'Still a war going on': Johnson won over far-right GOP reps by agreeing to these 10 demands
House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) may have won reelection as speaker, but he only managed to do so after corralling the most fringe elements of his conference. And if he holds true to his word, that faction will have outsized influence in future legislative negotiations.
On Friday, American Prospect executive editor David Dayen posted the full text of a letter co-signed by 10 Republican members of the House of Representatives perceived as potential holdouts for Friday's speaker vote. Signatories included members of the far-right House Freedom Caucus like Reps. Chip Roy (R-Texas), Scott Perry (R-Pa.) and Clay Higgins (R-La.) among others who have publicly criticized Johnson's leadership in the past.
They acknowledged that while they would be voting for Johnson to be speaker in order to support President-elect Donald Trump's legislative agenda, they still had "sincere reservations regarding the speaker's track record over the past 15 months." But they wrote that they voted for him with the understanding that he would accede to ten different demands they laid out in the letter.
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"The Speaker vote was a skirmish," Dayen wrote. "There's still a war going on and it isn't really poised to end well."
The ten demands were reforming the House of Representatives' work calendar to be more in line with the Senate's (which gavels into session five days a week for the first 10 weeks of the 119th Congress), ensuring that any reconciliation package reduces the spending and the deficit "in real terms with respect to the dynamic score of tax and spending policies under recent growth trends" and to stop putting bills on the floor in defiance of the 72-hour rule that allows members to have three days to review legislation prior to a vote.
Johnson is also expected to "fully secure the border to stop the flow of illegal aliens completely," "cut rampant inflationary spending significantly to guarantee deficit reduction and a rampant path to a balanced budget," "not increase federal borrowing before real spending cuts are agreed to and in place," "reverse Biden-Harris policies immediately," deregulating health savings accounts, mandating that voters show proof of U.S. citizenship before casting ballots and banning stock trading by members of Congress.
Republicans' demands concerning federal spending may end up contradicting Trump's positions, despite their stated adherence to his agenda. In December, Trump called for the abolition on the federal debt ceiling, saying it would be "the smartest thing" Congress could do and that it "doesn't mean anything, except psychologically." Several Freedom Caucus members, like Roy, were adamantly opposed to raising the debt ceiling during the most recent negotiations to keep government agencies funded through March. However, raising the debt ceiling doesn't actually require any new federal spending, and is only meant to keep the global economy stable by ensuring that U.S. Treasury securities — which make up a vast bulk of the national debt — will continue to be guaranteed by the full faith and credit of the United States government.
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