BURSTWhile President Trump has managed to push House Republicans across the finish line on his top priorities, he hasn’t yet cracked the code on getting the narrowly divided chamber to overcome its penchant for chaos.
After uniting in stunning fashion earlier this month to pass the GOP’s “big, beautiful bill” and celebrating the win, Republicans plunged back into disarray this week when a cohort of hardline conservatives tanked a procedural vote over a trio of cryptocurrency bills, bringing the floor to a screeching halt.
The intra-party dispute — complete with a public floor rebellion and record-setting vote, a White House visit and hours of closed-door negotiations — underscored that chaos is a mainstay of the razor-thin House GOP majority that not even Trump can stamp out.
"I will say again, I am tired of making history, I just want [a] normal Congress,” Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) said late Wednesday night after leaders finally resolved the issues over the cryptocurrency bills. “Some people have forgotten what that looks like.”
The House on Wednesday set a new record for the longest a vote has ever been held open in the modern Congress, reaching nearly 10 hours for a procedural vote, as members of the House Freedom Caucus and their allies negotiated a resolution to their issues with a cryptocurrency bill. That broke the seven hour, 24 minute record set just two weeks earlier as Republicans squabbled ahead of passing Trump’s “One Big, Beautiful Bill.”
That came after those hardline conservatives tanked a procedural rule vote on Tuesday in protest, a once-exceedingly-rare occurrence that has become commonplace since Republicans regained the majority in 2023. Tuesday’s vote on the rule — which serves as a test for party loyalty — marked the sixth failed rule vote of Johnson’s Speakership; former Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) faced four failed rule votes in 2023 before he was ousted as Speaker.
Hold ups didn’t subside after leaders resolved the cryptocurrency issues.
On Thursday, disputes over how the Trump administration has handled disclosures relating to convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein held up final approval of a bill to codify $9 billion in Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) cuts to public broadcasting and foreign aid. Republican leaders worked with members of the House Rules Committee to craft a measure calling on release of more Epstein material, aiming to quell public outrage after nearly all the panel’s GOP members voted against a Democratic amendment on Epstein earlier in the week.
But while Johnson lamented chaos being the normal state of affairs, he argued that results are more important than process.
“As long as we get it done it doesn't matter to me how long a vote is held open, we just got to get the votes. And we did,” Johnson said.
Trump has been key in pushing recalcitrant Republicans to yes on key measures, such as his “One Big Beautiful Bill.”
But Trump giving his blessing to one stubborn faction doesn’t always immediately solve the problem. This week, for instance, a group of House Freedom Caucus members and their allies huddled at the White House over their problems with the cryptocurrency measure, and got a stamp of approval from Trump on one idea — but then Republican leaders had to work out details and get buy-in from members of the Financial Services Committee and elsewhere before coming to a final agreement.
Some of the problem is inherent in a narrow majority. Republicans can afford to lose just three votes on any party line measure, meaning leaders must work extra hard to balance concerns from warring factions. Democrats faced some hiccups, too, when they had a similarly narrow majority under President Biden.
“It’s just the dynamic that we're with a three-seat majority, it's gonna be difficult to do anything. We're all individuals — people didn't leave their voting card with the Speaker,” said Rep. Eric Burlinson (R-Mo.), a member of the House Freedom Caucus. “People have different opinions. It's what makes political debate healthy and makes for a better product.”
But the maximum-pressure ethos of the House Freedom Caucus, which regularly uses floor rebellions as a way to negotiate legislative changes or commitments, means that the House floor is incredibly unpredictable and often frozen.
Other members have long been annoyed with those tactics from hardline conservatives — particularly since many of their recent stances that held up legislative activity have resulted not in tangible changes to legislative text, but vague commitments from leadership and the Trump administration.
“It’s not becoming frustrating. It’s been frustrating for the last two-plus years,” Rep. Derrick Van Orden (R-Wis.), a frequent critic of the House Freedom Caucus, said of the group Tuesday.
The Freedom Caucus, of course, insists that it is getting wins despite the pattern of eventually voting for legislation that its members hold up.
“I’ll put our effectiveness up against anyone if they want to match up scorecards,” Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas) said earlier this month after the House passed the “One Big, Beautiful Bill.”
Mychael Schnell contributed.