Why Representative Andy Biggs and other Freedom Caucus conservatives held up Congress

President Joe Biden and House Speaker Kevin McCarthy struck a deal to stave off a default by the federal government.

It passed on a bipartisan basis, with more Democrats voting for it than Republicans, and now some of the most conservative Republicans in the House, many of them in the House Freedom Caucus, are making McCarthy pay for it.

These conservative hardliners, including Representative Andy Biggs, R-Ariz., upset Republican plans to pass bills intended to prevent Biden from outlawing gas stoves. Then they forced the chamber to cancel any votes the next day, leading Republican leadership to cancel more days of votes.

The battle isn't across the aisle, rather between the right and the far right.

This week on The Gaggle, a podcast by The Arizona Republic and azcentral.com, host Ron Hansen is joined by Matthew Green to discuss where this stalemate could lead and why the Freedom Caucus is disproportionately Arizonan.

Green is a professor of politics at the Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C. He is the author of “Legislative Hardball: The House Freedom Caucus and the Power of Threat-Making in Congress.”

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