House Republicans have adopted Rep. Matt Gaetz’s (R-FL) strategy to pass single-subject appropriations bills, which removes the inclusion of House Republican border funding.
“The House has really abandoned the McCarthy CR strategy today and has embraced the Matt Gaetz strategy of single subject spending bills,” Gaetz said on a podcast Thursday.
Gaetz, who has long had a contentious relationship with Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA), has appeared to convince leadership to adopt his strategy for passing spending bills.
On Thursday, five House Republicans voted down the rule to advance the Republican Defense spending bill, a rare event for leadership to lose a rule vote.
The Thursday rule failed after Rep. Eli Crane (R-AZ) and Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) voted against it.
After the failed rule vote, Gaetz visited McCarthy and pitched the speaker to bring a single subject appropriations bill to the floor one at a time. Since the passage of the debt ceiling compromise struck by McCarthy and President Joe Biden, House Republicans have aimed to pass all 12 appropriations bills to pressure Biden and congressional Democrats on a longer-term spending bill.
Gaetz said they should bring the Defense, Homeland Security, State-Foreign Operations, and Agriculture-FDA bills to the floor. Now, the Rules Committee will take up the four bills to consider next week when the House returns.
Republicans tried to pass their own short-term CR that would have included border security measures included in the House-passed Secure the Border Act. If House Republicans had passed the CR with border security funding then they could forced the Senate Democrat majority into a debate about the growing migrant crisis unfolding across the nation.
Now, the heavy burden of figuring out how to pass 11 appropriations bills in the next nine days, before the government shuts down on September 30, falls on McCarthy and House Majority Whip Tom Emmer (R-MN).
Sean Moran is a policy reporter for Breitbart News. Follow him on Twitter @SeanMoran3.
