GOP Rep. Mike Gallagher told CNN that he now views the 20 Republican lawmakers who voted against Rep. Kevin McCarthy as broken into two categories after speaking with them for hours on the floor today: some who want rule changes and some who just don’t like McCarthy.
“If it’s the latter, it’s not as constructive because it shouldn’t be about the personality it should be about the process, but I don’t know. I have no sense of how many are in either camp,” he told CNN.
For those who want changes to the rules Gallagher said “they want people on the rules committee so that they can enforce the rules changes.”
But he said giving into that would be “chaos” because then each group would want say over how they are placed on committees.
“If you’re demanding that in order to get your vote, the speaker needs to put X number of people on the Rules Committee, well, then everyone else is gonna want ‘Oh, and I want you know, the moderates want four people on that committee,'” he said.
“You can’t run the House that way,” Gallagher added.
