Why the incoming House GOP majority is so worrisome for Democrats
By Michael Jones
After helming the most unproductive Congress in modern history, House Republicans were rewarded not just with another two years in the majority, but with a GOP Senate and Trump White House to partner with in the MAGA sequel we’re all about to live through.
House Republicans swear this time will be different because of the party’s unified control of both houses of Congress and the presidency. Without the Democratic firewall across the Capitol and at 1600 Pennsylvania Street, Trumpworld’s worst impulses could be legislated into the law of the land.
Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA), who won an internal nomination this week to remain the top House Republican next Congress, said as much the other day.
“I think you’re going to have a very different mood in the Republican conference going forward because we do have a unified government,” Johnson said earlier this week. “We have an extraordinary opportunity ahead of us. Nobody wants to squander that, so I think you’ll see a cohesion in the team. I’ve talked with all the members across the spectrum. Everyone has this same sense of excitement.”
You’ll want to exhale if you’ve been holding your breath in hopes Republicans will serve as an independent check on the executive branch as the founders intended and the Constitution mandates.
“There’s no question he’s the leader of our party,” Rep. Troy Nehls (R-TX) told reporters on Wednesday. “So now he’s got a mission statement and his goals and objectives—whatever that is—we need to embrace it. All of it. Every single word. If Donald Trump says, ‘Jump three feet high and scratch your head,’ we all jump three feet high and scratch our heads. That’s it.”
Hours later, Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-AL) indicated he intends to stand by while Trump wields the upper chamber’s awesome power to enact his legislative agenda.
“President Trump and [Vice President-elect] JD Vance are gonna be running the Senate,” the senator said with a straight face connoting not an iota of irony.
If the next two years go according to the Republicans’ plans, then buckle up: They want to lock in the Trump tax cuts that mostly went to billionaires and big corporations, open federal lands for oil drilling, and restart construction of the wall at the southern border in the first hundred days of Trump 2.0.
Without much electoral power to thwart this agenda, Democrats are left to rely on one of the remaining institutions to protect the progress they advanced during the Biden and Obama administrations: The filibuster.
This powerful legislative tool enables any single senator to indefinitely drag out debate on a measure they oppose unless three-fifths of the Senate—60 members if all 100 are present—move to invoke cloture, which is Beltway talk for limiting debate so the measure can receive a final vote.
The filibuster is controversial among new-era Democrats because it has historically been used to block the passage of civil rights legislation in previous generations and in recent times. Ironically enough, congressional Democrats spent gobs of political capital when they had a governing trifecta the first two years of the Biden administration working to eliminate or weaken the filibuster.
President Biden, a consummate “Senate guy,” supported an exception to the filibuster so Senate Democrats could pass the Freedom to Vote Act—a bill the caucus unanimously supported while Senate Republicans opposed, following the George Floyd killing and the voter suppression laws Republican-controlled states like Georgia passed that civil rights groups claimed restricted access to voting and disproportionately burden voters of color, new citizens and religious communities.
After the Supreme Court repealed Roe v. Wade in 2022, Senate Democrats would later express support for a separate filibuster exception to enshrine the national right to abortion care and assisted reproductive technologies such as in vitro fertilization. (Kamala Harris supported a reproductive freedom filibuster carve out as the Democratic presidential nominee as well.)
But Sens. Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona and Joe Manchin of West Virginia, then Democrats who would later change their party affiliation to independent, opposed each of these carveouts because they believed it weakened the institution. Sen. John Thune, a Republican from South Dakota, said on Wednesday that the filibuster would remain intact when he replaces Mitch McConnell—another fierce filibuster champion—as the top Senate Republican next Congress.
Thune’s position is unsurprising. Republicans support the filibuster because Republicans can advance their legislative priorities without it. The 2017 tax cuts can be extended with a simple majority through budget reconciliation since the party controls both chambers. Federal judges and cabinet nominees can be confirmed with 51 votes too. And undoing Biden-era regulations can be done with the stroke of Trump’s pen or the federal rule-making process. Democrats need those 60 votes to break a filibuster on their legislative priorities, which they haven’t had since the Obama administration. (Silver lining: Republicans, unless they nuke the filibuster, would need 60 votes to repeal landmark laws like the Affordable Care Act or Inflation Reduction Act. And I don’t see a universal where more than the half dozen Senate Democrats required to break a filibuster would cross the aisle to undo landmark legislation they passed or have benefitted from at the state level.)
Many of the filibuster’s critics, including Congressional Progressive Caucus Chair Pramila Jayapal (D-WA), are now temporarily backing off demands for reform since Republicans control the executive and legislative branches.
“No, but had we had the trifecta, I would have been because we have to show that government can deliver,” she said. “And right now, even with people going to the ballot, they are bypassing their government because they don’t feel like government, whether it’s at the state level or the federal level, is actually going to get them the things that they need.”
Another tool Washington Democrats can use well is the lame-duck session, the legislative window after an election but before the newly elected members are seated. Democrats will have the majority this lame duck and can still get stuff done.
White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters last week the Biden administration would prioritize fully funding the government through the end of next September, providing disaster aid to communities impacted by Hurricanes Helene and Milton, passing the annual defense policy and programs bill, and confirming judicial nominees to the federal bench.
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) also mentioned extending the farm bill, the federal government’s primary agriculture and food policy mechanism, during a speech on the Senate floor on Wednesday.
The current farm bill expires at the end of the year, but the path forward to the customary five-year extension has been mired in partisan gridlock.
“Our Republican colleagues have to decide if they want to work with us to get it done,” Schumer said. “Democrats are ready to work.”
Among those Democrats: Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D-MI), who chairs the Senate Agriculture Committee, which has jurisdiction over the farm bill. Stabenow will retire at the end of the year. I’m sure she would love to hammer out an agreement as a grace note in her swan song.
Any lame-duck progress—outside of federal judges—requires significant buy-in from congressional Republicans, who feel emboldened by their trifecta to claim a broader governing mandate than the final electoral vote count belies and may be less inclined to play ball—even if their failure to inflicts suffering on their constituents.
“To my Republican colleagues, I offer a word of caution in good faith: Take care not to misread the will of the people, and do not abandon the need for bipartisanship,” Schumer said on Tuesday in a separate floor speech. “After winning an election, the temptation may be to go to the extreme. We’ve seen that happen over the decades, and it’s consistently backfired on the party in power. So instead of going to the extremes, I remind my colleagues that this body is most effective when it’s bipartisan.”
We’ll see if the GOP takes heed.
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.
