Johnson, For Now
The new House? Just like the old House. Plus this week's links.
During the Speaker vote Friday, when Mike Johnson (temporarily, it turned out) didn’t have the votes, I said that we can ask Attorney General Gaetz and Speaker Johnson about Donald Trump’s clout with congressional Republicans. Clever, right? But soon after I said that, Trump got on the phone with the holdouts and they relented, allowing Johnson to win. Indeed, Johnson wound up winning on the first ballot.
I think those who interpreted this as chaotic were, nevertheless, completely correct. Eleven House Republicans immediately released a letter basically making sure everyone knows that they remain dissatisfied with their own leadership. Yes, they were willing to keep peace within the conference for now, but there’s no guarantee that they’re going to support major bills that deviate from their idea of perfection – and bills that do pass muster with them may lose votes from elsewhere within the conference. Or in the Senate.
And yes: Trump eventually seems to have helped get this done, but only after the radicals managed to turn a routine exercise into another black eye for the party. So I wouldn’t exactly count this as evidence of Trump’s clout. I think it’s far more likely that they folded because at the end of the day they didn’t have a better Speaker candidate and they fulfilled their immediate goal of demonstrating their clout, not because they were intimidated by Trump.
The bottom line here is that electing a Speaker is easy, but legislating is hard even with much larger partisan majorities and far more legislative experience than House Republicans have. Perhaps they’ll manage anyway, but the mismatch between their extremely ambitious agenda and their ability to get things passed is about as wide as it could be.
Anyway: The first two links below are items written before the Speaker vote but absolutely still worth reading. Happy New Year, everyone.
1. Really good one from Josh Huder on House Republicans and leadership. Oddly enough, Senate Republicans haven’t been experience-averse at all. It’s also been the case that Republican impatience with their own leaders goes back quite a ways, even before Newt Gingrich’s time, although it’s certainly become worse over time.
2. Matt Glassman on the start of the new Congress and the Speaker election.
3. Natalie Jackson on evaluating Trump’s (second) first year.
4. Miranda Yaver on health insurers and cancer care.
5. Seth Masket on norm violations.
6. Richard L. Hasen and Jeremy Stahl on sentencing Trump.
7. And Desh Girod at Good Authority on Jim Crow and the 2024 election.