Hakeem Jeffires
Without the rule vote, the House would not have been able to bring several bills to the floor for a vote.

Two Democrats came to House Speaker Mike Johnson's rescue with a procedural vote that allowed the House to keep functioning, angering fellow Democrats, particularly party leaders.

Without the rule vote, the House would not have been able to bring several bills to the floor for a vote. One bill was sponsored by Democratic Maine Congressmen Jared Golden and protects lobster fishermen in the northeast from onerous environmental regulations.

"I voted for the rule for one simple reason: It paved the way for a vote on my bill to protect Maine lobstermen from costly, burdensome new regulations that would put them out of business," Golden told CNN. "My constituents don't care about the team sports of Congressional procedure." He was joined in his vote by Washington Democrat Marie Gluesenkamp Perez.

"What the DC bubble doesn't get is that working waterfronts require working people. Nature is not a terrarium–and you don't get effective environmentalism without the input of people who make their livelihoods and heritage on the water-whether we're talking about lobsters or sea lions–working people need a seat at the table and elected need to listen to them, not data from the 1990s," she said in a statement.

Democratic congressional leadership decried the vote, saying that the pair should have at least had a conversation regarding it with party leadership.

"The decision by two of our colleagues to blindside the entire House Democratic Caucus and join with the Republican majority to pass a procedural rule on the brink of failing represents a significant breach of trust," House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries said in a statement. "It is an action that necessitates a serious response, and we have asked the Committee on Caucus Rules to take this up in short order."

Read more

The controversy began when the House passed a short-term funding bill to keep the government open. Although the measure passed with a bipartisan vote of 370-48, it was strongly opposed by some hardline Republican members of Congress, CNN reported.

Some of those hardline Republicans then sought to punish House Speaker Mike Johnson by not supporting the procedural rule. Without the passage of the rule, the House would not have been able to bring forth several bills to the floor for a vote.