As President-elect Donald Trump moves quickly to nominate his cabinet, congressional Republicans last week moved to cement their majority leadership for the 119th Congress. In the House of Representatives, Trump threw his support behind current Speaker of the House Mike Johnson (R-LA), lessening any chance that an intra-party challenge like the one that brought down former speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) would succeed. House Republicans also agreed to modify the procedural rule that allowed one member to offer the so-called “Motion to Vacate the Chair” and force a vote to remove the speaker. With the closely divided House, the rule gave enormous leverage to any one member to extract concessions from House leadership. At least nine House members will now have to support the motion.

Meanwhile, Senators John Thune (R-SD), John Cornyn (R-TX) and Rick Scott (R-FL) were vying to replace Senator Mitch McConnell (R-KY) as Senate Majority Leader. Trump did not throw his official support behind any candidate, but many of his supporters were advocating publicly on behalf of Scott. Scott failed to make it past the first vote, however, receiving only 13 votes. Thune then defeated Cornyn in the second round to emerge as the next Senate majority leader.