before the August recess. And it may sink the GOP’s path to passing a tranche of Trump’s agenda this month — including billions in Pentagon funding for the Iran war — as Johnson and his team had planned.
The dispute between Johnson and his hardline members is amounting to an intense summertime clash that’s jamming up the House and spiking tensions in an already fractious GOP conference. Many Republicans now blame the hardliners — the dozen or so who blocked Johnson’s push on the floor to consider the annual Pentagon policy bill — for scuttling what could be their last big legislative effort ahead of the November midterms.
