House Republican leaders are giving up on trying to put the pieces back together for a rule needed to take up a raft of pre-recess legislative priorities after a group of GOP rebels blocked the procedural measure earlier, largely over lack of movement on voter ID requirements.

The decision to send members home early for the July Fourth recess after Tuesday afternoon votes came after Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., huddled in his office with Rules Chairwoman Virginia Foxx, R-N.C., and others on how to reconstruct a path forward. 

Rejection of the rule earlier in the day stymied consideration of the fiscal 2027 defense authorization bill, National Security-State spending bill and more. The plan earlier had been to try to bring the rule back up for a vote after persuading opponents to reconsider, rather than closing up shop and heading home early for the July Fourth recess.

“We’ll work on that over the next day and a half, and we’ll get everybody to yes. It’s too important to stop progress,” Johnson said after the 198-224 vote, which saw defections from more than a dozen Republicans.

Fourteen GOP lawmakers in all voted “no,” but House Majority Leader Steve Scalise, R-La., voted that way purely as a procedural maneuver allowing Republican leaders to bring the rule back up for a do-over vote.

The defeat marked the second time this month that House leaders watched their legislative agenda get derailed.

Last week, leaders abruptly postponed a vote on a rule to take up two appropriations bills after President Donald Trump canceled a signing ceremony for bipartisan housing legislation until Congress passed the so-called SAVE America Act, which would require proof of citizenship to register to vote and photo ID at the polls.

The most prominent dissenter, Florida Rep. Anna Paulina Luna, was insisting on an amendment to the defense bill to incorporate the voting measure.

Johnson, in a bid to win her support, had tweaked the rule to include a provision that would automatically attach the voter ID measure to the defense authorization bill after passage of the latter bill.

But Luna on Tuesday slammed that maneuver as a “procedural head fake,” saying on X that it would be too easy for the Senate to remove the voter measure from the bill.

Johnson told reporters the rule would have placed the text of the voting measure directly into the defense bill, as Luna sought. And even if Luna’s amendment had been adopted, a House-Senate conference committee on a compromise defense bill could easily strip out the voting restrictions.

Democrats vehemently oppose the voter measure, saying it could disenfranchise many eligible voters who may not have access to a birth certificate or U.S. passport. Without bipartisan support, the Senate lacks the 60 votes needed to advance the voting legislation, a top priority for Trump, who continues to argue that the 2020 election was “rigged.”

Retiring Rep. Don Bacon, R-Neb., faulted Luna and her allies for blocking House business out of frustration with the Senate.

“They’re low-IQ strategists,” Bacon said of the rebel faction. “They’re shitting in their own house because they’re mad at the neighbor.”

Johnson echoed that view in softer tones as he brushed off the setback.

“It makes no sense for us to stop our very important progress forward from House Republicans because some Senate Democrats are refusing to do their job,” he said. “That’s the reality of it. This is life with a small margin, small majority, and we’ll work through it.”

Math problem

Johnson can’t afford to lose more than three votes from the GOP caucus when the rule is reconsidered, if all members are present and voting. But some of those who voted “no” Tuesday could be somewhat easy to flip. Rep. Lauren Boebert, R-Colo., for example, suggested she was sitting on the fence.

“Well, I was gonna behave and be a good girl, but it was going down, way down,” she said of the rule vote. “So I just decided to play.”

Aside from frustration over the voting measure, dissenters also expressed concern that leaders had not fulfilled a promise to take up a major immigration overhaul, known in the last Congress as HR 2, before the recess.

“When they make a promise to me, and to other members, that we’re going to bring up HR 2 before July 4, and they don’t even try to do that, then you leave me with no choice,” said Rep. Eric Burlison, R-Mo.

Others who cited the lack of border security legislation along the lines of the old HR 2 included GOP Reps. Chip Roy and Keith Self of Texas and Andy Harris of Maryland, the Freedom Caucus chairman.

“Leadership decided to put this on the floor, I think, knowing that it probably wasn’t going to pass. So it’s their decision how they handle it now,” Harris said. “We have to pass laws to secure our borders, so that 10 to 20 million people don’t come in under future Democratic presidents.”

Scalise said Tuesday that immigration legislation would require more time.

“We had a meeting just a few weeks ago with a large group of our members, including some of the members that are in swing districts, to talk through the next steps, and there’s no consensus,” he said. “I mean, at the end of the day, we’ve got to have consensus before we can move forward.”  

Another frustration from the holdouts, though a more minor one, was leadership’s decision to not allow consideration of an amendment from Burlison relating to potential extraterrestrial life.

Burlison’s amendment would require the National Archivist to release records related to “unidentified anomalous phenomena” — more commonly known as UFOs. Rep. Tim Burchett, R-Tenn., said that the lack of consideration for the amendment played a role in his no vote.

“It was clear the deep state didn’t want it, and we’re in cahoots with them,” he said. “We need to clean up our act. It’s disgusting.”  

Nina Heller and John M. Donnelly contributed to this report.