Democratic Rep. Pramila Jayapal (Wash.) took a rare stance Wednesday, saying she “couldn’t agree more” with Republican Rep. Chip Roy’s (Texas) recent criticism of his Republican colleagues over their spending strategy.
“Surprisingly, I couldn’t agree more with my colleague from Texas,” Jayapal wrote in a post on X, formerly known as Twitter. “This Republican Majority is incompetent, unorganized and unable to govern.”
Jayapal’s post was accompanied by a graphic showing part of Roy’s comments from a fiery floor speech earlier Wednesday, when he asked anyone to “come explain to me one meaningful, significant thing the Republican majority has done. …” The rest of Roy’s quote said, “… besides, ‘Well, I guess it’s not as bad as the Democrats.'”
In his nearly one-hour floor speech, Roy dug into his Republican counterparts for not being willing to force a government shutdown to try to push Democrats into giving them policy concessions. The Texas Republican argued his GOP colleagues are “pissing it all away” and doing a disservice to those who fought and died for U.S. freedoms.
Roy was among 19 hard-line conservatives who joined with Democrats on Wednesday to tank a procedural vote to advance an appropriations bill in part over a lack of certain conservative policies and partly over concerns with the House GOP’s “clean” continuing resolution (CR) that passed in a bipartisan 336-95 vote Tuesday.
The CR marked a significant win for newly elected Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.), who faced a looming funding deadline at the end of the week. The legislation heads to the Senate, where both party leaders have expressed support for it.
Jayapal has been a vocal critic of her Republican colleagues, previously claiming they “cannot govern,” ahead of the last looming deadline at the end of September. She also blasted then-Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) for not honoring his deal with President Biden to set budgetary spending caps and opening an impeachment inquiry into the president.
McCarthy later introduced and passed a “clean” CR that extended funding through Nov. 17, provoking the ire of some hard-line conservatives who later joined all Democrats in voting to oust the California Republican from the top spot.