Rep. Andy Biggs, who helped oust House speaker, complains GOP has 'nothing' to campaign on

Rep. Andy Biggs said this week that he and his fellow House Republicans have little to show for their control of the U.S. House, saying in a TV interview that GOP lawmakers accomplished “nothing to go out there and campaign on.”

Biggs, R-Ariz., a former chair of the far-right House Freedom Caucus and frequent critic of his party’s more moderate members, was among the eight Republican House members who voted with Democrats in October to remove Rep. Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., as House speaker. That threw the House into weeks of disarray even as lawmakers faced breakneck deadlines to keep the government open.

Congress has twice passed stopgap funding bills to stave off a shutdown, but has yet to pass an annual spending package in full. In the Thursday interview, Chris Salcedo, a host on the conservative channel Newsmax, asked Biggs how many of the 12 necessary spending bills Congress had passed.

“None. None. None have been completed,” Biggs said. “Seven, I think, have been sent to the Senate from the House. The Senate has not taken up a single one of those bills. ... How do you campaign on the trust of the American people? ... You failed and continue to fund this goofy Ukraine, this outrageous Ukraine debacle that’s going on.

“In my opinion, we have nothing to go out there and campaign on, Chris. It’s embarrassing,” he said.

“Right. I know. The Republican Party and the Congress of the Majority has zero accomplishments,” Salcedo agreed.

Meanwhile, other members of the Republican Party have blamed the party’s unruly right flank, which includes Biggs, for that unproductiveness. After McCarthy’s ousting, Republicans spent three weeks trying to select a leader who appealed to enough GOP members.

“Speaker McCarthy’s removal is pointless, unproductive and harmful to the agenda we put forth when we were elected,” Rep. Juan Ciscomani, R-Ariz., wrote on social media at the time.

"I think it's a bad move for the Republican party and I think it's a bad move for the country. Now we are at a standstill again until we figure out who the new Speaker is going to be,” Rep. Debbie Lesko, R-Ariz., said in October.

Absent any action from Congress, funding for some government agencies will expire on Jan. 19, with a full government shutdown to begin on Feb. 2.

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Laura Gersony covers national politics for The Arizona Republic.

This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Andy Biggs says House Republicans have nothing to campaign on in 2024