Boebert Says She Won’t Support McCarthy Speaker Bid Without This

Colorado Congresswoman Lauren Boebert is on the fence about supporting Kevin McCarthy but one condition could push her over the edge.

Boebert, who recently won a razor-thin re-election bid, says that she will only support the California Republican if there is a mechanism to easily remove him from the top post.

According to The Hill, while at a Turning Point USA conference in Phoenix, Boebert said, “We have to have an accountability mechanism on the Speaker of the House.”

“This is third in command for the presidency of the United States of American,” she said in an interview with “Real America’s Voice,” a conservative channel. “And we are going to strip away the one check-and-balance that members of Congress have?”

Some House Republicans have expressed the desire for any lawmaker to call a motion to vacate the Speaker chair to make it easier to remove someone from the leadership post.

Earlier this month, House Freedom Caucus member Rep. Scott Perry along with six other Republicans released a list of conditions for the next Speaker.

The requests in the letter include:

• Restore any member’s ability to make a “Motion to Vacate the Chair” and force a vote on removing the Speaker. Former Rep. Mark Meadows (R-N.C.), a founding Freedom Caucus member, helped propel former Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) toward retirement by making a motion to vacate the chair in 2015.
• Require at least 72 hours from release of final bill text before it gets a vote on the House floor.
• Bar House GOP leadership and leadership-affiliated PACs from getting involved in primaries. The McCarthy-aligned Congressional Leadership Fund was active in many House primaries boosting McCarthy-friendly candidates in the 2022 cycle.
• Increase the number of Freedom Caucus members in committee chairmanships and on the House Rules Committee.
• Decline to raise debt ceiling without a plan to cap spending and balance the federal budget in 10 years.
• Do not “return to the blind embrace of earmarks.” The practice of directing federal spending to a specific recipient or project was brought back in this Congress as “community project funding” after a decadelong ban. The House Republican Conference last month overwhelmingly voted against an internal proposal to ban the practice.
• Use “must-pass” bills like the annual defense authorization bill and the farm bill as leverage to secure conservative priorities and “check the Biden administration.”
• Create a “Church Committee”-style panel to target “weaponized government.” While McCarthy and House Republicans have promised extensive investigations into the Biden administration and alleged politicization of federal agencies, some, like Roy, think the plans do not go far enough.

“Negotiations after that are just a wish list,” she said. “There’s no accountability attached to the promises.”