House Speaker Kevin McCarthy is expected to come face-to-face with a dramatic fight on the House floor this week, but the beginning days of the anticipated clash are likely to provide some solace for him.
The House is set to begin its annual debate on the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), which has earned bipartisan support every year for the last six years, but the must-pass bill has recently become embroiled in controversy.
Far-right lawmakers on the House Freedom Caucus have targeted President Joe Biden's Pentagon policies on diversity, climate change, abortion and vaccines, setting up a spar with McCarthy on whether social issues should be included in the defense policy bill. It also causes a problem for House leadership, who will need Democrats' support in order to pass the bill.
Starting Wednesday, the House will hear nearly 300 proposed amendments to the legislation cleared by the Republican-led House Committee members last month. Before the more controversial amendments make their way to the House floor, McCarthy can expect to ease into the NDAA fight as lawmakers take up issues unrelated to the nation's culture wars first.
Ahead of Wednesday's vote, a record 1,502 amendments were filed for consideration against the $886 billion NDAA for the 2024 fiscal year. The pushback highlights the ongoing tensions within the House GOP that McCarthy leads and just how much power conservative hardliners hold over the speaker.
McCarthy's speakership has been challenging even before he won the gavel. The California Republican has tried to pass legislation with just GOP votes, but his party's razor-thin margin had made it difficult for him to do so, especially since roughly a dozen of his own Republican colleagues have adopted a more extreme agenda than his. The bill will also need to pass the Democratic-led Senate and receive a signature from Biden himself.
The controversial, conservative markups that the House is expected to hear on the NDAA include the elimination of the Pentagon's diversity programs, a Pentagon policy that covers travel costs and allows leave for troops seeking abortions, a ban on critical race theory in the Department of Defense libraries, restrictions on the Pentagon's climate change policies and the reinstatement of troops who refused the COVID-19 vaccines.
As Republican leadership tries to figure out what deals, if any, can be made with its rank-and-file members, it's likely McCarthy will stall votes on the hot-button issues by covering the less divisive amendments first. Republicans will also need to go back to the House Rules Committee before taking up the more controversial markups.
McCarthy has said that he's "very confident" that the House will eventually pass the defense policy bill and is aiming to get it done by Friday, but Freedom Caucus Chairman Scott Perry has signaled he's ready to keep lawmakers on the Hill into the August recess if that's what it takes for the NDAA to be done "right."
"I don't care when it passes. It needs to pass timely, but we have until November or whatever. We don't have to do it now. It needs to be correct," Perry told Punchbowl News.
Newsweek reached out to McCarthy's team for comment via email.
Uncommon Knowledge
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Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
About the writer
Katherine Fung is a Newsweek reporter based in New York City. Her focus is reporting on U.S. and world politics. ... Read more
