NYT (“G.O.P. Revolt Paralyzes the House, Stalling Trump Agenda“):

Far-right House Republicans blocked consideration of the annual defense policy bill on Tuesday, solidifying a legislative blockade and forcing an early holiday recess as they agitated for action on a voting restriction bill President Trump has championed.

The rebellion paralyzed the House for a second consecutive week and dealt yet another blow to Speaker Mike Johnson, who has struggled to corral his fractious majority to act on legislation on the Pentagon, spending and other matters.

Ultimately, Republican leaders were forced to abandon the rest of the week’s legislative schedule and send lawmakers home for the Independence Day recess earlier than planned and without the achievements they hoped to notch.

It was the latest flare-up of a fight in the G.O.P. over Mr. Trump’s demand that Congress deliver him a sweeping measure to crack down on mail-in voting and impose strict new voter registration and identification requirements.

While most Republicans back the idea in general and the House has passed the bill, it lacks the necessary support to advance in the Senate, and many G.O.P. lawmakers in both chambers have said Congress should move on and focus on other issues.

But Mr. Trump has refused to do so, and a faction of conservative members of Congress has balked at conducting any other business until the voting measure moves, effectively freezing the House floor in an effort to pressure the Senate. Tuesday’s confrontation began after some of those lawmakers demanded that House Republican leaders attach the election bill to the defense policy measure.

The combination of the President’s refusal to acknowledge that there aren’t enough votes to get this measure through the Senate and his acolytes in the House dutifully playing along is great for Democrats. It is, however, further indication that enacting public policy goals and giving the party any chance at all at retaining control of Congress are not high on the MAGA agenda. They’d rather conduct performance art.

Mr. Johnson instead tried to address the demand through a maneuver that would have combined the two measures after the Pentagon legislation had passed. After meeting with the speaker last week when the blockade began, Mr. Trump had posted on social media to urge recalcitrant Republicans not to shut down the House floor and thwart their party’s legislation.

But the speaker’s gambit and the president’s exhortation failed. On a vote of 224 to 198, the House rejected the measure that would have allowed the defense bill and other legislation, including a foreign aid spending measure, to be considered.

Several conservatives withheld their support, saying they had little confidence the Senate would ever take up the elections bill.

“The only way to ensure the Senate passes this is to make sure it’s in the bill text of the NDAA,” Representative Anna Paulina Luna, the Florida Republican who has led the rebellion, wrote in a social media post, referring to the National Defense Authorization Act by its abbreviation.

She had sought a vote on adding the election legislation to the defense bill, but Republican leaders would not allow it.

Including anti-democracy measures in the NDAA, long considered “must-pass” legislation by both parties, would have been outrageous. Thankfully, it didn’t happen. Sadly, it was not on principle.

It was yet another example of the chaos that has recently upended Republicans’ agenda just months before midterm elections in which they are fighting to preserve their fragile majorities.

Among the legislation buried in the wreckage of Tuesday’s collapse was a feel-good measure aimed at bolstering House Republicans’ pitch to voters: a resolution commemorating the anniversary of their marquee law cutting taxes and spending on social programs and boosting immigration enforcement. Even that could not make it to the floor as scheduled because of the blockade.

The disarray came a week after Mr. Trump abruptly called off a signing ceremony for a bipartisan housing bill that Republicans are eager to highlight on the campaign trail. The president said he would not sign the housing measure until the voting legislation was passed. The Senate then left for a two-week Fourth of July recess, and the House was forced to abandon its legislative business as conservatives refused to budge on anything else until the election bill moved.

These are not the actions of a serious political party.