A Few Lawmakers Are Trying to Torpedo the Debt Ceiling Deal. Here’s How

With just days to spare until a government default, lawmakers in Washington are facing intense pressure this week to support the passage of a bipartisan debt ceiling bill that key members of both parties oppose.

The bill overcame its first major hurdle late Tuesday, when Republicans on the House Rules Committee narrowly voted 7-6 to approve the legislation and send it to the full House of Representatives for a vote expected Wednesday night.

Two of the committee’s nine GOP members—Reps. Ralph Norman of South Carolina and Chip Roy of Texas—broke with their party to oppose sending the bill to the House floor. There it faces more than two dozen ultraconservative Republicans who have threatened to block the deal between Speaker Kevin McCarthy and President Joe Biden.

“This deal fails, fails completely, and that’s why these members and others will be absolutely opposed to the deal,” said Rep. Scott Perry, a Pennsylvania Republican and the chairman of the Freedom Caucus, outside the Capitol on Tuesday. “We will do everything in our power to stop it.”

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The compromise bill, which Biden and McCarthy reached over the weekend, is far from the “clean” debt ceiling increase Democrats had initially sought, but it also leaves out many of the provisions that Republicans pushed for in their House-passed debt ceiling bill. Some far-right conservatives have argued that the agreement does not do enough to cut future deficits, while progressive Democrats have expressed frustration over the inclusion of work requirements and spending caps that White House negotiators originally rejected—prompting leaders on both sides to wage an all-out sales pitch to rally key lawmakers behind the compromise.

“I feel very good about it,” Biden told reporters on Monday. “There is no reason it shouldn’t get done” in time to avoid default, he added. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen has warned that the government could run out of cash to pay its bills on time by June 5 unless Congress acts.

Complicating matters is that McCarthy made a series of procedural concessions to conservatives during his marathon, 15-round bid to become speaker in January, including a promise to only advance legislation out of the rules committee if all nine Republicans backed it, Norman said at a news conference on Tuesday. “The whole bill is a violation,” he said. “That’s not what we agreed to.”

McCarthy also agreed as part of his speakership concessions to restore the ability of any one member to force a House vote to overthrow the Speaker—a move that Republicans have so far not publicly threatened, but continues to hang in the balance. Rep. Dan Bishop of North Carolina, a member of the House Freedom Caucus, told reporters on Tuesday that a motion to vacate is “on the table” and that he will decide “in conjunction with others” about how to proceed.

“No one in the Republican party could have done a worse job,” he said of McCarthy on Tuesday. “This is a career defining vote for every Republican.” Rep. Scott Perry of Florida, chairman of the Freedom Caucus, echoed that sentiment, arguing that McCarthy “totally failed to deliver” on holding the line during debt limit talks.

How the House ultimately votes on the bill will reveal the extent of McCarthy’s political power. He can lose no more than four Republican votes on the floor before needing Democratic support to pass the legislation, and doing so could damage his standing among conservatives.

Speaking on “Fox News Sunday,” McCarthy predicted that he would have all the necessary GOP votes and downplayed concerns that far-right members of his conference would move to vacate him as speaker. “Well, that’s okay, because more than 95% of all those in the conference were very excited,” McCarthy said. “There’s not one thing in the bill for Democrats.”

He said that he expects a vote in the House on Wednesday, in hopes of enacting the legislation before a looming deadline to avert a default in less than a week. If the proposed bill does clear the House, it will then move for a vote in the Democratic-controlled Senate, where it could face yet another obstacle: amendments.

South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham, a Republican, said on Twitter that he would seek an amendment to renegotiate military funding levels, calling for a short-term debt limit extension of 90 days. Under the current framework, the deal boosts spending for the military next year by about 3% and also increases funding to improve medical care for military veterans, including a $20.3 billion fund dedicated to veterans who have been exposed to toxic substances or environmental hazards.

Meanwhile, Virginia Sen. Tim Kaine, a Democrat, said he would push for an amendment to remove a provision in the bill to expedite federal permits for the Mountain Valley Pipeline, a controversial 303-mile natural-gas pipeline between West Virginia and Virginia that has been repeatedly stalled on environmental concerns. The pipeline has been a key goal of Republicans and a plan championed by Sen. Joe Manchin, a centrist Democrat from West Virginia, who has said that finishing the pipeline would lower energy costs for his state.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer of New York has warned that the bill would need to be voted on by the weekend in order to get the legislation passed in time.