Last month, House Speaker Kevin McCarthy convinced President Joe Biden to negotiate conditions for raising the federal government’s borrowing cap. McCarthy even won some concessions, like spending cuts and work requirements for more recipients of food stamps.

Still, 11 House Republicans wanted more. On June 5, these 11 Republicans started blocking the floor votes for every single bill, as retaliation for McCarthy’s deal. They voted against passing a House rule to set the parameters for a debate on certain upcoming bills, including a bill to guard gas stoves against certain regulations.

Now, seven days later, the House has finally resumed voting… temporarily.

Sponsored: Warning: Will “Bidenflation” Destroy Your Retirement?

All week, McCarthy was meeting with some of the 11 recalcitrant representatives. On Monday night, people familiar with the meetings told national media that the House would resume operations on Tuesday.

In fact, some of the 11 members said Monday that they would support only support a rule advancing both the stove bill and a bill to nix the president’s restrictions on pistols with stabilizing braces.

Sure enough, the House considered the pistol bill Tuesday afternoon, along with the stove bill.

However, the 11-member bloc isn’t finished. Some members explicitly demanded a power-sharing agreement with McCarthy, insiders told several outlets.

Some of these 11 members reportedly threatened to continue withholding their support from other bills in the future, until given their power-sharing agreement.

In the past, House Freedom Caucus member Ben Cline, R-Va., has demanded an agreement “commitments in writing” from McCarthy.

McCarthy himself spoke about the need to “get it solved so it doesn’t keep happening all the time.”

Last week, one member — Texas Republican Chip Roy — seemed to threaten removing McCarthy from the speakership.

However, Roy failed to win any concessions from McCarthy, other than a scheduled meeting.

Sponsored: This Food Grows Cancerous Tumors – Do Not Eat It

McCarthy became House speaker in January by outlasting his conservative critics. He won the speakership election only after 15 rounds of voting, despite some conservative holdouts.

Now, in the past month, he’s outlasted the critics’ attempts to scuttle his deal on the borrowing cap, their attempts to remove him from the speakership, and their attempts to stall certain bills in Congress.

“We know when we work together and work on conservative issues, we were winning, and we get more victories that way,” McCarthy told reporters Monday. “And I think everybody wants to get back to that place.”

 

Flashback! Kevin McCarthy clowns House Freedom Caucus

 

The Horn editorial team