The myth of the moderate House Republican
By Michael Jones
For a group of so-called moderate Republicans, a new theme has emerged of late: If you can’t beat House conservatives in influencing the legislative agenda, then adopt their hardline tactics.
Case in point: Last week, four New York Republicans threatened to block a procedural vote to open debate on an unrelated piece of legislation in an attempt to force leadership to include a provision in a tax bill to increase the state and local tax deduction.
They ultimately switched their votes to allow the procedural measure, known as a “rule,” to pass with the assurance that leadership would allow a separate vote on the SALT deduction. (In a bit of poetic justice, the rule on the SALT bill could fail when it’s brought up for a vote.)
“The New York Republicans, many of them, ran on one issue: to fix the SALT issue,” House Democratic Vice Chair Ted Lieu of California told me last week. “They literally had one job, and they failed. It shows how incompetent, weak, and ineffective they are.”
Prior to this Congress, the idea of majority members preventing leadership from bringing bills up for debate was unheard of. But the rule fiasco demonstrates the myth of the moderate Republican.
The New Yorkers—Reps. Anthony D’Esposito, Mike Lawler, Nick Lalota, and Andrew Garbarino—are four of 18 House Republicans elected in districts where voters supported President Joe Biden over Donald Trump. They’ve earned a reputation as arbiters of moderation in a conference dominated by extreme voices like Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, Matt Gaetz of Florida, and Scott Perry of Pennsylvania.
But the reality is that they’re moderate in demeanor, not ideology. Many of these members speak in measured tones and feign a deliberative approach to deciding how they’ll vote on bills, only to repeatedly toe the party line.
With former President Donald Trump as the party leader, his extreme allies setting the legislative agenda and increased political polarization, these members have opted for self-preservation instead of standing up for democracy—and Americans, especially their constituents, are worse off for it.
This was on display this week as House Republicans suffered a resounding and totally unavoidable public embarrassment after Speaker Mike Johnson and his leadership team miscalculated the floor math in a failed vote to impeach Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas. None of the Biden 18 Republicans—including the Empire State foursome—voted against what constitutional scholars of all political stripes describe as a policy disagreement with Biden, not Mayorkas committing high crimes and misdemeanors, which is the standard for impeachment.
Not to mention, some of these members, including LaLota, have already endorsed Trump, the presumptive GOP nominee who has repeatedly said he’ll rule as a dictator, advance an even more extreme Muslim ban, repeal Obamacare, and support a national abortion ban. None of these positions, independent of how you feel about Biden, are moderate under any political context.
And these positions could imperil these moderate-in-name-only incumbents with swing voters in the general election.
“The Republican caucus has largely given up on trying to protect these vulnerable New York Republicans,” Lieu told me. “So that’s my takeaway from the story.”
The threat from Republican rank-and-file members, whether more extreme or less, has hampered how Johnson runs the House floor.
Due to concessions made to hardline conservatives by former Speaker Kevin McCarthy, Republicans lack a working majority on the Rules Committee, informally known as “the Speaker’s Committee,” because the panel is usually stacked with leadership allies.
Instead, House Republican leadership has to rely on the suspension calendar, which is Washington parlance to describe the schedule for bills considered under a legislative procedure that bypasses the Rules Committee but requires a two-thirds majority vote. In other words, few meaningful bills pass the House without outsized Democratic support.
House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries of New York told me this will continue to be the case.
“This do-nothing Republican Congress is incapable of governing,” he said. “And all they will continue to be able to do on their own is deliver chaos, dysfunction, and extremism.”
Democratic Rep. Joe Neguse of Colorado, a member of the Rules Committee, told me that the GOP paralysis has become the norm.
“Many of my colleagues in the last Congress made the case that there should be more open rules, bills considered under rules in which we would have the opportunity to make amendments, members of both parties, in good faith,” he said. “They have completely jettisoned that approach now. And obviously, because they are incapable of bringing any bills to the floor through the Rules Committee, many bills are now left with the choice of pursuing the suspension calendar.”
Rep. Jim McGovern of Massachusetts, the top Democrat on the Rules Committee, described the threat of New York moderates threatening to tank rules as “batshit crazy” and indicative of the GOP infighting that has sullied this entire conference.
“They have an extreme right-wing MAGA wing that everything’s a crisis and they can’t do anything,” McGovern added. “And now, the more moderate Republicans are saying, ‘Hey, you know, if they could throw a temper tantrum and get something, then maybe we have to start doing the same thing.”‘
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.
