Inside the bitter feud over Mike Johnson's rule-breakers

House Republicans who reliably vote "yes" tell Axios they're fed up with watching the same small group of colleagues repeatedly threaten rule votes — and some want payback.

Why it matters: Under Speaker Mike Johnson's one-vote majority, every Republican wields outsize power. How a few are regularly using that power to buck leadership is fueling open resentment inside the GOP conference.

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• Near-weekly brinkmanship over rules — once a rubber stamp for the majority party — leaves the loyal foot soldiers feeling overlooked, while the rebels wield disproportionate leverage, several Republicans told Axios.
• "It's like these guys never played team sports before," Rep. Don Bacon (R-Neb.) told Axios, adding that the hostage-taking makes the vast majority of his colleagues "very angry."
• "It's a horrible way of going about our business," Rep. David Joyce (R-Ohio) told Axios. "We've got more important things to be doing than wasting time on petty, individual problems."

Rep. Jeff Van Drew (R-N.J.) summed up the problem this way: "The people who do that are perpetually unhappy, and ... the good, loyal Republicans feel like they're being taken for granted."

• Van Drew noted that he's "guilty" of it too, once voting down a rule over his opposition to the SPEED Act.
• "But I think it should be used very judiciously, not every single rule," he added.

Driving the news: Bacon told Axios that repeat offenders should have their committee assignments stripped, adding: "There should be a day of reckoning at some point."

• "The rest of the conference is not happy about it," Rep. Carlos Giménez (R-Fla.) told Axios. "A lot of us say, 'Well, if that's the way the game is played, why don't we play it that way?' But it's just not us. It's not who we are."
• Several members acknowledged that punishment could further fracture the majority: "If you do that with a one-vote majority, you're not going to pass a thing," Rep. Greg Steube (R-Fla.) told Axios.
• "What's my incentive to vote for anything?" said Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.), who Trump is targeting for ouster for consistently voting "no."

The big picture: Five-minute rule votes now often stretch past an hour as leaders scramble to rally support. Johnson (R-La.) broke the record last year for the longest vote held, fittingly, on a rule.

• The rebellions are typically driven by conservatives asking for concessions, but the tactic has occasionally been used by others.
• GOP leaders often look to Trump and other White House officials to "bring down the hammer," as Giménez put it to Axios.
• Almost every time, the defectors flip, claiming wins on the way out. But those wins don't always deliver meaningful results.

Zoom in: To hear Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-Fla.) and Tim Burchett (R-Tenn.) tell it, their vow to derail a government funding bill over the lack of Senate action on the SAVE Act got results.

• Johnson promised the duo a House vote on the measure, and the president met with them at the White House, pledging that the Senate would skirt the filibuster and pass the bill.
• The catch? The SAVE Act was already teed up for a House vote before Johnson's promise, a source familiar with the matter told Axios.
• And the Senate is nowhere closer to blowing up the 60-vote threshold.

The other side: "Bring it on. I'll take it. I'll bust their ass every dadgum time," Burchett told Axios when asked about his colleagues' calls for punishment.

• Rep. Victoria Spartz (R-Ind.), a notorious rule vote flip-flopper, dismissed threats of punishment: "They can't do that to me," she said, noting she's already voluntarily resigned her committee assignments.
• "If the rule is the only place that I can apply political pressure to get what my constituents sent me here to do, then that's what I'm going to do every single time," Rep. Eli Crane (R-Ariz.) told Axios.

The intrigue: Members across the conference stressed to Axios that the problem isn't Johnson's leadership, saying few could do a better job.

• "The reason he was voted as speaker was that he was somebody everybody trusted. With that small majority, that's the kind of guy you're going to need," Giménez said.

Flashback: When Rep. Pete Sessions (R-Texas) chaired the Rules Committee, he had a blunt message: "Vote your conscience on the bill, but I'll kick your ass if you vote against the rule."

• Former Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) issued similar warnings to freshmen in 2023, Crane recalled, threatening "serious repercussions" for anyone who dared to fall out of line on the rule — warnings Crane did not heed.
• "Kevin was very vindictive," said Crane, one of the eight GOP lawmakers to oust McCarthy, "He ran this place with an iron fist, and that's one way to do it. Mike is not that way. Mike is like a happy warrior, and Mike loves everybody."

The bottom line: It may be impossible to put the genie back in the bottle this Congress, even if Republicans' majority increases by a couple of seats.

• "It's been established as a tool for people to use as leverage," Joyce said. "It's going to be tough to start functioning as a team again."
• Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-La.) told Axios he expects the hostage taking to "be a constant theme" for the foreseeable future.

Editor'a note: This story has been updated with additional reporting.