John Boehner has a new balancing act: Handling the moderate backbencher resurgence.

In years past, it was just the far right that dragged Boehner by the hair. But the political pendulum has swung closer to the center, and now, everyday members of the House Republican Conference are regaining their voice and willing to criticize their leadership for catering almost exclusively to conservatives.


It happened first last week, when dozens of them revolted on amendments to gut President Barack Obama’s executive actions on immigration. And this week, moderates forced the leadership into a deeply uncomfortable situation, pulling Congress into an unwanted discussion about rape and abortion — a debate that had more than one Republican quietly mentioning Todd Akin while shaking their head.

Add that to the 20 Republicans who voted against John Boehner for speaker on the House floor, and it’s easy to say the Republican Party is having a rough few weeks.

But for Boehner (R-Ohio), the momentary messiness could be a welcome sign. The party’s extreme right wing — which in past years pushed the rank and file into a government shutdown and a near-breach of the debt limit — is losing relevance at the same time some of the moderates are regaining long-lost gall. And with the party eyeing complex legislation like tax reform, tricky trade deals and funding for infrastructure projects, it doesn’t hurt to have a rank and file willing to say out loud that the conservative wing has gone too far.

“There’s angst from all parts of the conference. It’s not just one side,” House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) acknowledged in an interview Thursday. “The decision is always when you’re going through a tough vote is whether you’re trying to keep everybody together for the long term, or the timing of the vote. There’s always a lot of factors you have to balance.”

Of course, this isn’t the first time the GOP has had moderate voices in the House — and they have some of them now in the Senate. Before the Obama era, there was a time when blue- and swing-state Republicans like former Connecticut Rep. Chris Shays and former New Hampshire Rep. Charlie Bass had influence in the party. But this is the first time Boehner has had to balance a loud and aggressive conservative wing with traditional Republicans who are plainly unafraid to buck the once-powerful right.

And that’s why aides to Boehner, McCarthy and Majority Whip Steve Scalise (R-La.) found themselves holed up in the majority leader’s conference room on the first floor of the Capitol on Wednesday night, trying to figure out how to pass a bill to ban abortion after 20 weeks of pregnancy.

Republicans had seized on the 20-week language as a unifying message for their party. The legislation was slated to hit the House floor Thursday morning, just as the annual anti-abortion March for Life was approaching the Capitol.

But instead, the leadership was facing an unfamiliar insurgency: a powerful convergence of women and moderates.

The bill had some controversial language: The 20-week ban allowed an exception for rape victims, but only if they had reported their attack to the police. That would exclude a lot of women — only 32 percent of rape victims file such reports, the Justice Department estimates — and its critics said such a narrow exception would be politically tone deaf.

Republican leadership had known about the unease for days — North Carolina Rep. Renee Ellmers brought it up at the party’s legislative retreat last week — but they did nothing to quell it. They kept saying that Republicans voted en masse last year for the identical bill, and wondered why so many were getting weak-kneed.

The leadership was hearing different arguments from various dissenters. But the most common request was that leadership strip the language that required a victim to go to authorities. But that met with stiff opposition from pro-life groups, who said the tweak would render the bill toothless. Some Republicans quietly wondered if women would lie about being raped in order to get an abortion.

Which is why the group of high-powered, ambitious women and well-respected moderate lawmakers were called to McCarthy’s office on Wednesday. The leadership wanted their help in solving the problem. Washington state Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers —a member of leadership — was there. So was Missouri Rep. Ann Wagner, a prolific fundraiser who was ambassador to Luxembourg under George W. Bush. New Hampshire Rep. Frank Guinta, a former mayor of Manchester, visited, dispensed his advice and left with a bag of Cheez-Its tucked in his hand. Tennessee Rep. Marsha Blackburn, who sponsored the original bill, was also involved in bridging the differences.

“I am a driving force for unity,” Blackburn told POLITICO as she entered the office.

But after a few hours in the majority leader’s suite, faced with the time crunch and stuck between moderates and outside groups, the leaders arrived at a predictable conclusion: Boehner, McCarthy and Scalise were forced to pull the legislation.

Instead, they reverted to a bill from last Congress, which said taxpayer money could not fund abortions — something that’s already forbidden under the so-called Hyde Amendment, which Congress passes every year as part of an appropriations bill. The House passed the new face-saving bill by a 242-179 vote Thursday. The White House has threatened to veto it.

The 20-week bill also wouldn’t have become law. Even if it got past a Senate filibuster, which was unlikely, Obama would certainly have vetoed it.

Republican leadership aides told some rank and file offices they are to blame for the unrest, accusing them of allowing their anger to seep into the press.

That lawmakers are willing stand up and dissent is, in part, due to the new gigantic size of the House Republican Conference. The ideology — and opinions — varies wildly.

“The speaker has been working with all the different groups. It’s just that different groups have different issues and different sets of goals they want to achieve,” Ellmers said. “The plan to bring everybody to the table is the best plan. It’s just the growing pains.”

And in the previous slimmer majority, Republicans faced much greater pressure to stick together.

“Along with that just comes more diversified views,” Texas Rep. Kevin Brady said. “I think leadership understands that on any issue … there’s going to be viewpoints coming from all directions. So getting to 218 is always going to be a challenge, whether we have 224 Republicans or what we’ve got today, 245 Republicans.”?

Of course, conservatives don’t think Boehner was ever conservative enough.

“I didn’t have the sense [Boehner] was moving toward the right over the last three years, myself,” Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa) said.

But Republican leadership is making a stone-faced promise after this episode: They’ll try to take up the 20-week abortion bill again later this Congress.

Lauren French contributed to this report.