All eyes on swing vote Massie as House panel takes up debt ceiling bill
David Sivak
The vote of an eclectic, anti-establishment Republican could prove pivotal to the fate of Speaker Kevin McCarthy's (R-CA) debt ceiling deal as the powerful Rules Committee considers on Tuesday whether to bring the 99-page bill to the floor.
McCarthy and President Joe Biden reached an "agreement in principle" on Saturday to raise the debt ceiling in exchange for modest spending cuts. GOP leadership released the bill's text less than a day later, setting off a mad scramble by lawmakers to review and pass the bill before a June 5 deadline to avoid default.
The two leaders voiced confidence the legislation will pass both chambers of Congress in time, a prospect that was buoyed when the chairwoman of the New Democrat Coalition, a group of nearly 100 centrist Democrats, announced she would support the deal on Monday.
But first, the bill must clear the Rules Committee, where Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY) will seemingly decide its fate in a meeting scheduled for 3 p.m.
Democrats on the panel typically don't vote for legislation drafted by the majority and have signaled they won't help out Republicans on this one, either. This ordinarily wouldn't be a problem since the GOP controls the panel 9-4.
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