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Is today the day we find out Kevin McCarthy’s safe word?

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It’s not over until he says it’s over:

After spending the last 48 hours on life support, Kevin McCarthy’s bid for the speakership is seeing a potential revival.

Following a rollercoaster of a day during which the California Republican failed three more times to secure the 218 votes for the gavel, McCarthy and some of his critics finally got in a room and had what both sides are describing as productive conversations.

McCarthy has offered his critics a number of new concessions, though negotiations remain ongoing and fluid. A person well-placed to describe the state of play told POLITICO that the concessions include:

  • A one-member “motion to vacate”: The GOP leader appears to have finally acquiesced to a demand to lower the threshold needed to force a vote ousting a speaker to just one member. While McCarthy originally indicated that restoring the one-member “motion to vacate” was a red line, his allies now argue that there’s not a huge practical difference between this and his previous offer of requiring five members to trigger the vote.
  • Rules Committee seats for the Freedom Caucus: McCarthy is prepared to give the House Freedom Caucus two seats on the powerful House Rules Committee, which oversees the amendment process for the floor. (Some conservatives are still holding out for four seats on the panel.) There are also talks about giving a third seat to a conservative close to the Freedom Caucus but not in it — someone like Rep. Thomas Massie of Kentucky. Who would pick those members is still under discussion. Typically, it’s the speaker’s prerogative, but conservatives want to choose their own members for these jobs.
  • A vote on term limits: This is a key demand of Rep. Ralph Norman (R-S.C.), who has proposed a constitutional amendment limiting lawmakers to three terms in the House.
  • Major changes to the appropriations process: Fears of another trillion-plus-dollar omnibus spending bill have been a major driver of the conservative backlash to McCarthy. The brewing deal includes a promise for standalone votes on each of the 12 annual appropriations bills, which would be considered under what is known as an “open rule,” allowing floor amendments to be offered by any lawmaker.

Conservatives also won a concession to carve out any earmarks included in those packages for separate votes, though it’s unclear whether they’d be voted on as one package or separately.
The late-night negotiations followed another major breakthrough for the GOP leader: The McCarthy-aligned Congressional Leadership Fund reached a deal with the conservative Club for Growth, which had initially signaled opposition to a Speaker McCarthy, to stay out of open House primaries for safe Republican seats.

The explicit handing over of political decisions to a pod of billionaires is an especially festive touch to this ongoing bit of S&M performance art.

Meanwhile, Donald Trump and Marjorie Taylor Greene are no longer on the right wing of the Republican party, which has stretched out to the vicinity of the Oort cloud.

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