Raise the roof: chaos in the house representatives

   Around a month ago, the house of representatives fell into chaos with a debt issue and turmoil inside the ranks of the GOP. The GOP holds the majority of of the seats in the house by a 4 seats. A group of 8 "hardliners" inside of the republican party have consistently caused issues by voting against republican bills that they don't support. Most recently this happened in a crucial moment when the house was voting on a bill which would raise the debt ceiling and avoid a government shutdown.

    The "hardliners" wouldn't work with the republicans or democrats. They contain enough members and clout to stop any bill that only has single party agreement on. In a hypothetical world where reps only vote for their party (except for the "hardliners"), the hardliners would be the agenda setters and the bills passed would need to be approved/ appeal to them the most. In reality, the democratic and the republican blocs were able to work with each other (logrolling). The bill therefore fit bipartisan ideals and the "hardliners" lost their agenda setting power. Ironically, they held the power all along because they promptly ousted McCarthy by calling a vote for his removal (a novel power log-rolled by McCarthy so he could gain the votes to become the speaker).