Freedom Caucus backs off plan to push a challenger to Johnson

House conservatives are planning to force an internal vote on Mike Johnson’s speakership during Wednesday’s leadership election instead of throwing in an alternate candidate, two people familiar with the discussions told POLITICO.

Johnson’s critics in the House Freedom Caucus have been deliberating for days over how to push back against proposed internal rules changes and send a message to the Louisiana Republican. Hours earlier, members of the group still expected to likely put forth a formal challenger against Johnson, though they hadn’t publicly announced a name.

But the two people familiar with the discussions, granted anonymity to discuss private planning, said on Tuesday night that the group’s plan is now to force an internal vote. Essentially, that means they would prevent leadership from allowing Johnson to be nominated for speaker by a simple voice vote that would have allowed him to say he was nominated unanimously. Instead, members would go ahead with the secret ballot process, giving them the option to oppose Johnson’s speaker nomination without revealing who they are.

The Freedom Caucus met privately to discuss their plan for hours on Tuesday. The two people familiar added that the group would only formally throw in a challenger if their plan to force a ballot vote is blocked, but they don’t expect it to be.

“It’s counterproductive” to formally name a challenger, one of the people familiar said. They added that the group had three people willing to jump in as formal challengers.

Conservatives’ frustration with Johnson is being fueled by a series of rules proposals, circulated on Tuesday, which included several amendments to the House GOP’s rules that would punish members who broke with the conference on certain procedural and leadership votes.

Johnson told POLITICO Tuesday night that he didn’t support rule changes that would punish members. But that isn’t enough for some of his holdouts, who actively want him to go into a candidate forum tomorrow and tell his members to vote down those rule proposals. Without more forceful action from Johnson, conservatives believe the potential changes could be adopted during a Thursday meeting, when Republicans will set their internal rules.

The other person familiar with the discussions said that if Johnson tells his conference to vote down the proposed rules changes during an internal meeting on Wednesday morning, before the leadership elections, the group may drop their plan to force the secret-ballot vote.

“Stand up and tell the conference this is not going to happen. I’m not going to support this. Vote this down, and then everyone knows,” that person said.