#GOP conservatives say they’ll end House floor blockade — for now

House conservatives said Monday that they’re ready to end their blockade of the House floor — at least temporarily — while they continue discussions with Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) about ways to grant the hard-liners more power and curb deficit spending in future funding packages. 

The conservative rebels have essentially held the floor hostage since last Tuesday, when 11 hard-liners blocked a procedural measure in protest of McCarthy’s handling of the debt limit negotiations with President Biden, which led to passage of a bipartisan agreement to avoid a government default earlier in the month. 

The detractors, while vague in their demands, were essentially asking for assurances that the Speaker would hold a harder line on spending in the budget fights to come. 

Emerging from McCarthy’s office Monday evening, those hard-liners said no firm agreement has been reached with the Speaker. But they’re encouraged by the direction of the talks and will release their stranglehold on the House this week while those discussions continue.

“We want to see this move forward as a body, but we’re concerned about the economic security of this country,” said Rep. Ralph Norman (R-S.C.). 

Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.), another of the 11 detractors, delivered a similar message, saying the conservatives want to renegotiate the power-sharing arrangement they’d made with McCarthy as a condition of winning him the Speakership in January, and they would vote to approve rules this week as those talks evolve. 

The nascent agreement liberates the House to vote this week on the four GOP bills that were blocked last week, relating to gas stoves and regulatory reforms, as well as a fifth bill to prohibit restrictions on a controversial firearms accessory known as a pistol brace.

“Here’s what everyone understood: The power-sharing agreement that we entered into in January with Speaker McCarthy must be renegotiated,” Gaetz said after leaving McCarthy’s office. “He understood that, we understood that. And it has to be renegotiated in a way so that what happened on the settlement vote would never happen again, where house conservatives would be left as the less desirable coalition partner than Democrats.”