2024 Activism

This afternoon, Senators Murkowski and Collins, along with every Democrat voted against cloture to confirm Hegseth as Secretary of Defense.

He is highly likely to be confirmed for if Murkowski and Collins had two more Republicans willing to vote no, they would have had a discussion with Thune to tell him to tell Trump to pull the nomination before anyone got embarrassed.

The Senate will not be the leverage point on anything that does not require 60 votes for cloture or 67 for treaty ratification.

However, Politico reinforces that the House is the leverage point:

GOP lawmakers in the room included Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick (Pa.), Young Kim (Calif.), David Valadao (Calif.), Andrew Garbarino (N.Y.), Tom Barrett (Mich.) and Don Bacon (Neb.).

And the group asserted that Republicans need to protect more than just Obamacare. A large swath of the GOP is discussing significant spending cuts, including to social safety net programs like Medicaid and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, formerly known as food stamps. Centrists warned their colleagues not to pursue deep cuts to those programs, which benefit low-income Americans, according to the four Republicans…

Emmer’s team ticked through slides of possible cuts to “feel out problems,” according to another person familiar with the meeting. As they went down the list, it became clear there were still many points of disagreement.

“Almost everything is: ‘That’s a problem. That’s a problem,’” said one of the people who was in the room.

Right now, the House Republican caucus can afford to lose zero NO votes or 2 “present”/”flight cancelled” Republicans on any vote where every Democrat shows up and votes NO in the House. Once special elections are held, the House HOP can afford 2 NO votes.

The House is the pressure point.  We know that Fitzpatrick voted against ACHA in 2017. We know that local political and economic actors will be having very extensive discussions with vulnerable Republicans about the effects of multi-trillion dollar Medicaid and/or ACA cuts will have to their district’s healthcare system.

The House is the pressure point that will bend first.

All about the HousePost + Comments (92)

In comments yesterday Anonymous at Work performs a thorough analysis of the Senate and how it could plausibly play out in a repeal and replace scenario.

They make the very good point that red state senators whose residents disproportionately benefit from the ACA are still likely to vote to slash ACA spending.

I think they are stuck in 2017 where the House GOP had over a dozen allowable NO votes while the Senate needed only three NO votes to stop anything.   The political leverage is in the House.

Three is the magic number in the House while four is the magic number in the Senate.

What do I mean by that?

Next week, the Senate will be 53 Republicans and 47 Democrats.  That means any party line bill in the Senate can lose four Republican votes (assuming everyone shows up) as losing three votes has JD Vance rising from the fainting couch.  On an ACA bill, we could plausibly assume that both Murkowski and Collins are likely NO and then…….. I am not sure who #3 much less #4 is.  We are not in 2017 where only #3 needed to be found.

There are very few Republican Senators who represent Harris voting states in any cycle so electoral pressure is hard to leverage.

The House is where the leverage lies.  

In the House, the current margin is 219 Republicans and 215 Democrats.  If Mike Johnson has two Republicans vote NO, the bill fails as ties are stops.  Sometime in late January or February with Stefankik and Waltz resign to take executive branch positions, the margin of allowable Republicans voting NO assuming full attendance and 100% Democratic opposition is 0.  That number will fluctuate throughout the next two years as resignations and deaths will occur and special elections** will move the margin but in almost any reasonable scenario, the winning GOP NO Vote margin will range between 0 and 5.

There is a universal election in 2026 where the electorate is likely to be bluer than it has been in 2022 or 2024 due to the combination of thermostatic politics AND the changing coalitions where lower turn-out elections have more regular Democratic super-voters than a general election.  There are thirteen House Republicans who won in 2024 by four or fewer points.  There are two who won by less than 1% point.  

There is also a fairly large chaos caucus that will make any GOP whip count an absolute adventure.  I am making a strong assumption that Nancy Pelosi is a far better vote counter and wrangler than Mike Johnson when they are working with a miniscule majority during a trifecta.

So let’s work the House as hard as we can by phone calling, protesting, and organizing electoral challenges in the dozen to two dozen electorally competitive seats so that the most marginal GOP representatives are placed in the position where their interests are Vote NO and Hope YES.

** Side point, if you live in a state with a Democratic governor, advocate for them to schedule Dem leaning special elections as quickly as possible and special elections for previously GOP held vacant seats as slowly as legally possible.  Grind the clock and place pressure on the most marginal GOP members to take votes that they don’t want to take if they want to have a chance in hell of surviving a blue midterm.

Three is the magic numberPost + Comments (42)