Rep. Chip Roy (R-TX) denied he was promised something in return for switching his vote to elect a House speaker.
“I haven’t been promised anything,” Roy said during a Sunday broadcast of CNN’s program “State of the Union.”
“Literally, I have got nothing out of this deal for me personally,” he added. “Does that mean I might end up on a Rules Committee?”
The Texas congressman said he does not really want to be on the rules committee, but he may end up with a seat if that is what his colleagues want.
He noted, though, that only two House Freedom Caucus members sit on the appropriations committee. That seemed low to Roy, given the HFC comprises 20 percent of Republican members.
“But what we have extracted are the promises from the speaker to make sure that we have ideological diversity and representation among these committees,” Roy stated. He added that is important because it’s always a struggle to find rules committee members willing to object to jamming an unread bill through.
Questions arose after Roy flipped his vote because he along with two other Texans in Congress had been vocal opponents to McCarthy’s speakership, according to a Texas Tribune report.
Roy had been one of the negotiators in the McCarthy election process. He sought more changes to House rules extending power to rank-and-file members and an ability to keep leadership accountable.
Host Jake Tapper asked Roy a hypothetical question about his possible response to upcoming debt ceiling legislation.
“If McCarthy fails to offer a debt ceiling bill that all has offsetting spending cuts, if he offers what the Democrats in the Senate want, which is a clean bill, would you vote to vacate the speakership?” Tapper asked Roy. “Because it will now be able to be one person making that motion to vacate the speaker?”
“I’m not going to play the what if games on how we’re going to use the tools of the House to make sure that we enforce the terms of the agreement,” Roy responded, “but we will use the tools of the House to enforce the terms of the agreement.”
Tapper asked the Texan if he would negotiate with Senate Democrats.
“Sure,” replied Roy.
Watch:
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