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\n

Florida Rep. Anna Paulina Luna is leading a blockade that has frozen the House \u2014 to the growing annoyance of some fellow Republicans.<\/p>\n

The casualties of her fight, after all, are major GOP-written bills that are now going nowhere fast as Luna and allied hard-liners push the Senate to enact a partisan elections bill, a version of which the House has already passed. The move is now threatening the annual defense policy bill and the entire House schedule next week unless Speaker Mike Johnson can quickly find an off-ramp.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s stirring frustrations among many Republicans, even those who want to pass the elections overhaul known as the SAVE America Act.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe’s going to have to start being a team player here,\u201d Rep. Ronny Jackson (R-Texas) said in an interview. \u201cI mean, you can’t be a team of one. It’s not an institution that can function with one rogue member, especially in the small majority you have.\u201d<\/p>\n

But Luna says she is perfectly comfortable picking the fight because she can claim a crucial ally: President Donald Trump.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt’s not my job to play trust games with the Senate when they’ve actively betrayed our trust multiple times,\u201d Luna said in an interview this week. \u201cPlus, the president’s on my side.\u201d<\/p>\n

Luna\u2019s tactics, in fact, are a mirror image of Trump\u2019s own approach to the SAVE America Act, which has stalled in the Senate for months due to internal GOP opposition to the bill\u2019s contents and the precedent-smashing maneuvers that would be required to pass it.<\/p>\n

Trump shocked congressional Republicans Wednesday by canceling his planned signing of a landmark bipartisan housing package, explaining he wanted the elections bill passed first. Luna has similarly demanded that no further legislation pass the House until the Senate acts on elections \u2014 never mind GOP leaders\u2019 repeated insistence the votes just aren\u2019t there.<\/p>\n

Many Hill Republicans believe there\u2019s a reason the two appear to be in sync with their hardball approach to the legislation, which would mandate strict new proof-of-citizenship requirements for voting, among other provisions: They think Luna is privately pushing Trump to keep the pressure on the Senate, even as Johnson looks to keep his own agenda moving.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe speaker talks to the president a lot. But Luna talks to him more,\u201d said one House Republican who was granted anonymity to speak candidly.<\/p>\n

Johnson is hoping to counter Luna\u2019s push Thursday, meeting with Trump at the White House to discuss possible solutions to the impasse. House GOP leaders have already canceled scheduled votes Friday and are considering telling members not to come back for next week\u2019s planned legislative business, either, according to five people granted anonymity to discuss private deliberations.<\/p>\n

The possibility of losing nearly two weeks of floor time is fueling frustrations inside the House GOP. Leaders scrapped votes on two fiscal 2027 appropriations bills this week, and next week\u2019s plan to bring up the annual defense policy bill is hanging in the balance \u2014 much to the chagrin of Armed Services Committee members who helped write that bill, including Jackson.<\/p>\n

Rep. Steve Womack (R-Ark.), a senior appropriator, said Thursday the self-imposed blockade is \u201cnot our finest hour \u2014 we\u2019ve got to get this thing open. But it\u2019s not surprising to me because when you tend to want to reward bad behavior, you get more of it.\u201d<\/p>\n

That was a veiled reference to multiple prior episodes this Congress where Luna attempted, and sometimes succeeded<\/a>, in hijacking control of the floor from Johnson.<\/p>\n

A broader group of Republicans is annoyed that infighting over the stalled elections bill has now overtaken both chambers with just over four months until the midterms. What\u2019s downright mystifying, in their view, is holding up House business over a lack of Senate action.<\/p>\n

Rep. Nick LaLota (R-NY) said it was \u201clike beating your dog because your neighbor won\u2019t cut his grass.\u201d<\/p>\n

Luna responded to the gripers in a social media video Thursday: \u201cThis is the No. 1 most important issue in the country,\u201d she said, referring to the elections bill. \u201cThe American people want it, and we’re not budging until we get it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Johnson tried to convince Luna to end her blockade Wednesday, according to three people granted anonymity to describe the private conversation. He argued a party-line policy bill Republicans are separately trying to assemble could provide a pathway to enacting the SAVE America Act.<\/p>\n

But Luna wasn\u2019t swayed. She is among many GOP hard-liners who don’t believe Johnson\u2019s proposed compromise \u2014 which would involve a grant program aimed at encouraging states to adopt strict voter-ID requirements \u2014 is sufficient. Johnson is expected to float a similar plan to Trump Thursday.<\/p>\n

Luna is also pushing to attach the SAVE America Act to the Pentagon bill or another must-pass bill. That doesn\u2019t have widespread support among Republicans, either, and is viewed by House leaders as a sure-fire recipe for derailing important bills. It doesn\u2019t help that one key element Trump is insisting on \u2014 a crackdown on mail voting \u2014 divides the GOP and probably can\u2019t pass the House.<\/p>\n

\u201cI hope that doesn’t happen,\u201d Jackson said, adding he wanted the defense bill passed \u201cas clean as we possibly can.\u201d<\/p>\n

House GOP leaders blew off Luna\u2019s initial threat this week to lead a floor rebellion if they proceeded with a vote on the bipartisan housing bill. It passed Tuesday<\/a> 358-32 after passing the Senate 88-5 last week.<\/p>\n

The huge bipartisan margins didn\u2019t deter Luna, who publicly announced she had enough members willing to indefinitely block the procedural measures that GOP leaders use to control floor debate and prepare major bills for votes.<\/p>\n

Other House conservatives have said they were in Luna\u2019s corner, including Rep. Max Miller of Ohio and Rep. Ralph Norman of South Carolina, who is among several House Freedom Caucus members who committed to the blockade Thursday. \u201cI personally think we should not have any more legislation until the Senate comes back in session,\u201d Norman said.<\/p>\n

Johnson told reporters before meeting with Trump Thursday that “we’re in an era with small margins and small majorities, and we’ve got to get things moving.” He blamed Senate Democrats for the issues with the elections bill and did not mention Luna or the standoff.<\/p>\n

\u201cI’m going to talk with the president about these issues and how to get the agenda moving again,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Luna\u2019s close relationship with Trump has shielded her from significant blowback inside the House GOP. She talks with the president frequently and is one of the few Republicans on Capitol Hill to enjoy Oval Office walk-in privileges. The White House did not respond to a request for comment on Luna\u2019s relationship with Trump and his view of her maneuvers.<\/p>\n

During an internal crisis over a cryptocurrency bill last year, she left a meeting at the Treasury Department with a group of Republicans who were struggling with the matter, according to four people granted anonymity to describe the incident.<\/p>\n

Luna walked over to the White House and into the Oval Office, the people said. Minutes later, Trump brought the whole group in and later issued a social media post saying they had hashed out the disagreement \u2014 by agreeing to give hard-liners a policy concession that wasn\u2019t tenable with the rest of the House GOP.<\/p>\n

“Luna has more operational control around here than most anyone,” said another House Republican granted anonymity to speak frankly.<\/p>\n

Ali Bianco contributed to this report.<\/i><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Florida Rep. Anna Paulina Luna is leading a blockade that has frozen the House \u2014 to the growing annoyance of some fellow Republicans. The casualties of her fight, after all, are major GOP-written bills that are now going nowhere fast as Luna and allied hard-liners push the Senate to enact a partisan elections bill, a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-24815","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-congress"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24815","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24815"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24815\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24815"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24815"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24815"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}