WASHINGTON – House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., He will start next year without any danger of being easily ousted, evading the rule that a handful of Republican insurgents used to oust his predecessor.

Two factions of the House Republican conference that are often at odds with each other — the ultraconservative House Freedom Caucus and the more moderate Main Street Caucus — agreed on a rules change that could protect Johnson from a push by insurgents to oust him.

At issue is a procedural tool known as a request for eviction. Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla.and other conservatives would remove former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) from his leadership post. He has been frequently blamed as the source of chaos in the lower house over the past two years.

The motion to vacate allowed any member to force a vote to impeach the speaker; This means that each member has more influence than less prominent MPs. This threshold will now be increased to nine members.

President-elect Donald Trump met with members of the House of Representatives this morning. Freedom Caucus Chairman Rep. Andy Harris, R-Md. He pleaded for unity during that meeting, asking us to “deliver to the American people what they wanted last week,” he told reporters Wednesday.

“We were able to work throughout the conference to eliminate controversial issues that could divide us and move forward together to deliver on the president’s agenda,” he said.

The agreement will be formalized at the start of Congress in January, when members will rewrite their own rules. So was Johnson unanimously elected speaker of the House of Representatives next year at the House GOP meeting on Wednesday.

McCarthy agreed to an incredibly narrow threshold to unseat him in January 2023 in order to garner enough votes to become president.

But the tool has become a constant threat, allowing the chamber’s far-right members to pressure the speaker to reject bipartisan compromises on key negotiations such as financing the government and raising the debt ceiling.

Gaetz, who became Trump’s nominee for attorney general on Wednesday, used the tool to vote for McCarthy’s presidency in October 2023 because he was working with Democrats to get through the shutdown. Enough Republicans joined him and the former California lawmaker voted out of office.

The House was frozen for three weeks because House Republicans were unable to elect a new leader.

Johnson was finally elected speakerHe rose to the top spot after serving as the No. 5 House Republican. But the same infighting that plagued McCarthy frequently derailed conservative legislation and put on hold the tough decisions Johnson needed to make as speaker.

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., attempted to use a motion to impeach Johnson earlier this year, but that motion was widely rejected in the lower chamber.

Now that Republicans will have a triumvirate to control the House, Senate and White House in the next Congress, they are eager to pave the way for easy legislation.

This article first appeared on USA TODAY: House Republicans agree to replace tool that helped impeach Kevin McCarthy