Republican hardliners have come up with new ways to make life miserable for House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA).
According to NBC News, establishment-bucking Republicans are now tanking procedural votes on their own party's legislation, which is forcing Johnson to use a workaround that bypasses their blockade.
The catch, however, is that bypassing the procedural rules votes means that any legislation brought to the floor requires a two-thirds majority vote to succeed.
While this strategy worked on bills to avert a government shutdown, when Johnson got sufficient support from House Democrats to pass the bill, it has nonetheless created a new way for determined hardliners to throw sand in the gears much in the way that the Senate filibuster has been used in the past to grind the legislative process to a screeching halt.
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Joshua Huder, a senior fellow at Georgetown University’s Government Affairs Institute, said that Republicans' blocking of rules votes on their own party's bills was a "stunning development" and he questioned just how long such a procedure would be sustainable.
In particular, Huder said it's hard to imagine Johnson being able to survive long as Republican leader while relying on Democrats to keep the government open.
"Either he’ll lose his job or some rules changes will come about," he predicted. "But the last couple months have been very unusual."
Former GOP legislative aide Brendan Buck shared Huder's assessment and said it showed a real breakdown in GOP leadership's ability to control its members.
"Two things hammered into new members’ heads: Don’t lie to the whip and don’t vote against a rule," he explained to NBC News.
