Fortunately for the Republicans who rule the House of Representatives, few Americans are paying attention to their antics lately, given the focus on the presidential race. Here’s what they’re doing: busily exemplifying the definition of insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.
Republicans, led by House Speaker Mike Johnson, are once again threatening to shut down the government. After their extended summer recess, they returned after Labor Day and set out to score pre-election points (spurred on by Donald Trump) rather than seriously try to pass legislation to keep the government funded. And they are doing so just weeks before the start of the new fiscal year on October 1, even though they have had months to pass regular bills funding federal operations to avoid a last-minute makeshift solution.
Opinion columnist
Jackie Calmes
Jackie Calmes brings a critical eye to the national political scene. She has decades of experience covering the White House and Congress.
Their strategy is doomed to failure — and they know It is doomed to failure: it is a familiar example: adding a favorite right-wing priority to the funding package and trying to force the Democratic Senate majority and President Biden to accept it under deadline pressure. Except House Republicans I don't have enough votes to pass the package, given opposition from party defectors as well as Democrats.
In recent years, Republicans' “poison pills” on funding have included proposals targeting Obamacare, abortion rights, immigrants, and transgender people. This time, immigrants are again their target. They are demanding a law requiring Americans to show proof of citizenship when registering to vote. Non-citizen Voting It is already a crime and one that practically nobody is committed.
Yet House Republicans would like to shut down the government over this meritless case.
There is a silver lining. The fiscal follies are a welcome pre-election reminder of Republicans' inability to govern and why voters should strip them of their majority in November.
The current saga is also a reminder that if Republicans retain their majority and Trump becomes president, they will act as an extension of his ailing White House, not the independent branch of government the founders intended.
Trump publicly issued his marching orders in capital letters just hours before his debate last week with Kamala Harris. In a social media post mail On Tuesday, he called the proof-of-citizenship requirement an “election security” measure necessary to prevent Democrats from cheating. Consider it a preview of his fraud claim should he lose to Harris.
Without proof of citizenship, Trump wrote, Republicans in Congress “MUST NOT, IN ANY WAY, SHAPE OR MANNER, MOVE FORWARD WITH A CONTINUING RESOLUTION ON THE BUDGET. THE DEMOCRATS ARE TRYING TO “RELOAD” THE VOTER REGISTRIES WITH ILLEGAL ALIENS. DON’T LET THAT HAPPEN — SHUT IT DOWN!”
The president complied, although one might think Johnson would have been tired of being humiliated by his party and its leader., Only to stay in Trump’s good graces. His bills, blessed by Trump, never seem to be extreme enough for the House’s most right-wing faction (they never vote for spending bills anyway), and yet the measures are too extreme for endangered Republican moderates (the term moderate is relative when it comes to House Republicans).
Failing to have enough support for his budget bill, Johnson canceled a House vote on Wednesday, saying he needed more time for “family conversations” with Republicans. If he manages to corral his slim majority and the bill passes, the Senate will be unable to approve it.
And the madness continues.
Just last November, just after his election as House speaker, the nearly powerless Johnson addressed a Christian nationalist group and compared He stood before Moses, divinely chosen to lead House Republicans—and America—into a political promised land.
At the Museum of the Bible in Washington, Johnson told the group a long story about how, amid House Republicans’ maneuvers to replace ousted House Speaker Kevin McCarthy of Bakersfield, God woke him up in the night and told him to be ready for a “Red Sea moment.” Then, after Republicans had rejected other House speaker candidates for several weeks, God woke him up again, Johnson said. “The Lord said, ‘Now step forward.’”
“Me?” Johnson asked. Him. He did God’s will and has been doing Trump’s., or trying, since then.
We know how the funding fight will end: with the Republicans walking out. They won't pass the bill, Johnson will accept a compromise (as McCarthy had to do, relying on the Democrats' votes), and they won't shut down the government just before an election. They're eager to get home to campaign.
After two more weeks of partisan wrangling, running until midnight on Sept. 30 or longer, Congress is likely to pass a three-month bill, without partisan add-ons, that would fund the government through mid-December. Biden will sign it. Then the House and Senate will return after the election for a transition session and fight through the holiday season over a longer-term spending measure, against the backdrop of the new Congress that begins in January.
And that's where the madness could end. Democrats have long been the slight favorites to regain control of the House, and their prospects for taking power improved after Harris replaced Biden on the party ticket. If voters strip House Republicans of their majority, the final result–Right-wing extremists will be relegated to the back bench, where they belong. “Moses” Johnson will be removed as House speaker. And Democrats, led by their leader, New York Rep. Hakeem Jeffries, will instruct Republicans on how a bill becomes law.
A Democratic House of Representatives and the first black president. That's the formula.
@jackiekcalmes
