House Speaker Mike Johnson speaks to reporters earlier this month. Photo: Andrew Harnik/Getty Images
Dozens of Speaker Mike Johnson's own members are racing to solve Republicans' most urgent political problem — without his help.
Why it matters: House Republicans are nowhere close to consensus and the speaker's olive branch to moderates — a show vote extending the Affordable Care Act's enhanced subsidies that expire in two weeks — could be in trouble.
"We are rightly going to reject this enrichment of the insurance companies," Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas.), who sits on the powerful House Rules Committee, said today on Fox News.
Moderates are vowing to extract a concession — or derail the whole package on Wednesday — if their show vote is scuttled.
Zoom in: There are now three discharge petitions aimed at forcing a vote to extend the ACA subsidies, a direct circumvention of GOP leadership.
Two of them — one led by Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick (R-Pa.) and the other by Reps. Josh Gottheimer (D-N.J.) and Jen Kiggans (R-Va.) — already have a substantial number of Republican signatures.
The third petition, led by House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, would need only four GOP signatures to force a vote, giving moderates enormous leverage.
