Dem
51
GOP
49
As we noted a couple of times, the House Freedom Caucusers (FCers) pitched a fit last week and kept the House from conducting any real business. The only thing scheduled was votes on a bunch of show bills, so it's not like the country missed out on some great legislative achievement. Nonetheless, it was embarrassing for Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA), as everyone and their brother (including us) noted that a speaker hadn't had something like this happen in more than 20 years, and it once again raised questions about how well McCarthy is actually going to be able to herd his cats.
Yesterday, the Speaker and the FCers had a sit down and allegedly hashed their differences out. Well, they hashed things out to the point that the House will be able to once again resume voting on show bills. After the meeting, Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) said: "Here's what everyone understood: the power sharing agreement that we entered into in January with Speaker McCarthy must be renegotiated and he understood that we understood that." The Representative also said that if these "renegotiations" are not successful, "then perhaps we'll be back here next week."
If we said we had any idea what this all means, we would be lying. McCarthy and the FCers don't especially trust each other, and it's somewhat unlikely that "well, we'll figure it out eventually" would be enough to resolve the current "crisis." At the same time, the two sides already have an established tradition of reaching secret agreements, which may or may not be written down, and which may or may not be revealed to the other members of the Republican conference. We therefore assume that some specific concession was granted at that meeting yesterday. Maybe multiple concessions. Perhaps we'll learn in the next few weeks if we are right, and if so, what McCarthy gave up. (Z)