Numbers Show Divisions Among House Republicans
The text discusses Speaker Mike Johnson’s challenges within the House Republican party, particularly regarding the Ukraine aid package. It highlights the division among Republicans on critical policies and the struggle for bipartisan support. The tense dynamics within the GOP and the complexities of governing with a slim majority are also emphasized. The content delves into Speaker Mike Johnson’s hurdles within the House Republican party, focusing on the Ukraine aid package. It sheds light on the rift among Republicans on crucial policies and the quest for bipartisan cooperation. Additionally, it underscores the tense interplay within the GOP and the challenges of governance with a narrow majority.
A few numbers illustrate Speaker Mike Johnson’s (R-LA) precarious hold on the gavel and the dilemma for House Republicans more broadly.
The Ukraine aid package that is the latest policy imperiling Johnson was opposed by 112 Republicans while only 101 voted yes. (That is identical to the breakdown among Republicans on the March $1.2 trillion spending bill to avoid a partial government shutdown.) Every Democrat who voted on Ukraine funding was in the affirmative; every no vote came from a Republican.
Johnson, as his Republican critics were quick to point out, was on the side of President Joe Biden, the Democratic-controlled Senate, and every House Democrat rather than the majority of his conference.
That was still good enough for the Ukraine security supplemental to pass 311 to 112, by most measures a strong bipartisan vote. The majority of the House Republican Conference was far from being able to command a majority of the chamber.
The same was true of the 112 Republicans who voted against the March spending measure. They were a majority of the GOP caucus, but not close to a majority of the House.
Republicans control, if that is the right word, the House with 218 votes, a bare majority. Democrats hold 213 seats, with four vacancies.
Any faction, or any determined individual Republican member, can blow up any legislative initiative lacking bipartisan backing.
In an informal rule named after former House Speaker Dennis Hastert, when Republicans have a majority of the House, leadership is expected to bring to the floor legislation that has the support of most of the GOP conference — a majority of the majority.
Subsequent Republican House speakers have found it difficult to govern that way, setting up a series of clashes that has ended multiple GOP speakerships, none more dramatically than that of former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy.
McCarthy got a majority of Republicans to back his debt ceiling deal with President Joe Biden, but it still passed the House with more Democratic than Republican votes. A majority of Republican senators then voted against it, though it cleared the upper chamber in a 63 to 36 vote in total.
A few months later, McCarthy again managed to deliver a majority of Republicans to vote to avert a government shutdown. But 91 Republicans voted no while it received near-unanimous Democratic support. This time only a handful of Republican senators voted against it.
But this time, McCarthy did not survive as speaker. He was ousted in a historic motion to vacate vote just days later.
Ironically, the motion to vacate passed with many more Democratic than Republican votes and was opposed by nearly 94% of the GOP conference. None of the three primary Republican advocates of removing Johnson voted to depose McCarthy.
Ukraine is an issue on which the majority of the Republican majority was thwarted, a violation of the Hastert rule. The same is true of March’s government funding bill. Johnson may be courting McCarthy’s fate.
The House nevertheless still needs to be run by a majority of its members, not just a majority of Republicans, which is also the threshold for electing a new speaker.
Johnson’s detractors argue he has engaged in a de facto coalition government with Democrats on spending and Ukraine aid.
Johnson’s defenders contended that a pattern of a small number of Republicans booting the GOP speaker also empowers Democrats, and it won’t take many more early retirements to hand House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) the gavel, as some Republicans have resigned outright rather than just declining to seek reelection.
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER
All these machinations come months before an election that could hand Republicans unified control of the federal government or shut them out of power completely in the elected branches.
House Republican infighting began almost immediately once the smaller-than-expected majority was sworn in after the GOP underperformed in the 2022 midterm elections. It took 15 ballots for McCarthy to win the speakership. He was booted 10 months later.
" Conservative News Daily does not always share or support the views and opinions expressed here; they are just those of the writer."
