To break up the monotony of an otherwise average Thursday, amid ongoing news coverage of the former president’s third day of his criminal trial, the House Freedom Caucus has revived a team of conservative lawmakers. Their objective, as described by Politico, is to “take shifts monitoring the chamber floor to prevent their own party leaders from making unilateral moves that could curb their power.” This initiative is known as the Floor Action Response Team, the acronym for which is very much FART.
As Business Insider points out, the team is not new, although news of its new life is currently trending on X (formerly Twitter) as many users trip over themselves to rip out (sorry) jokes about its name. In 2022, Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-CO) discussed it during an appearance on a Blaze Media show, saying, “Myself and other members of the House Freedom Caucus, we have a Floor Action Response Team. F-A-R-T, I’m a mother of four boys, I can appreciate that.”
It seems as though FART is now primarily concerned about “the removal of its members from the Rules Committee or changes to agreements made at the beginning of this Congress with former Speaker Kevin McCarthy,” per Politico, adding that this could all be troubling for Speaker Mike Johnson.