Republican Politics

Hey, we didn’t want anything useful to happen, and by that metric the GOP did just fine! Annie Karni, at the NYTimes — (GOP) “House Dysfunction by the Numbers: 724 Votes, Only 27 Laws Enacted” [gift link]:

Representative Kevin McCarthy, the former speaker, had a positive spin on the five days and record-breaking 15 voting rounds it took him to win the gavel in January. “Because it took this long,” he said after the ordeal, “now we learned how to govern.”

But as the first year of the 118th Congress draws to a close, the numbers tell a different story — one that doesn’t involve much governing at all…

That is more voting and less lawmaking than at any other time in the last decade, according to an analysis by the Bipartisan Policy Center, and a far less productive record than that of last year, when Democrats had unified control of Congress. The House held 549 votes in 2022, according to the House clerk, and passed 248 bills that were signed into law, according to records kept by the Library of Congress, including a bipartisan infrastructure law, the Inflation Reduction Act and the first bipartisan gun safety bill in decades.

The list of this year’s accomplishments is less ambitious and more bare minimum, such as legislation to suspend the debt ceiling and set federal spending limits that helped pull the nation back from the brink of economic catastrophe. The tally also includes two temporary spending measures to avoid government shutdowns…

The numbers reflect the challenges that have plagued Republicans all year and are likely to continue, and maybe even get worse, in 2024: a tiny majority that requires near unanimity to get anything done; deep party divisions that make unanimity all but impossible; and a right wing whose priority is reining in government, not passing new laws to broaden its reach…

“Democrats as a party are much more interested in having government do things,” Ms. Reynolds said. “A lot of what Republicans are motivated by is the pursuit of ideological purity. The ideological difference around the role of government makes it harder to imagine the sets of things on which the Republican House, especially with its divisions, would get together with a Democrat-led Senate and a Democrat president.”

Despite the low number of bills signed into law, the House saw a frenzy of activity on the floor. That included numerous votes for numerous speaker candidates (19 across two historic speaker elections), multiple attempts to expel Representative George Santos of New York from Congress (three), failed and successful votes on censuring Democratic lawmakers (six) and dozens of votes on hard-right amendments to appropriations bills that ultimately did not pass, or proved to be non-starters in the Senate because they were laden with conservative policy priorities.

The mismatch between the number of votes taken and the number of laws passed is something far-right House Republicans might consider a win. One of the demands the faction made of Mr. McCarthy in January as they were withholding their support to make him speaker was to open up the legislative process and allow more votes on the floor…

Winners and Losers 2023 (Gift Link):
Epic Congressional dysfunction made for a great year for bankers, railroads, pharma, tech, Putin and Chinahttps://t.co/I8yLh1sUNj

— Steven Dennis (@StevenTDennis) December 20, 2023

The Big Bidniz take, from Steven Dennis at Bloomberg:

Any Washington lobbyist worth their salt knows defeat or delay of new legislation is often the most lucrative outcome for corporate clients.

By that measure, 2023 was a success, as Congress passed few new laws amid months-long battles over raising the US debt limit and avoiding a government shutdown. All that inaction translated into wins for Wall Street banks, tech giants, and pharmaceutical companies, whose profits were spared the pinch of additional regulation.

Just 22 new laws had been enacted as of Tuesday, according to the US Federal Register, versus 281 last year, when Democrats controlled Washington. Some provisions tucked into laws that did pass boosted businesses, including a well-connected pipeline…

Punishing their own but passing few laws, a Congress in chaos leaves much to do in 2024 https://t.co/5jBQv4pTYw

— The Associated Press (@AP) December 22, 2023

Per the Associated Press, “Punishing their own but passing few laws, a Congress in chaos leaves much to do in 2024”:

This Congress started with showy bluster, a bitter 15-round, multi-day spectacle to elect a House speaker, a Republican who vowed to “never quit,” and then did just that.

House lawmakers proceeded not only to oust the GOP speaker, they also punished their own colleagues with censures and expulsion, launched an impeachment inquiry into President Joe Biden and were barely able to conduct the basics of governing by keeping federal offices from shuttering.

While this first year of the 118th Congress was a historic one, thanks to the dizzying turmoil coming from the Republicans on the House side of the Capitol, next year is headed toward more of the same. With just 27 bills and resolutions signed into law, not counting a few board appointments, it’s among the most do-nothing sessions of Congress in recent times.

“This fall has been a very actively stupid political environment,” said Rep. Patrick McHenry, the bow-tie-wearing Republican from North Carolina, who emerged as a voice of reason as the interim House speaker leading the chamber during the upheaval.

While Americans typically give low marks to Congress, as the branch of government closest to the people, it’s still the main venue the U.S. relies on, at times more so than the presidency or the courts, to work out the nation’s problems and challenges.

The need for a functioning Congress — what one scholar calls “the place” where it all happens — is even more apparent heading into a tumultuous presidential election year and with hot wars raging in Ukraine and the Middle East…

Heading into 2024, new House Speaker Mike Johnson will start the year under the same pressure to pass legislation to keep the government funded, starting Jan. 19, that led to then-Speaker Kevin McCarthy’s ouster after he brokered a budget-cutting debt deal with Biden…

It’s a shift from Nancy Pelosi’s run as speaker, when the powerful gavel wielded political fear and discipline, but also legislative results. The last Congress, among the most productive in decades, passed more than 300 pieces of legislation over two years, including major infrastructure and climate change bills.

By year’s end, it wasn’t just the ousted McCarthy calling it quits, but dozens of lawmakers heading for the exits.

After his stint as interim speaker, McHenry, a powerful committee chairman with allies across Congress, promptly announced he, too, would be retiring at the end of his term, as his far-right colleagues claim increasing power.

“We need people to be realists, not just blind ideologues,” he said.

If I had the cash to spare, I’d put up some billboards in the Beltway commuter corridors with a big photo of Nancy Pelosi and the words Miss Me Yet?…