An unenthusiastic House Republican retreat
Our colleague Marianna Sotomayor files this dispatch from the House Republican retreat at the Greenbrier resort in West Virginia.
Even before House Republicans embarked to West Virginia for their yearly gathering Wednesday, they retreated.
A lack of participation — not even half of the 219-member conference attended — contributed to the canceling of a second day of panels meant for lawmakers to discuss policy and how to expand their majority.
The group’s chairwoman, Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.), who coordinates the yearly messaging retreat, told reporters that the lack of attendance was not representative of the “enthusiastic conference” and that lower attendance was based on Republicans choosing to return home to campaign in tough primaries or convince voters that they deserve a second term in districts won by Joe Biden in 2020. (Rep. Troy E. Nehls of Texas told us he wasn’t going so he could spend time with his family. Rep. Ralph Norman of South Carolina said he was going to go home instead.)
The physical representation of disunity was not the image House Republicans were hoping to display after a whirlwind year that has tested the conference’s slim majority and impeded its ability to consistently legislate against the Biden administration.
- “We’ve got so many things to show for the last year-plus. But people all want to focus on a car accident, right? It’s always the car accident that draws attention,” said Majority Whip Tom Emmer (R-Minn.).
House Speaker Mike Johnson and his leadership team said in news conferences and interviews with The Washington Post that although the process has been unpredictable, they have not allowed the government to shut down, they averted a debt ceiling collapse, and they passed a number of conservative bills from their “Commitment to America” framework, including a Parents Bill of Rights and a border security proposal, which they tout as policy wins on the campaign trail.
No group has had to manage the whims of the conference more than leadership. Johnson’s “team speech” to members Thursday morning focused largely on the need to “stand together” — a message he has ramped up in recent weeks to persuade hard-liners so he can go into bicameral negotiations with a firmer set of requests to fight for.
The speaker extended that call for unity on the campaign trail, forcefully telling members that they should avoid campaigning against colleagues facing primary challenges, which he considered wrong and not helpful. Members responded to that message with applause, according to people in the room.
Working to maintain — or find — unity will be tested in coming weeks. Both chambers must fund a majority of the government by next Friday, and the House debates packaging a supplemental sending aid to foreign allies and addressing the U.S. southern border, two of the most divisive issues among the conference.
Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-La.), who manages the House floor schedule, said he continues to encourage committee chairs to iron out policy disputes when a bill is in their court to try to prevent surprise opinions on the floor.
- “We either come together to get it done or it doesn’t happen,” he said.
It is a message leaders are often repeating to holdouts on legislation — most often far-right members who began a trend of sinking procedural hurdles to protest votes or who threatened to make life more difficult for Johnson.
Emmer, who is responsible for delivering the votes, is often the one confronting members on the floor to prevent any…
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