Is it low-key brilliant? Or just as bad as it sounds?
Among the reported concessions Speaker Kevin McCarthy made to his right flank during his weeklong battle for the gavel was to give hard-right Freedom Caucus members—or “Freedom Caucus–adjacent” members—three seats on the Rules Committee.
“I don’t know anything about any of that,” Oklahoma Rep. Tom Cole, the incoming chair of the Rules Committee and a loyalist to several Republican speakers over the last decade, told me on Friday, Jan. 6, when reports of the concession were first coming out.There’s a world of difference between giving Freedom Caucus members and their fellow travelersseats on the Rules Committee versus two. The ratio of the committee is nine Republicans to four Democrats.
his Rules Committee appointments this week, that was not the case. The three far-right appointees on his list are genuine hard-asses, members not known for their cooperative spirit.South Carolina Rep. Ralph Norman, for example, was one of the staunchest holdouts of McCarthy’s bid for speaker. During that weeklong floor fight, I asked Norman what he wanted from McCarthy.
“Is he willing to shut the government down rather than raise the debt ceiling?” Norman responded. Not exactly a go-along-to-get-along guy to have on your team when you’re trying to move a debt ceiling increase to the floor.Texas Rep. Chip Roy, one of the leaders of the holdouts who helped negotiate McCarthy’s ultimate ascension, was also appointed to the Rules Committee.
Perhaps the most surprising appointment, though, was the ultimate outsider within his own party: Kentucky Rep. Thomas Massie, who’s not a member of the Freedom Caucus. An idiosyncratic libertarian from Kentucky now in his seventh term, Massie has earned the nicknamefor his regular votes against just about everything.
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