"It's idiotic": House moderates fume at Johnson over inaction on ACA
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Speaker Mike Johnson arrives for the House Republican Conference caucus meeting in the Capitol on Dec. 16. Photo: Bill Clark/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images
House GOP moderates are threatening to cut a deal with Democrats after Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) ruled out giving them a vote on extending expiring Affordable Care Act subsidies.
Why it matters: House moderates, some in tough reelection fights, feel they need to do something on the subsidies, but they're nowhere close to convincing their leadership.
- The House is set to vote Wednesday on a "consensus" GOP health care package, but an ACA fix is not likely to be among what passes.
Driving the news: "It's idiotic, it's political malpractice," Rep. Mike Lawler (R-N.Y.) told reporters Tuesday of Johnson refusing to give them an ACA extension vote.
- Lawler, along with Reps. Brian Fitzpatrick (R-Pa.) and Kevin Kiley (R-Calif.), didn't rule out signing on to House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries' (D-N.Y.) discharge petition — which would force a vote on a clean three-year extension of the subsidies — though both acknowledged that plan would likely die in the Senate.
- Rep. Jenn Kiggans (R-Va.) has ruled out signing on for the moment, a source familiar with her plans told Axios.
State of play: There are 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 Fitzpatrick and the other by Kiggans and Rep. Josh Gottheimer — already have a substantial number of Republican signatures.
- The third petition, led by Jeffries, would need only four GOP signatures to force a vote, giving moderates enormous leverage.
Johnson told reporters that they tried to find a "pressure release valve" for the members who wanted a vote on extending the subsidies but, in the end "there was not an agreement."
- The issue centers around demands that the amendment include offsets, an idea that moderates feared would water down the bill.
- "It's not me that's not giving [the vote]," the speaker added, arguing the moderates declined to include payfors.
The latest: Kiggans plans to try to offer her ACA extension bill that includes a payfor as an amendment to the GOP leadership plan, a source familiar with the matter told Axios.
- It's not clear whether that can get through the Rules Committee.
The other side: House Democratic leadership is hopeful that if they refuse to budge on their three-year extension red line, Republicans will eventually defect and sign on to Jeffries' discharge petition, two senior House Democrats told Axios.
- A House Democrat who has spoken with Republican moderates, however, expressed skepticism that their threats to sign Jeffries' petition are anything more than performative.
- The Gottheimer discharge petition, this lawmaker said, is a backstop for that scenario.
- Several progressives, in interviews with Axios, did not rule out supporting an extension shorter than three years if it has Jeffries' support. "I'm deferring to leadership to assess the situation," said Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.).
The bottom line: "I see this as a failure of leadership on both sides. I think that it's fallen upon, you know, us as members, to try to navigate this process and try to use whatever leverage points and whatever levers we have to get a vote and to get a policy enacted," Kiley said.
- "I think this is why people are so frustrated with Congress, and why Congress has, what? A 15% approval rating?"
Editor's note: This story has been updated with additional reporting.
