Chris Bien: Deputy chief of staff, Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.)

Managing the House floor is a big job in any Speaker’s office. That challenge is turned up to the max in the current House Republican majority, where super-slim margins and a culture of rebellion make drama on the House floor a regular occurrence.

Chris Bien, Speaker Mike Johnson’s (R-La.) deputy chief of staff, has helped the GOP majority deal with that uncertainty and defy the odds to deliver under pressure.

“Our job is to know the rules and procedures of the institution and how we want to execute what we want to do as the majority — how do we advance not only the Speaker’s priorities, but our members’ priorities and the administration’s priorities together?” Bien said.

In June, Bien was promoted from floor director to deputy chief of staff in the Speaker’s office — retaining his leadership over a team of six in floor operations while taking on other responsibilities to assist the chief of staff.

An intraparty dispute making it to the House floor sometimes means making a call to pull a vote or let it fail. Other times, it means holding a vote open while lawmakers negotiate to get enough Republicans to “yes.”

“It’s a little bit of art. There’s no magic formula,” Bien said. “Hopefully, we were able to do a lot of the legwork before and sort of sniff out a lot of those issues. We rely on the leader’s team, the whip team too, to help give us information, give us context to where these members are.”

In this Congress, Bien has helped Republicans usher through the One Big Beautiful Bill Act and overcome countless stalled procedural votes. He spoke with The Hill the week that House Republicans passed a flurry of major legislation before leaving for August recess.

It is of paramount importance to have trust with not only the members of staff of one’s own party, but also across the aisle, Bien said, so that the floor staff can have free flow of information and anticipate what might happen.

“At the end of the day, members want to be productive, get stuff done. They want to be able to be part of the solution to figuring things out. And so it’s just making sure to hear them out, understand where they’re coming from, and making sure that we can advocate for what they think is important,” Bien said.