(FreedomBeacon.com)- Republican Kevin McCarthy may have secured the gavel as the next Speaker of the House, but many people believe that the leader of the GOP in the lower chamber of Congress could easily face a motion to vacate.
On Sunday, Republican Representative James Comer of Kentucky appeared on the “Meet the Press” program, saying he’s “not convinced” that House members won’t bring forth a motion to vacate vote against the newly-elected speaker.
Comer, who will serve as the chair of the House Oversight Committee in the new Congress, said:
“Well, I’m not convinced we can go the entire Congress without having it.”
McCarthy had to make many concessions to a small group of Republicans in the House who were adamant in their opposition to him being named Speaker. One of those concessions was lowering the threshold to force a vote that would remove the Speaker, all the way down to just one person.
That means that only one member of the House needs to bring that motion up for a vote to occur.
The House passed its rules package along party lines on Monday, which was the first real test that McCarthy passed as Speaker. He didn’t mention when he would reveal the full details of what concessions he made to the Republican holdouts so that he could secure the gavel.
That being said, it has been widely reported that one concession was expanding a mandate for a new select committee that would investigate the “weaponization” of the federal government, to now include a probe into “ongoing criminal investigations.”
That is likely to set up a major showdown between Republicans in the House and the Biden administration, which is conducting various criminal probes, especially those that are focused on former President Donald Trump.
Another measure is that the House will pair any increase in the debt ceiling with additional spending cuts, and that they would approve a new budget that would cap discretionary spending at fiscal 2022 levels.
If that gets implemented, it would roll back the spending increase approved for fiscal 2023 for non-defense and defense spending from the $1.7 trillion that was approved as part of the omnibus spending package passed in December.
Texas Representative Tony Gonzalez was the lone member of the GOP in the House to oppose the rules package, along with all Democrats. On Monday morning, he commented to Fox News:
“I’m against the rules for a couple different reasons. One is the cut in defense spending. I think that’s an absolutely terrible idea. The other is the vacate the chair. I mean, I don’t want to see us every two months be in lockdown.”
Moderate Republican Representative David Joyce of Ohio added that the Speaker should have concerns about the motion to vacate vote that could happen. He said:
“I’m not the speaker. So, it concerns Kevin more than it concerns me, but that just took it back the way it was originally. And I don’t think that is going to change the way we do business around here.”
