House Republicans keep moving the goalposts
By Michael Jones
During a private call with House Republicans last Sunday night, Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-La.) told members that the border security deal a bipartisan group of senators have spent weeks negotiating would be dead on arrival in the House even if it passed the Senate.
Consider the irony: The reason the bipartisan Senate gang is engaged in talks in the first place is because House conservatives demanded new border provisions in exchange for additional Ukraine, Israel, and Taiwan funding. I’m almost certain the negotiators and their staff, who worked weekends and through the holiday recess in pursuit of a consensus, wouldn’t have done so had they had such explicit proof as Scalise’s later comments that their efforts would be in vain.
The border talks are the latest instance of House Republicans making a demand and then moving the goalposts in an attempt to extract more policy wins and political capital than their slim majority affords them. And it’s led to a deep distrust among congressional Democrats and at the White House that the House GOP can be good-faith governing partners and made even Congress’s most fundamental responsibilities a slog.
Reason one for this is perhaps the most obvious: Donald Trump rules the modern Republican Party and he’s passed his infidelity to the truth down to his allies in Congress. His antipathy to compromise is one of the defining characteristics of his political movement. And it’s usually when conservatives find out they won’t get everything that they asked for that they decide no one else will get anything either.
Case in point: That border deal I referenced at the top? The morning I filed this column, Trump came out against it, saying Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) should only accept a “ perfect deal.” No such deal exists in congressional negotiations where the system is designed for you to give to get.
Not to mention, the legislative process isn’t about making lives better for Americans and upholding democratic institutions for the MAGA movement. It’s about political expediency and shaping your messaging and tactics to capture news cycles. But as I wrote last week, this approach does little to win the hearts and minds needed for a governing coalition.
This matters less to House conservatives because they have no coherent governing agenda. It’s easy to blow up a negotiation when you’re untethered to any semblance of a vision for the future of the country. Much of what drives conservatives on Capitol Hill is grievance: with each other and against President Joe Biden, diverse communities, and non-European immigrants. It also allows you to sell the notion to your constituents that you’re fighting on their behalf, even if you picked the fight in the first place.
Another reason House Republicans are able to renege so often: They elect weak leaders. Former Speaker Kevin McCarthy essentially signed his pink slip the moment he agreed to lower the threshold on the number of members required to call for his ouster to one member. The procedure, known as led to McCarthy’s demise
Finally, because Democrats end up governing anyway, there’s no incentive for Republicans to keep their word. When the US was on the verge of defaulting on its debt last May for the first time in American history, it was Democratic votes that averted the global economic crisis. When the federal government was on the verge of a shutdown last September, it was Democratic votes that kept it open. The same is true for the second shutdown threat in November. And by week’s end, it will be Democratic votes that ensure a third shutdown threat is extinguished before Friday night’s deadline. It’s gotta be a cool gig to huff, puff, and try to blow the house down only to be rescued by the adults in the room in the eleventh hour before the consequences of your actions set in.
This brings me to my final point: The fundamental reason House Republicans are able to go back on their word is the electoral map. Most of these hardline members represent safe, deep-red districts that will elect them regardless if doing so will weather the fabric of American democracy. In fact, when incumbents face primary challenges, it’s usually from the right, not the center. In other words, the solution isn’t as simple as electing new members if the successor will be even more MAGA than the predecessor. Voting rights legislation prohibiting extreme partisan gerrymandering would go a long way to addressing this issue.
For Democrats, winning back the majority obviously would help their cause, too. Obstruction from the opposition party is less effective when they don’t hold the gavels or control the floor schedule. So while you can expect more chaos in Congress over the next several months, Democratic politicians trust voters will return them to power before their conservative colleagues push democracy past the point of no return.
Michael Jones is an independent Capitol Hill correspondent and contributor for COURIER. He is the author of Once Upon a Hill, a newsletter about Congressional politics.
