Mike Johnson Can’t Get Control of the House

House lawmakers will start their July 4 holiday early after House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-Louisiana) lost control of the chamber for a second straight week.

A growing group of conservative dissidents blocked a procedural vote on Tuesday that would have allowed GOP leaders to bring up a must-pass $1.15 trillion defense policy bill on the floor this week. The revolt started last week, when allies of President Donald Trump froze the floor, demanding passage of the SAVE America Act in the Senate, as a condition of voting on any legislation in the House.

That bill requires proof of citizenship for those registering to vote and includes changes to mail-in voting laws, and it’s become Trump’s top legislative priority.

This week, the issues for Johnson intensified. Fourteen House Republicans broke with the party to block the rule, and some of those lawmakers had more grievances than just the voting bill.

Some conservatives pointed to a promise House GOP leadership made to hold a vote on a border security package before July 4. But the bill was not scheduled for a vote this week.

“We certainly didn’t see either committee action or floor action on it. That disappointed a number of people, myself included,” Rep. Andy Harris (R-Maryland), chair of the House Freedom Caucus, said of the border package. Harris voted to block the defense bill from moving ahead Tuesday.

Others, including Harris, pointed to the Supreme Court’s decision on Tuesday upholding birthright citizenship, arguing it only magnifies the need for the Republican Congress to pass a border security bill.

“Particularly in line with birthright citizenship today, we need to be on offense and we’re not,” Rep Chip Roy (R-Texas) said. “We were told in Reconciliation 2.0 that we would get border security through, and that didn’t happen. So let’s do what we need to.”

Johnson was unable to break the deadlock even after Trump himself posted on his social media warning House Republicans last week to stop blocking the speaker’s agenda. The Trump plea came only after the president last week canceled a bill-signing for a bipartisan housing bill over his demand that Congress first pass the voting bill.

Rep. Don Bacon (R-Nebraska), a moderate, said he doesn’t blame the speaker for the deadlock.

“I blame the criminals. We’ve got people who think they’re smarter than the speaker, who demand their way, versus realizing there’s 435 people in this institution. We’ve done our part, and they don’t seem to accept it,” Bacon told NOTUS.

Other rank-and-file Republicans are fuming after yet another conservative revolt gridlocked the House floor for the second week in a row.

Rep. Rob Bresnahan (R-Pennsylvania) told NOTUS the standstill in the chamber is “infuriating.”

“You can’t have paralysis by analysis — you got to be able to meet halfway across the bridge and be able to move the ball forward for our constituents and the American people,” Bresnahan said.

Rep. Carlos Giménez (R-Florida) told NOTUS that “nothing should stand in the way of passing the NDAA,” referring to the annual bill that outlines defense policies and sets Pentagon spending levels.

“The NDAA is one thing, other issues are something else,” Giménez said.

Tuesday’s procedural vote was just the latest to fail. Nine other measures have gone down this Congress after conservatives bucked GOP leadership. Republicans are grappling with a historically narrow margin –– Johnson can only lose three votes if he has full attendance from his conference.

But conservatives contend that blocking procedural measures is one of their only leverage points over party leaders. Rep. Tim Burchett (R-Tennessee) told NOTUS that the tactic is “the only way us conservatives really have an avenue, you know?”