As Senate Majority Leader John Thune rushed to advance a new funding package this month, he faced a familiar roadblock: a trio of conservatives from his conference’s right flank.
Republican Sens. Rick Scott of Florida, Ron Johnson of Wisconsin and Mike Lee of Utah banded together as they sought to advance key conservative priorities, including an end to spending earmarks — holding out for weeks as Thune strained to keep the 2026 funding process on track and avoid another costly government shutdown on Jan. 30.
The tensions between the fiscal hawks, who want to drastically slash spending, and more pragmatic corners of the Senate GOP, including members of leadership and the Appropriations Committee, are nothing new. But these hard-liners have now found a larger pool of allies as the conference’s center of gravity slowly shifts right. They also have new perches of authority that give each a powerful megaphone.
Thune ultimately wore the three Republicans down with some outside assistance from President Donald Trump, cutting deals to win their consent to advance the proposed trillion-dollar “minibus” funding package. Ultimately, it was Democratic objections that prevented the Senate from acting in the final legislative days of 2025.
But Lee, Johnson and Scott are unapologetic about using their power amid the growing perception among some of their colleagues that they are frequent thorns in Thune’s side.
“We’re actually trying to do important things,” Johnson said in an interview. “No matter what I would have done, Democrats would have held out until the very last minute, too. So, I mean, sorry about your frustrations, colleagues.”
Since January, the trio has chosen to exert their leverage during key moments where GOP leaders have sought party unity. As Thune worked to advance the party’s sprawling domestic policy bill over the summer, the three Republicans haggled repeatedly over the measure’s parameters — including during a procedural vote that was left open for hours as they negotiated. Last month, they briefly withheld support for the bill that ultimately ended the 43-day government shutdown, huddling with Thune before ultimately voting in favor.
Publicly, their colleagues are respectful and note that every senator has a right to use the legislative tools available to advance their own agenda.
Sen. John Hoeven (R-N.D.), an appropriator and Thune ally, noted that Johnson, Scott and Lee “reflect a bigger share of the caucus” that is decidedly conservative, while “folks on the other end of the caucus” also use their leverage from time to time.
“That’s just how it works,” Hoeven said.
But behind the scenes, the hardball tactics have rankled Republican senators. As the spending standoff dragged on in recent weeks, some privately urged Thune to call the fiscal hawks’ bluff by putting the spending package on the floor, essentially daring Johnson or others to publicly object.
“He’s going to keep doing it until they call his hand,” one GOP senator said about Johnson, adding that Thune risked being “miserable” unless he asserted himself.
A second GOP senator, who was also granted anonymity to speak candidly about internal conference dynamics, added that the trio has been more “emboldened” this year than under prior GOP leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky. The senator said that’s due to Thune’s “looser” leadership style and his determination to move funding bills individually rather than simply banking on a single omnibus deal.
“We haven’t done an appropriations process in a long time,” the senator added.
Those tensions have played out quietly behind the scenes in GOP lunches, with the conservative trio at times sparring with Senate Appropriations Committee Chair Susan Collins (R-Maine) and other members of the government funding panel who want to revise spending levels enacted under former President Joe Biden.
But the two GOP senators agreed that they did not think Lee, Scott and Johnson would be engaging in their current tactics were McConnell still in charge, or even under Collins’ predecessor as Appropriations chair, Sen. Richard Shelby (R-Ala.).
“Shelby would have taken away every one of their projects,” the first GOP senator said.
The shift in leadership style was by design. The same GOP senators kvetched that McConnell was too centralized, with Scott unsuccessfully challenging him in 2002. In his bid to take over as Republican leader two years later, Thune pledged to shift power back to individual senators and committee chairs — and the three conservative malcontents, once dismissed as outliers, are now more difficult to ignore.
Scott leads the Senate GOP’s Steering Committee, holding weekly meetings with the conservative-oriented group as well as hosting a weekly lunch for the larger conference. Lee chairs the Energy and Natural Resources Committee, one of several one-time rebels who received gavels in January. And Johnson — long been willing to be a squeaky wheel — leads the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs panel’s investigative subcommittee in addition to having seats on the powerful Finance and Budget committees.
At the same time, the Senate GOP conference has undergone a subtle transformation in recent election cycles, inching toward the right as the most pragmatic Republican dealmakers are replaced by senators more closely aligned with the MAGA movement — giving Scott, Johnson and Lee a growing set of allies.
Thune has been dealing with the hard-liners one step at a time. Gaining their approval for the recent funding package, for instance, required promising several amendment votes as well as a path forward for a pet Johnson priority — a bill that would exempt some federal employees from furloughs during government shutdowns.
“He has more patience than any three of the rest of us do,” said Sen. Mike Rounds (R-S.D.).
Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) added that Thune wants “to the maximum degree possible to make sure that people in his conference are heard and respected” — even if, she said, he “has a lot of frogs that keep hopping around.”
Asked about his message to the holdouts, Thune pitched the funding package as being in “everybody’s best interest” and better than the alternatives — a new shutdown, another short-term stopgap or a mammoth omnibus loathed by conservatives. Thune also helped facilitate a potential path toward enactment for Johnson’s shutdown bill, connecting him with Speaker Mike Johnson.
“I think you always have to keep the perspective in this job … that the most important vote isn’t the last vote, it’s the next vote,” Thune said about his broader approach to leadership this past year.
The conservative trio is looking ahead to the next fight, as well. Even after Scott cut a deal to advance the funding bill, he rekindled the earmarks fight, accusing Democrats in an X post of “packing the latest appropriations package with taxpayer-funded earmarks” and trying to “undermine Pres. Trump’s agenda.”
Republicans, Scott said, must “stand strong.”