Speaker McCarthy’s tenuous hold on his job has been put on full display with the failure of a simple rule vote due to a revolt from a dozen conservative GOP conference members. Should he fail to bandage those wounds, Mr. McCarthy’s tenure could soon come to an end. 

On Tuesday, the House Republican conference was set to vote on a number of bills that would have protected gas stoves from federal bans. It seemed like a simple issue that would satisfy every member of the caucus, from Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene to more moderate members like Congressman Brian Fitzpatrick. But 12 conservatives stopped the legislation in its tracks by killing a House rule that would have allowed debate to proceed. 

“We took down the rule because we’re frustrated at the way this place is operating,” Congressman Matt Gaetz told reporters after the vote. “We took a stand in January to end the era of the imperial speakership. We’re concerned that the fundamental commitments that allowed Kevin McCarthy to assume the speakership have been violated as a consequence of the debt limit deal.”

Those 12 members say that their revolt comes out of frustration over the recent debt ceiling deal negotiated by Mr. McCarthy and his leadership team — a deal that won more Democratic votes in the House than Republican ones. 

The gas stove legislation is set to be reconsidered, but it is unclear if the Republican leadership has won the support of those very conservatives who killed the bill on Tuesday. Mr. McCarthy told reporters on Wednesday morning that he and his conservative colleagues were “talking through it.”

The speaker seemed to throw one member of his leadership team under the bus — Congressman Steve Scalise. “We put different roles out there and the majority leader runs the floor,” Mr. McCarthy said of Mr. Scalise, who holds that title. “It was a conversation that the majority leader had with Clyde and I think it was a miscalculation — or misinterpretation of what one said to another,” Mr. McCarthy said of Congressman Andrew Clyde, a conservative member who helped lead the revolt against the gas stove rule. 

One Freedom Caucus member who voted against the rule on Tuesday, Congresswoman Lauren Boebert, said Mr. McCarthy has reneged on a deal struck between the leadership and conservative firebrands in January when Mr. McCarthy was fighting to win the gavel. 

“This is what we fought for in January,” Mrs. Boebert told reporters at the Capitol. “We were serious when we did it. We said Congress is broken, and we want fundamental changes to this place.”

In January, in his quest for the gavel, Mr. McCarthy made a number of concessions related to the House’s rules and procedures that could end up being his downfall, including lowering the threshold for calling for a vote of no confidence to just one member. 

Previously, the House would only consider a no-confidence vote — known as a motion to vacate — “if offered by direction of a party caucus or conference,” meaning an entire caucus must support a speaker’s removal. 

The motion to vacate has been used to pressure speakers of the House in the past. The Republican majority of the late 1990s considered a motion to vacate against Speaker Gingrich over frustrations surrounding his bombastic leadership style. 

In 2015, Speaker Boehner decided to resign from Congress after a motion to vacate was introduced and gained traction among his conservative colleagues. Under Mr. Boehner, the motion to vacate required the support of 29 members. By the time of his resignation, the resolution had 25 signatories. 

After the debt ceiling deal was negotiated, conservative members began raising the prospect of ousting Mr. McCarthy. “I think he should be concerned,” a Freedom Caucus member, Congressman Ken Buck, said. “We will have discussions about whether there should be a motion to vacate or not,” he told CNN just hours before the House voted on the debt ceiling legislation.