As we approach a possible government shutdown, I don’t want to reinvent the wheel so I will refer you to a piece I wrote in January 2023 called Can Kevin McCarthy Avoid Blowing Up the Global Economy?. It’s proof of both my political acumen and my prescience, but the topic was modestly different from what we’re dealing with now. In that case, I was explaining why we should be concerned that the U.S Government might default on its debt in 2023 and cause another Great Depression. My argument was essentially that McCarthy had made a series of concessions to the hard right in order to secure the Speakership, and that it would probably wind up costing him his job.
To be a little more specific, I knew that McCarthy was going to face two really difficult tasks. The first was to avoid a default on our debts in May 2023. The second was to avoid a government shutdown at the end of the fiscal year in September 2023. As it happened, McCarthy barely made it through the debt crisis but, in the process, used up all the leeway the hard right was willing to grant him. The good news was that he avoided blowing up the global economy, but it meant that when he went back to the well in September to avoid a shutdown, he was immediately ousted from power. My prediction that his concessions to the hard right would quickly doom him was accurate.
One of the key concessions McCarthy made was giving three seats on the Rules Committee to Freedom Caucus members Ralph Norman, Chip Roy and Thomas Massie.. As I explained in the earlier piece, this meant that despite having 9-to-6 Republican majority on the committee, McCarthy couldn’t pass a rule the Freedom Caucus opposed without Democratic help. And if you can’t pass a rule on a bill, the only way to bring that bill to the floor is under a suspension of the rules which requires a two-thirds supermajority to pass. Obviously, if you need a two-thirds majority, that means you need a lot of Democratic votes.
Now, it took a while for the Republicans to agree on a replacement for McCarthy as Speaker, but they eventually settled on Rep. Mike Johnson of Louisiana. And he wound up in the exact same pickle, needing Democratic votes to pass must-pass spending legislation because of a narrow majority and lack of control of the Rules Committee. I thought it would cost him his job this year, but Donald Trump stepped in to save him, no doubt concerned that another protracted Speaker fight would be unhelpful to his cause in the November election.
As Johnson struggles to pass a continuing resolution to avoid a shutdown six weeks out from the election, Trump has made his job more difficult by demanding he attach the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility Act (SAVE Act). But Johnson didn’t have the votes and so he cut a deal with the House Democrats and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer to pass a CR that lets FEMA tap into next year’s disaster relief money and provides an extra $231 million for the Secret Service. There’s also some extra coin for security at the inauguration and a few other extensions. However, this likely won’t fly with the Freedom Caucus members of the Rules Committee.
Republican leaders have doubts that the panel will be able to pass a rule allowing the House to consider the funding bill under a simple majority vote.”
The Rules Committee has nine Republicans and four Democrats. Among those nine Republicans are three conservative hardliners: Reps. Ralph Norman, Chip Roy and Thomas Massie. The trio has the power to block any rule if they side with Democrats.
Norman famously hates CRs and told us last week he wouldn’t back a three-month stopgap bill. Roy’s SAVE Act was twinned to a six-month CR and failed on the floor last week. And Massie loathes Speaker Mike Johnson and seems to relish criticizing him publicly.
The Democrats on the committee could vote for the rule but Roll Call reports that convincing them to do so is “a task made more complicated by the omission of several policy and funding riders Democrats sought” in the continuing resolution. These include for a rate increase for “Social Security Administration expenses and expanded loan guarantee authority for State Department financing of Ukrainian purchases of U.S. military equipment.”
To be clear here, a strong majority of congressional Republicans in both the House and Senate, and all their leaders are ready to completely capitulate to the Democrats on this temporary spending bill because they absolutely do not want an October government shutdown. But, procedurally, it’s just not that easy to capitulate, especially when Trump isn’t providing any cover. They think it’s a political loser, and history definitely supports them in that sentiment, but the concessions McCarthy made last year are still haunting his successor.
So, as has been the case for this entire Congress, the Democrats are in the functional majority in the House because their votes are needed both to keep the country solvent and to keep the government operating, and that means that they can make demands. It’s true that Speaker Johnson cut a deal with Schumer, but that deal didn’t necessarily envision Democrats on the House Rules Committee voting to make Johnson”s job easier. In general, the minority on the Rules Committee almost never votes with the Speaker and they’re happy to pass the CR under a suspension of the rules.
The problem for Johnson, as it was for McCarthy, is that relying on Democratic votes makes you the leader not of the Republican Party but of a bipartisan governing majority, and that’s not viable. The Democrats were willing to save Johnson when he paid our debts, but they don’t have much use for him in general. It’s hard to see how he can continue for long as the leader of the House GOP, and that’s true whether the Republicans retain control after the midterms or relinquish it, as is widely expected.
The House GOP will probably oust Johnson for the sin of trying to protect their jobs. They did it to McCarthy and they’ll probably do it to any future Republican Speaker. This is a party that can only really function in the minority. They are incapable of governing.
