Speaker Johnson loses key vote as House GOP leaders struggle to contain rebellion
By Sarah Ferris, CNN
(CNN) — Speaker Mike Johnson is once again battling hardline conservatives for control of his own House floor — and he has no clear way out.
A small group of GOP hardliners, led by firebrand Rep. Anna Paulina Luna of Florida, took a decisive vote against Johnson on Tuesday, refusing to allow him to move their own party’s priorities to the floor until Republican leaders come up with a plan to pass President Donald Trump’s federal elections overhaul bill.
More than a dozen House Republicans blocked Johnson’s path to the floor for the annual Pentagon policy bill, in a major defeat for GOP leaders. It failed 198-224.
Multiple GOP sources told CNN it’s not clear how to resolve the weekslong standoff with Luna — who has been relishing the media attention. Several predicted that Republicans could be forced to send members home early for the second straight week, with no plans to return until mid-July.
Even Johnson, the famously even-tempered speaker, was visibly frustrated by his own members derailing the GOP’s agenda on the floor.
“We have the smallest margin in US history. We’re nearing an election. People get very emotional about things, and sometimes they make irrational decisions,” Johnson said, referring to those hardline members. Hours earlier, he called Luna’s antics a “self-inflicted wound” for his party.
But Luna is undeterred by the criticism.
“The fact that I’m being singled out because I know procedure — I’m not stupid. I’m going to fight on behalf of the American people,” Luna said, vowing that she would back down on her floor protest if GOP leaders agreed to tack Trump’s voter ID and proof-of-citizenship measure onto the defense bill. “They’re saying they won’t, so now that you saw what happened on the floor.”
The problem for GOP leaders: Congress, in its current makeup, cannot pass the bill in the form Trump wants, lacking the votes even with GOP majorities in both chambers.
But Luna and others have demanded that Senate GOP leaders take extreme steps, such as changing the chambers’ rules, to muscle through Trump’s priority. Senate GOP leaders have countered they also lack the votes to change the chamber’s rules.
It’s all amounting to an intense summertime clash that’s jamming up the House and spiking tensions in an already fractious GOP conference. For Johnson, it means he’s unable to bring critical bills to the floor, such as the annual Pentagon policy bill and annual appropriations bills. That wastes valuable floor time as he and his leaders prepare for what could be their last big legislative push ahead of the November midterms.
Trump has publicly encouraged the GOP defectors to back down, without specifically calling out Luna. But those hardliners also know the president remains fixated on that elections bill and do not believe he is genuine in asking them to stand down.
This story has been updated with additional developments.
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CNN’s Manu Raju, Morgan Rimmer and Ellis Kim contributed to this report.
