Home Speaker Mike Johnson remains to be smarting from his failed try to cease the Epstein information invoice from gliding by way of Congress this week. Now he’s turning his frustration towards one thing greater: the very mechanism that allow lawmakers blow previous him within the first place.
In accordance with Axios, Johnson is weighing methods to rein in Home discharge petitions—the procedural escape hatch that lets a easy majority power a invoice to the ground when management refuses to behave. How he’d pull that off is unclear, however the intuition alone says loads about the place his head is.
On Wednesday evening, Johnson griped to Axios that discharge petitions have change into “too common” and mentioned he’s contemplating tightening the principles to make them more durable to make use of.
A discharge petition has at all times been a form of legislative Hail Mary. Solely seven have resulted in legal guidelines since 1935; simply 21 have cleared the Home in any respect. However this Congress has generated an uncommon quantity—due to a razor-thin GOP majority and a Republican convention fractured on points the place Democrats are keen to hitch forces.
That dynamic would take a look at any speaker, but it surely runs counter to a foundational Home fact: If you happen to can marshal 218 votes, management is meant to observe, not combat you. Johnson’s crackdown would flip that on its head, which is why longtime Hill fingers doubt the concept will survive even a preliminary whip depend.
Florida Rep. Anna Paulina Luna
There’s additionally Johnson’s personal historical past with the software. This spring, he used procedural maneuvers to dam a discharge petition from Florida Rep. Anna Paulina Luna that may’ve allowed new mother and father to forged proxy votes—even after the trouble met the 218-signature mark. Johnson confronted bipartisan blowback on the time.
“When Speaker Johnson refused to bring our resolution to the floor for a vote—regardless of how many Members supported it—we followed the rules and tried to force a vote by filing a discharge petition and received the necessary signatures to bring it forward,” Colorado Rep. Brittany Petterson mentioned then. “Instead of letting us vote, he has instead gone to historic lengths to kill our resolution and make sure the large majority of his Members don’t have a voice.”
This time round, Johnson might discover that his leverage is thinner than he thinks. Rule modifications can solely be made firstly of a brand new Congress. To alter them mid-session, he’d want a two-thirds vote to droop the principles—a threshold that requires Democratic buy-in.
“I don’t think the votes would exist for that amongst Republicans, which means the votes don’t exist for that in terms of Democrats,” Home Minority Chief Hakeem Jeffries instructed Axios.
Nonetheless, just a few GOP leaders are signaling sympathy. Home Majority Chief Steve Scalise mentioned Thursday he’d “like to see a higher threshold for a lot of these motions. You know, privileged motions, discharge petitions.”
Rep. Ro Khanna speaks on the steps of the Capitol after voting in favor of the Epstein Information Transparency Act, on Nov. 18, in Washington.
The timing right here isn’t unintended. Johnson’s frustration comes on the heels of a number of bipartisan end-runs round his authority. After months of gathering signatures, Reps. Thomas Massie, a Kentucky Republican, and Ro Khanna, a California Democrat, pushed their Epstein Information Transparency Act onto the ground, the place it handed 427–1.
And this week, one other discharge petition crossed the 218-signature mark—a measure led by Maine Democrat Jared Golden to revive union rights for hundreds of federal staff.
The software is instantly well-liked. That’s partly as a result of members really feel boxed in, partly as a result of Johnson has provided little in the best way of legislative shops, and partly as a result of some Republicans are keen to interrupt with management when the choice is doing nothing.
Massie, who has used the maneuver extra successfully than most, instructed Axios he worries the software received’t survive its newfound success. He referred to as it a “last vestige of democracy.”
“The Speaker, because he’s not giving an outlet for legislative pursuits, the things we got elected to do, he’s probably going to see more of these discharge petitions,” Massie mentioned, including that he’s been “brainstorming” extra with Democrats.
Whether or not the petitions proceed piling up or Johnson finds a option to choke them off, the bigger battle is about energy—who has it, who will get to wield it, and the way far management will go to keep away from being steamrolled by their very own members. Johnson’s intuition is similar one animating Trump: when guidelines cease working for you, change them.
However in a Home the place 218 signatures can nonetheless upend the best-laid plans of any speaker, the combat over discharge petitions can be a combat over whether or not rank-and-file lawmakers get a voice in any respect.
