House Republicans Are At Each Other’s Throats In Disarray After Infrastructure Passes

Last updated on September 25th, 2023 at 02:52 pm

House Republicans are preparing to punish the 13 of their colleagues who voted for the bipartisan infrastructure bill.

House Republicans Are In Disarray

According to the Punchbowl AM Newsletter:

The GOP leadership is bracing for rank-and-file lawmakers to attempt to strip committee assignments from the 13 Republican lawmakers who voted for the $1 trillion bipartisan infrastructure bill. Several of these lawmakers are also ranking members — top Republicans on committees — and those could be at risk, too.

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A number of GOP lawmakers were upset by the fact that several of their Republican colleagues voted early for the infrastructure package, helping Democrats cross the majority threshold on a key piece of President Joe Biden’s legislative agenda and undermining their party strategy. 

The Chaos Is A Failure Of Kevin McCarthy’s Leadership

Even if McCarthy could not keep the vote total low enough to prevent Republicans from giving Speaker Pelosi the cushion she needed to let the Squad vote no, he could have stepped in and defended the 13 who voted for the bill and promised that there would be punishments for members who vote their conscience.

Leader in title only Kevin McCarthy didn’t do that. What he is doing is letting his caucus run wild. As we have seen with the previous recent Republican House Speakers, this is a recipe for failure. If McCarthy can’t lead his caucus now, he won’t be able to lead them if they take back the House in 2022.

Democrats may negotiate tough with each other, but Speaker Pelosi would never allow this sort of disarray in her caucus.

Kevin McCarthy is a failure, and America should expect even more failure if Republicans win the House majority in 2022.

Jason Easley

Jason is the managing editor. He is also a White House Press Pool and a Congressional correspondent for PoliticusUSA. Jason has a Bachelor’s Degree in Political Science. His graduate work focused on public policy, with a specialization in social reform movements.

Awards and  Professional Memberships

Member of the Society of Professional Journalists and The American Political Science Association