by Jackie Calmes
Lucky for the Republicans who run the House, few Americans are paying attention to their antics of late, given the focus on the presidential race. Here’s what they’re up to: busily exemplifying the definition of insanity — doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.
“Led” by Speaker “MAGA Mike” Johnson, Republicans yet again are threatening by their actions to shut down the government. After their extended summer recess, they returned after Labor Day and set out to score preelection points — egged on by Donald Trump — rather than seriously trying to pass legislation to keep the government funded. And they’re doing this just weeks before the Oct. 1 start of a new fiscal year, though they’ve had months to pass regular bills funding federal operations to avoid a last-minute grab-bag.
Their doomed strategy — and they know it’s doomed — is a familiar one: Attach a pet right-wing priority onto the funding package and try to force the Democratic Senate majority and President Biden to accept it under deadline pressure. Except the House Republicans don’t have enough votes to pass the package, given the opposition of party defectors as well as Democrats.
In past years, Republicans’ “poison pills” on funding bills have included proposals targeting Obamacare, abortion rights, immigrants and transgender people. This time immigrants are their target again. They are demanding a law requiring Americans to show proof of citizenship when registering to vote. Voting by noncitizens is already a crime and one that virtually no one commits.
Yet for this meritless cause, House Republicans would bring the government to a halt.
There is a silver lining. The fiscal follies are a welcome preelection 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 do keep their majority and Trump becomes president, they’ll act as an extension of his sorry White House — not as the independent branch of government the founders intended.
Trump publicly issued his all-caps marching orders just hours ahead of his debate last week with Kamala Harris. In a social media post, he characterized the proof-of-citizenship requirement as an “Election Security” measure necessary to prevent Democrats from cheating. Consider it a preview of his fraud claim should he lose to Harris.
Without the citizenship proof, Trump wrote, Republicans in Congress “SHOULD, IN NO WAY, SHAPE, OR FORM, GO FORWARD WITH A CONTINUING RESOLUTION ON THE BUDGET. THE DEMOCRATS ARE TRYING TO ‘STUFF’ VOTER REGISTRATIONS WITH ILLEGAL ALIENS. DON’T LET IT HAPPEN – CLOSE IT DOWN!!!”
The speaker complied, though you’d think Johnson would be getting tired of being humiliated by his party and its leader, just to stay in Trump’s good graces. His Trump-blessed bills never seem to be extreme enough for the farthest-right faction in the House (they never vote for spending bills anyway), and yet the measures are too extreme for endangered Republican moderates. (Moderates is a relative term when it comes to House Republicans.)
Lacking 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 corrals his slim majority and the bill does pass, it’s DOA in the Senate.
And the follies continue.
Only last November, just after his election as speaker, the all-but-impotent Johnson addressed a Christian nationalist group and compared himself to Moses, divinely chosen to lead House Republicans — and America — to some political promised land.
We know how the funding fight will end: with Republicans’ retreat. They won’t pass the bill, Johnson will accept a compromise — just as McCarthy had to, relying on Democrats’ votes — and they won’t shut down government right before an election. They’re eager to get home to campaign.
After two more weeks of partisan scuffling, right up to or beyond the midnight Sept. 30 deadline, Congress likely will pass a three-month bill, free of partisan add-ons, funding the government until mid-December. Biden will sign it. Then the House and Senate will return after the election for a lame-duck session and fight right into the holiday season over a longer-term spending measure, against the backdrop of the new Congress that starts in January.
And there’s where the follies could end. Democrats have long been favored, slightly, to regain control of the House, and their takeover prospects improved after Harris replaced Biden atop the party’s ticket. If voters strip House Republicans of the majority, the far-right extremists will be relegated to the backbench where they belong. “Moses” Johnson will be retired as speaker. And Democrats, led by their leader, New York Rep. Hakeem Jeffries, will school the Republicans on how a bill actually becomes law.
