Moderate Democrats Offer to Rescue House Speaker McCarthy

An influential group of House Democrats has presented Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., with a bipartisan escape hatch as a way out of his party's toxic paralysis over government spending.

But Republicans are warning: Don't take the bait. It would be a suicide mission.

The New Democrat Coalition, a group of nearly 100 fiscally moderate Democrats, is encouraging McCarthy to partner with them to pass a short-term funding solution to keep the government from shutting down — and perhaps prevent the speaker from losing his leadership post altogether.

The House devolved into chaos, and then ground to a standstill on Tuesday, with Republicans in disarray over the terms of a continuing resolution, which would temporarily extend government funding past the Sept. 30 fiscal calendar deadline. If a stopgap measure is not approved by then, the government will partially shut down.

The New Democrats are asking McCarthy to ditch his negotiations with conservative hardliners who have put Republicans squarely to blame for the looming shutdown, while calling for the speaker's ouster from power for not meeting their demands.

“If he gets half of his conference, we can pass a continuing resolution,” Rep. Brad Schneider, D-Ill., the New Democrats' vice chair for communications, told reporters on Tuesday. He said McCarthy could partner with his opposition party to avoid a shutdown and save his leadership post with no strings attached.

Rep. Ann McClane Kuster, D-N.H., the chair of the caucus, argued McCarthy had a choice to make between governing and bowing to the most extreme factions of his party.

“You’re currently making a choice to try to appease these people — it’s not working for you,” Kuster said, addressing her remarks to McCarthy.

The life vest being thrown by Democrats to McCarthy, though, could actually sink his hold on power over his conference. Republicans who have been opposed to a stopgap spending bill told The Messenger that things could get rougher in an already choppy House Republican Conference if McCarthy were to reach for the Democrats' rope.

Rep. Wesley Hunt, R-Texas, pointed to the fact that more Democrats than Republicans voted for the debt limit agreement between McCarthy and the White House earlier this year.

“If we have another situation where more Democrats vote for a bill … then you can imagine how we should feel about that,” Hunt told The Messenger. “It would make us very unhappy.”

The House GOP has been unable to agree on the level of funding in the stopgap bill and wether other measures, such as border security enhancements, might be added to the package.

Rep. Tim Burchett, R-Tenn., who has also been a ‘no’ on proposed short-term funding fixes, offered an ominous prediction if McCarthy partnered with Democrats to find a way out of his party's internecine strike.

“I think inside Congress, it could be pretty bad,” Burchett said in an interview with The Messenger.

Conservatives in red districts where Donald Trump is popular want deeper funding cuts, as well as votes on issues like term limits and reigning in what they say is an out-of-control Justice Department.

It now takes just one House lawmaker to move to vacate the speaker from his post, thanks to McCarthy himself. The rules change was one of many concessions he made to win over conservative holdouts in January during a marathon 15 rounds of voting in his bid to become speaker.

But Kuster said the threats from conservatives were baloney, urging McCarthy to call the bluff of his detractors and work with Democrats.

“They can’t get to 218 on the motion to vacate,” Kuster said. “I don’t get why he doesn’t just call that bluff.”