To get a broader sense of how difficult the situation is for Speaker Johnson in finding enough votes, here’s a look at the Republicans who opposed the latest version and some of their rationale.
Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas) was the loudest Republican critic of Speaker Mike Johnson’s alternative CR plan. But he was hardly alone in opposing it.
A whopping 38 House Republicans rebelled against the stopgap spending measure, handing the speaker an embarrassing floor defeat after House GOP leadership spent all day scrambling to find an internal agreement on a path forward. Government funding runs out at midnight tonight.
The “no” votes largely consisted of conservatives who detested the idea of raising the debt limit for two years without any offsets or spending cuts. That includes GOP Reps. Scott Perry (Pa.), Eli Crane (Ariz.), Thomas Massie (Ky.), Tim Burchett (Tenn.), Andy Ogles (Tenn.), Ralph Norman (S.C.), Andy Biggs (Ariz.) and Kat Cammack (Fla.).
But there were also some Republicans beyond the usual suspects who opposed the bill. One that especially caught my eye was Rep. Blake Moore (R-Utah), a member of the House GOP leadership team. Rep. Andy Harris (R-Md.), who chairs the Freedom Caucus but is also an appropriations cardinal, voted against it too.
Meanwhile, retiring Reps. Debbie Lesko (R-Ariz.), Jeff Duncan (R-S.C.) and Doug Lamborn (R-Colo.) all rejected the CR. Why vote no when you’re about to leave Congress?
And then there’s Rep. David Schweikert (R-Ariz.), who narrowly won his reelection and will be a top target for Democrats again next year, still opposed the plan.
These are Republicans who theoretically should have been in Johnson’s corner on the CR. But there’s been widespread frustration with how Johnson handled this entire process. Even Rep. Dan Meuser (R-Pa.), one of Johnson’s supporters, said “mistakes were made” by the speaker.
The final vote tally also shows some limits to President-elect Donald Trump’s influence, although he’ll undoubtedly still be running the show next year. Yet Trump is the one who demanded a debt limit increase and endorsed a plan that later failed.