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Four moderate House Republicans are rebelling against Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., to join his Democratic counterpart in forcing a vote on enhanced Obamacare subsidies set to expire at the end of this year.
Reps. Brian Fitzpatrick, R-Pa., Ryan Mackenzie, R-Pa., Rob Bresnahan, R-Pa., and Mike Lawler, R-N.Y., all joined a discharge petition by House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., on his push for a three-year extension of the subsidies.
A discharge petition is a mechanism for overriding the will of House leaders to get a chamber-wide vote on specific legislation, provided it has support from a majority of lawmakers.
In this case, the four House Republicans’ signatures put Jeffries’ petition at 218 — clinching the critical majority threshold.
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“I’ve always supported bipartisan solutions that would bring about healthcare affordability in this country,” Mackenzie told Fox News Digital on Wednesday of his decision. “Leader Jeffries and the Democrats have refused to sign onto either of those bipartisan solutions. And so at this point, our leadership is not calling up a bill to extend the [Obamacare] tax credits.”
He called for a vote on the Democrat-led solution as well as two bipartisan bills offering one and two-year extensions, respectively, with reforms.
It comes despite Johnson warning Republicans earlier on Wednesday not to support Jeffries’ petition, arguing it was not the best way to legislate.
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Johnson told CNBC’s “Squawk Box” that it was effectively “doing an end-run around the majority party, the speaker or the regular process is not the best way to make law.”
The House is expected to vote on a bill that Republicans say is aimed at lowering healthcare costs for all Americans, without extending the subsidies — which they argue are part of a deeply flawed public healthcare system.
Moderate Republicans offered several amendments to the legislation aimed at extending the Obamacare subsidies during a House Rules Committee meeting to advance the bill on Tuesday, but all were rejected by their fellow GOP lawmakers on the panel.
“While I have been working for a bipartisan compromise with reforms, the failure of leadership to allow a vote on the floor left me with no choice but to sign the Democrats’ discharge petition,” Lawler said in a statement on X.
“The speaker should immediately bring it to the floor for an up-or-down vote and let the House do the work of the American people.”
Because of the timing constraints of a discharge petition, the earliest the House could consider the Jeffries bill would be early next year.
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