GOP centrists choose nuclear option in fight with Mike Johnson over Obamacare
CNN
By Sarah Ferris, Manu Raju, CNN
(CNN) — A bloc of House GOP centrists just made the ultimate hardball play against Speaker Mike Johnson — agreeing to help Democrats effectively seize control of the Republican agenda by forcing a vote on their own bill on the looming Obamacare subsidies cliff.
The stunning blow to Johnson comes after weeks of tense infighting among GOP leaders, moderates and hardliners that failed to produce any Republican fix for the end of month Obamacare deadline. It’s an act of protest that is unusual even in this fractious and unruly House, with four moderate Republicans agreeing to deliver a major floor win for the leader of the House Democratic caucus.
Now, those centrists, led by Reps. Brian Fitzpatrick and Mike Lawler, are privately threatening Johnson to change his strategy on the expiring enhanced Affordable Care Act subsidies — or allow Democrats to secure that major victory on the floor in January.
Fitzpatrick had pushed his own compromise legislation to extend the subsidies for two years, instead of Democrats’ three, and with major reforms attached, but he was repeatedly blocked by party leaders from securing a floor vote.
“The only thing worse than a clean extension with no anti-fraud and no income caps is a cliff. So obviously left with a Hobson’s choice,” he told reporters, speaking about the Democratic bill, which includes none of the reforms that centrists of both parties have endorsed.
The House on Wednesday is expected to vote on a separate, narrower health care proposal from GOP leadership that does not address the expiring subsidies – all but guaranteeing that the money will lapse and spike premiums for tens of millions of Americans next year. A bipartisan group of senators is also working on a parallel track to strike their own health care agreement.
In a tense huddle on the House floor on Wednesday, multiple GOP moderates warned Johnson that he must now allow a vote on the centrists’ own compromise plan to address the subsidies, according to a person involved in the discussions. If he doesn’t, Johnson will face an embarrassing prospect the first week of January: the plan from House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries that’s detested by a majority of Republicans will pass the GOP-led House.
“What we’re trying to do is to force the conversation. We have to have a conversation on something. There should be an extension of the ACA tax credits for some period of time,” Pennsylvania Rep. Ryan Mackenzie, who was part of that huddle with Johnson, told CNN.
Mackenzie was one of the four GOP centrists who took what’s often described in Congress as the nuclear option — agreeing to a discharge petition from the opposite party. Lawler, Fitzpatrick and Pennsylvania Rep. Rob Bresnahan also signed onto the Democratic effort in quick succession Wednesday morning. They are not the only ones who will support the bill when it comes up.
GOP Rep. Nick LaLota of New York said he hopes Johnson responds to the pressure by agreeing to put forward a compromise bill.
“This town acts on leverage, well that’s what I’ve learned in the last three years. And for some reactions there’s a reaction to it,” LaLota told CNN, adding that he would sign onto the Democratic bill if there are no other options.
Not all centrists will support the Democratic position, which they argue does nothing to rein in the program’s explosive costs. But many acknowledge that Johnson could have allowed a vote on a compromise bill — as moderates have demanded for weeks – and avoided the drama.
“If he would have brought up the Fitzpatrick or Kiggans bill, this probably would never have happened,” Rep. Don Bacon of Nebraska told CNN, adding that he personally won’t vote for the Democratic measure.
Johnson, who initially ignored questions from CNN about the centrists’ rebellion, later told reporters that he blamed the House’s thin margin for the chaos as he defended his leadership.
“I have not lost control of the House,” Johnson said, adding: “We have the smallest majority in US history. These are not normal times.”
The centrists’ move stunned even Democratic leaders, who had been privately feeling out members about working with Republicans on a compromise bill in recent days, according to multiple people familiar with the discussions. Many believed their push for three more years of Obamacare subsidies was a longshot, at best, in a GOP-led Congress.
And it exasperated many House Republicans, who have anxiously watched the weeks-long clash between leadership and centrists ahead of the deadline.
“They’re stabbing the rest of the party in the back,” GOP Rep. Eric Burlison said, arguing that House Republicans took a “bold stand” in putting forth their own health care plan and the moderates’ support for the Democratic effort is “a betrayal to the rest of us Republicans.”
The Missouri Republican warned that his colleagues are being “short sighted” on the political implications since people will still see higher costs, calling for a “wholesale reform of the Obamacare system.”
Senior Rep. Frank Lucas of Oklahoma argued his conference does “everything the hardest possible way. We inflict the most internal pain on each other.”
GOP leaders have very little time to decide their next steps. And multiple GOP lawmakers said it’s not yet clear what Johnson will decide.
When pushed about putting a compromise solution up for a vote, Mackenzie said they were told that GOP leaders needed to check with the rest of the conference.
“So maybe that’s something that’s still in play,” Mackenzie said.
By signing onto Democrats’ procedural maneuver to force a floor vote on their proposed three-year extension of enhanced Affordable Care Act tax credits, Jeffries now has the 218 signatures needed to guarantee a vote under discharge petition rules. That floor vote, however, cannot be forced until the first week of January under those same rules.
The centrists who have joined Democrats have also criticized their colleagues’ plan as flawed. But in a sign of desperation, the typically leadership-aligned centrists chose to defy Johnson and sign onto Democrats’ push rather than allow the enhanced subsidies to expire at year’s end.
A chorus of Democrats, along with some Republicans, are now calling on Johnson to bring up the vote on the floor this week, rather than waiting until January, when the subsidies will already have expired.
“Mike Johnson should not recess the House of Representatives until we vote on this straightforward extension,” Jeffries told reporters Wednesday, shortly after clinching the 218 signatures needed to force a vote on his measure.
This story has been updated with additional details.
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CNN’s Ellis Kim, Annie Grayer, Arlette Saenz and Ted Barrett contributed to this report.
