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Washington — House Speaker Mike Johnson has had a bruising month, with Republicans repeatedly defying his leadership amid growing frustration over how he’s led the fractious majority.
Fresh off a defeat over a long-stalled bill to compel the Trump administration to release materials related to convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, the Louisiana Republican has struggled with his disgruntled conference as they continue to try to maneuver around his authority.
The discharge petition has become the weapon of choice for rank-and-file Republicans who are frustrated with Johnson’s inaction on their priorities. The procedural tactic allows members to go around leadership and trigger a floor vote if it can get majority support.
Their latest success came Thursday when a Democratic bill to overturn President Trump’s executive order that stripped collective bargaining rights from some federal workers passed the House with the support of nearly two dozen Republicans. A handful of moderate Republicans helped propel it to a floor vote by signing onto a Democratic-led discharge petition.
Johnson is also facing pressure from moderate Republicans to hold a vote next week on extending the Affordable Care Act premium tax credits that expire at the end of the year. As a last-ditch effort, Republican Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick of Pennsylvania introduced a discharge petition Wednesday to try to force a vote on a bipartisan measure that would extend the subsidies by two years with reforms. As of Friday, it had the support of 11 Republicans.
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Eleven Republicans have also signed on to a separate discharge petition from Democratic Rep. Josh Gottheimer of New Jersey, whose bipartisan measure would extend the tax credits for one year and includes reforms.
“What you’re seeing here is rank-and-file members of the House kind of leading the charge on this. It shouldn’t take that, but we’re happy to take up the mantle,” Fitzpatrick, who has also signed onto Gottheimer’s petition, told reporters Thursday.
Republican Rep. Kevin Kiley of California, who was critical of the speaker’s decision to keep the House out of session during the 43-day shutdown, indicated Thursday that he views Johnson’s leadership as ineffective.
“I do think the fact that we’re now up against this deadline without a clear path forward, and with all of the action coming from really a group of us members on both sides trying to come together and form a compromise — that’s not the kind of leadership I’d like to see,” he told CBS News.
Kiley later told reporters that the discharge petitions are a sign from members “that there has been less than the desired level of leadership when it comes to important policy issues facing the country.” He has signed both petitions on health insurance.
Johnson has been meeting with leaders of several factions of the conference this week to try to put together a plan to be voted on next week. Johnson said Friday’s meeting with the so-called “five families” was “very productive” and it will be a “great piece of legislation” that he expected everyone to unite around.
Last week, Republican Rep. Anna Paulina Luna of Florida followed through on her monthslong threat to try to force a vote on a bill backed by lawmakers across the political spectrum that would ban members of Congress from trading individual stocks. Johnson has doubted that it will reach the 218-signature threshold and on Wednesday denied making any deal with Luna to bring a version of the bill to the floor to get her to flip her opposition on a procedural vote on an unrelated defense policy bill.
GOP Rep. Elise Stefanik of New York, a member of Johnson’s leadership team, lashed out at the speaker over a provision she accused him of blocking, and threatened to withhold her support from the annual must-pass defense policy bill. Johnson claimed Stefanik did not know what she was talking about. Stefanik’s provision that would require the FBI to notify Congress when it opens counterintelligence investigations into candidates running for federal office ultimately made it into the legislation.
On Thursday, MS Now reported that GOP Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, who is vacating her seat a year early after a bitter falling out with Mr. Trump, is gauging whether there’s enough support to oust Johnson as speaker, though she said it was “not true.”
At least nine Republicans are needed to trigger such a vote, but even with the discontent, there currently does not appear to be the appetite to remove him.
Still, Stefanik told the Wall Street Journal last week that Johnson “certainly wouldn’t have the votes to be speaker if there was a roll-call vote tomorrow.”
When asked Thursday by CBS News whether he would prefer to see someone else in the role, Kiley noted that speakers typically serve a two-year term.
“Obviously, last term was an exception,” he said, referring to the historic ouster of Kevin McCarthy, a Republican who represented California. “But, come a year from now, who knows what the world will look like? So we’ll take that up at the time.”
Rep. Nancy Mace, a South Carolina Republican, asserted in a New York Times opinion piece that “Nancy Pelosi was a more effective House speaker than any Republican this century.”
“Speaker Mike Johnson is better than his predecessor. But the frustrations of being a rank-and-file House member are compounded as certain individuals or groups remain marginalized within the party, getting little say,” she wrote.
Johnson told reporters last week he was “not worried” about his standing in the conference “at all.”
“There’s 220 or so people in this conference, and lots of different opinions. Everybody’s not delighted with every decision every day. But that’s Congress. That’s the way the system works,” he said.
Asked for comment on this story, Johnson’s office pointed to his previous statements.
Aaron Cutler, who once worked for former House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, another politician who was ousted by conservative opposition, pushed back on the notion that Johnson is losing control.
“He lets members vent. He doesn’t try to control public debate. He doesn’t try to control his members,” the Hogan Lovells lobbyist told CBS News. “If it takes a little bit longer because members need to vent or they need to take another step or two, then that’s what’s going to happen.”
At an event for members of Congress at the White House on Thursday night, Mr. Trump praised Johnson’s leadership.
“What a great job you’re doing,” the president said. “It’s not easy to manage with a majority of three.”
