A Funny Thing Happened On The Way To The Forum

The GOP was the party of the Roaring Twenties and that era ended in 1929 with the Wall Street Crash and the onset of the Great Depression. The 1930 midterms didn’t go well for the GOP. They lost 52 seats. But even with that calamitous result, they still had 218 seats to 216 for the Democrats (plus one Farmer-Labor member who caucused with the Democrats)— so in November of 1930, a GOP one seat majority. And then something funny happened— funny in a good way: Between November and January (13 weeks) 14 members died including Speaker Nicholas Longworth (who died of pneumonia). With a deepening economic collapse and a growing national antipathy for Herbert Hoover, special elections resulted in 3 districts flipping red to blue and by the time the new Congress was seated, the Democrats had a 219-212 majority and Democrat John Nancy Garner (“Cactus Jack” from Uvalde, Texas) was elected Speaker— and served as Speaker until he was chosen as FDR’s first running mate and was elected Vice President. Here are a couple of examples of what happened to the slim Republican majority:

• On November 11, right after the election, Illinois Republican Thomas Williams resigned after being appointed to the U.S. Court of Claims. Democrat Claude Parsons won the special election.

• Democrat William Granfield won the special election by over 10 points in Massachusetts when Republican Will Kirk Kaynor died in an airplane crash on December 20, his first time in a plane, age 45.

• Wisconsin Republican Florian Lampert was in an automobile accident and died soon after. Democrat Michael Reilly won the special election.

Yesterday, the Wall Street Journal published an essay by Katy Ferek that is probably sending shivers down Kevin McCarthy’s spine: House Republicans’ Slim Majority Creates Extra Challenges for Party Leaders. She explained how the GOP’s “ability to advance their agenda will face both practical and ideological challenges tied to such a historically small margin. With little wiggle room, party leaders will need the support of nearly every Republican to propel partisan legislation, giving each member more leverage to alter or block proposals. The slim majority could complicate leaders’ efforts to reach deals on ‘must pass’ bills funding the government, addressing the debt limit or setting farm and military policies in cooperation with the Democratic-controlled Senate.”

Three of his most senior members are already senile—Hal Rogers (KY, who turns 86 in a few weeks), John Carter (TX, who just turned 82) and Kay Granger (TX, who turns 80 on Jan. 18) and Virginia Foxx (NC), also around 80 or so, is looking like she’s about to keel over. Derek continued that “Down the road, deaths or incapacitating illnesses could further narrow the majority, particularly as Republicans move to end remote proxy voting, a Covid-19 related measure that the GOP opposed. Leaders will also need to keep departures to a minimum, given the party’s narrow advantage, as House seats typically go unfilled for months after a death or resignation.” Marjorie Traitor Greene regularly tweets that she’s never been vaccinated.

Pelosi had the exact same margin McCarthy has, but she was able to more or less successfully balance the demands of her progressive and conservative wings even as the party also controlled the Senate and the White House. The Democrats still control the Senate and the White House and not only does McCarthy have none of Pelosi’s savvy or skills, the GOP conference is a savage and infantile snake pit on its best day compared to a Democratic conference that actually wants to make things work and aims for compromise.

Ferek wrote that McCarthy “will need the support of almost every Republican to win the speaker race in early January, assuming all Democrats are opposed. Already, a handful of Republicans have said they won’t back him, injecting uncertainty into the outcome… McCarthy has committed to using negotiations over the debt ceiling to pressure Democrats on spending, an approach demanded by many conservative Republicans that could lead to a showdown next year. He said his party could pursue an investigation and possible impeachment of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas unless he resigns. Oversight and investigations are a central demand of many conservatives and can proceed without Democratic cooperation, but it isn’t known how much of his caucus would go along if the party moved to impeach officials.”

Keeping Republicans unified will require balancing members of the Freedom Caucus, which largely supports [Trump’s] agenda, against newly elected centrists in states including New York and California. Republicans won more than a dozen races in districts that favored Biden in 2020.

Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY), who regularly clashes with party leadership and has voiced skepticism about spending bills including then-President Trump’s initial Covid-19 relief package in March 2020, said a narrow majority will force top Republicans to listen to perspectives of more members in the caucus.

“Nobody can be excluded,” he said. “It’s going to be tougher to pass crap legislation because if somebody finds there’s a problem with it and makes a case to the public that this is a bad bill, that person can’t be written off.”

Sarah Binder, a political-science professor at George Washington University, said McCarthy’s task of building a majority coalition “with a pretty fractious bunch” is going to be a difficult task.

Slim majorities produce a “challenge in a world of really big, public problems to be solved,” Binder said, referring to issues such as climate change, immigration and funding Social Security and Medicaid. “Republicans need a functioning Congress to address those problems.”

The narrow margin also means that GOP leaders will need to keep a close eye on their numbers. McCarthy has pledged to do away with proxy voting, which enabled Democratic leaders to pass bills even when many members were sick, worried about Covid risks or otherwise absent.

Resignations are typical in any Congress, and at least one House lawmaker has died during every two-year legislative session of Congress during the past two decades.

In 2022 alone, Reps. Jim Hagedorn, Don Young and Jackie Walorski died in office. Six other House members resigned, including to take other politically appointed positions. Since 1997, 37 House elected lawmakers have died either in or before taking office.

But alas... One member of Congress whose instincts I tend to trust, isn't all that optimistic about the problems McCarthy and his crew are headed for. This morning, she told me that "Pelosi, Hoyer and Clyburn were/are all people with talent. Pelosi is the greatest leader I’ve ever met, in every respect. Hoyer has personal elegance, poise and gravitas, and decent judgment. Clyburn is extremely crafty, he knows exactly how to employ identity politics to accumulate power, and he works hard when he needs to. This new team-- Hakeem Jeffries, Pete Aguilar, Katherine Clark, Tony Cardenas-- is just four talentless hacks. The Republicans will eat them alive."