Throughout the 119th Congress, the House’s very narrow Republican majority has been functioning surprisingly smoothly. Mike Johnson (R-LA) was reelected speaker on the first vote, a stark contrast to the days-long, dozen-vote process his predecessor Kevin McCarthy had to survive. The House passed a framework for a reconciliation bill more easily than was expected, and then was able to stave off a government shutdown despite nearly everyone expecting the conference to step on a rake.
What is the difference between the relatively lock-step approach of House Republicans in this Congress, and the chaos of the last?
President Donald Trump is, reportedly, the enforcer, whipping votes.
It all comes at a cost.
For the most part, House Republicans have been willing to do some things to aid Trump in his repeated violation of separation of powers protections outlined in the Constitution. Before a handful of Senate Democrats gave Republicans the votes needed to advance the MAGA-written continuing resolution to stave off a government shutdown last week, Democrats in the House and Senate were insisting that they wouldn’t sign off on any deal to keep the government open without some assurances that the Trump administration would stop lawlessly refusing to spend federal funds allocated by Congress. Trump’s allies in the House and Senate shut that ask down immediately. How could they possible place limits on Trump? they asked, casting Democrats’ demand to preserve the constitutional separation of powers as a subversion of them.
The CR ultimately passed the House and the Senate, of course, without any assurances from Trump that the funds that Congress had just allocated to avert a shutdown would actually be spent in the ways that Congress had appropriated them. As part of his effort to whip wary hardliners to support the CR, Trump even straight-up told them that his administration would pursue impoundment to not actually spend the money that Congress will have appropriated.
The way the CR was written made this easier. Through vagueness, House Republicans ceded some of their power to appropriate what funds are spent on what things. By incorporating additional funding asks from the White House into the bill, described as “anomalies,” House Republicans handed the executive branch what Democrats described as a “slush fund” for certain departments, like the Pentagon.
At one point last week, House Republicans not only defended Trump’s DOGE mutiny, they also voted to hand more of their power as members of the legislative branch over to the executive as part of a bid to protect vulnerable members of the Republican conference from having to take a vote on whether to end Trump’s tariffs on Mexico, Canada and China. In the process, they ceded their authority to end an economic-disaster-in-the-making, created by the president. (The New York Times has a good explainer of what happened here.)
All of that to say: Trump owns the conference, and, as the enforcer, he owns Mike Johnson. So, when it comes to a some far-right House Republicans’ recent efforts to push for the impeachment of certain judges who are placing a check on the executive branch’s power, Johnson is now in a rough place. These demands have, reportedly, not fallen on enthusiastic ears. At least among House Republican leadership. But they can’t exactly say no.
Johnson has publicly dodged questions about Rep. Brandon Gill’s (R-TX) articles of impeachment against U.S. District Judge James Boasberg by deferring to the House Judiciary Committee. Per new reporting from Politico out today, Johnson and Republican leadership are loathe to even entertain the idea of impeaching a judge, not just because it likely wouldn’t have the votes in the House Republican conference — it would go nowhere in the Senate, given the 67 vote threshold for removal. (That it would escalate a constitutional crisis is not, reportedly, high on their list of objections, however.)
But Trump’s support for the idea — at least on TruthSocial — threatens to gum up the works. Trump has essentially functioned as a pseudo-House majority whip since the beginning of the 119th Congress. And, so, leadership is reportedly concerned that entertaining the impeachment articles might be the only way to get the whole conference in line to pass the Medicaid-slashing budget bill, which includes the basic contours of Trump II’s fiscal agenda, on an aggressive timeline.
Per two excerpts of new reporting from Politico:
A Johnson spokesperson said judges “with political agendas pose a significant threat” and that the speaker “looks forward to working with the Judiciary Committee as they review all available options under the Constitution to address this urgent matter.”
But privately there is dread inside Johnson’s leadership circle about the prospect of having to pursue messy, certain-to-fail impeachments that could ultimately backfire on the GOP’s razor-thin majority.
And more:
The decision on how hard to push will ultimately fall to Johnson, a former constitutional lawyer who has so far resisted the hard-liners’ push to wage what many within his own leadership circle view as an unprecedented and wide-reaching congressional assault on the courts.
But Trump’s intervention this time could change that calculation — even as he stares down a punishing self-imposed deadline for advancing a massive tax, energy and border policy package before his members leave Washington next month for the Easter and Passover break. Johnson is heavily reliant on Trump to maintain his tenuous control over his fractious conference, and senior Republicans believe the speaker will likely need to offer some sort of concession to serve as a release valve as pressure builds on the MAGA right.
The Best Of TPM Today
New episode of the Josh Marshall Podcast Feat. Kate Riga: Ep. 365: The Costs Of Not Shutting Down
Emails Reveal Top IRS Lawyer Warned Trump Firings Were a ‘Fraud’ on the Courts
Earlier: Trump Admin Insults Judge In Bid To Hide Evidence That it Flouted Court Order
Latest: Incredulous Judge Gives Admin One Day Reprieve On Producing Evidence On Flouted Court Order
Yesterday’s Most Read Story
DOJ Asserts Trump Hypothetically Has Power To Purge All Female Agency Heads, Or Those Over 40
What We Are Reading
Greenpeace ordered to pay Dakota Access Pipeline operator hundreds of millions in defamation suit
Columbia Is Nearing Agreement to Give Trump What He Wants
Chuck Schumer clung to belief Republicans would ‘expel’ Trump, book says
What goes on in Congress these days seems rather irrelevant, doesn’t it?
Cowards and lickspittles.
What will happen to Johnson if he does not deliver the impeachments of judges?
Or the bills that convicted felon wants for that matter?
Not sure why the house republicans are twitchy about impeaching the judges, it will be just as effective as TSF being impeached twice at impacting the elections (i.e. not making one iota of difference). If anything, it will help shore up their support as some pointy-headed elite gets berated by MTG, Bobo the clown, Gym Johnson and the rest of the spittle-flecked gibbons.
No-one who believes in the constitution votes GQP anyway, so it’s meaningless.
Constitutionally speaking, for the Congress (Republicans) to cede to the Executive some of their power to appropriate and allocate funds is a Constitutional violation. The Constitution gives the legislature the sole power of the purse, and the President’s sole enumerated fiscal responsibility is to spend that allocated money as Congress instructed and intended. If Congress wants to ceded some of its Constitutionally enumerated powers to Trump, that requires a Constitutional amendment; no legislative act can either change or overrule the Constitution.
Yes, of course they have passed the bill, and it will undoubtedly be acted on, but it’s still a Constitutional violation, and a lawsuit both can and should completely void both it and any actions based on it.
As to whether any of that will actually happen, though, given the current corrupt composition of so many of the courts…