A Bipartisan Governing Coalition?

Promising alliance emerges in the House of Representatives

May 03, 2024

Feathers of Hope is a network of ordinary citizens who have joined together around a shared commitment to diminishing the power and influence of MAGA extremists in the House of Representatives.

Since January 2023, we have been urging moderate Republicans and Democrats to form a bipartisan majority voting bloc in order to conduct our nation’s legislative business, and to defend the institution from its internal enemies.

The House has no effective majority party leadership.

Minority Leader Jeffries has just stepped into the vacuum.

On Tuesday, Mr. Jeffries and his deputies announced they would block any effort to remove Mike Johnson (R-LA) from his position as Speaker of the House. The move is in response to a motion to “vacate the chair” filed last month by Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA). Her motion stands no chance of passage unless Democrats agree to support it, as they did last September when a similar motion resulted in the removal of Speaker Kevin McCarthy.

But that was then, this is now. And it’s not only Democrats who are explicitly rejecting Ms. Greene’s proposal for a re-run of those chaotic weeks when Republicans needed multiple ballots to finally select a Speaker. There is little appetite for this even among the most conservative Republicans:

Rep. Ralph Norman (R-S.C.), a member of the House Freedom Caucus has dismissed Marjorie Greene as representing only the base in her State, and characterized the push to remove Speaker Johnson as nothing more than a distraction.
Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) said “I think it’s the wrong thing to do,” adding “we should keep Mike as speaker.”

Lest there be any doubt about where power now lies, Democratic Caucus Chair Pete Aguilar (D-CA) explained:

“We don’t want to . . . let [Greene] dictate the schedule or the calendar that’s ahead. … Spending time on this just doesn’t make sense to us.”

Leader Jeffries was even more explicit:

“Marjorie Taylor Greene is the star of the show. The show is called ‘Republicans Gone Wild.’ House Republicans are either unwilling or unable to get [Greene] and the extreme MAGA Republicans under control, and so, it’s going to take a bipartisan coalition and partnership to accomplish that objective.”

With protection of the Speaker’s hold on his office firmly in Democrats’ hands, their leaders have effectively declared that a bipartisan governing coalition is now in control of the House.

As regular readers of Feathers of Hope know, this network has long advocated the formation of a bipartisan majority voting bloc to diminish the power and influence of MAGA extremists in the House of Representatives. That time has finally come.

So why did it take so long?

In the weeks immediately before the convening of the 118th Congress in January, 2023, this newsletter was launched specifically as a response to Kevin McCarthy’s bid for the Speakership. It was immediately apparent then that Mr. McCarthy would be ceding his authority to MAGA extremists in exchange for their votes. Rather than allow the People’s House to be dominated by that radical minority faction, we proposed that Democrats and non-MAGA Republicans should use the power of their combined majority to elect a moderate Republican as Speaker—one who would owe nothing to the extremists.

Suffice it to say that, despite some encouraging moments during those first weeks, all Representatives ultimately decided to vote for Speaker strictly along party lines. Democrats voted unanimously for Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY). And MAGA extremists, having extracted every concession they could think of from Mr. McCarthy, finally joined all other Republicans to give him the gavel.

(Those interested in the history of our efforts in this regard, are invited to browse the Feathers Of Hope archives beginning with our first email on December 5, 2022.)

Thus began the utterly dysfunctional 118th Congress

While entirely predictable, Speaker McCarthy’s weakness is only partly to blame for what’s happened during the last sixteen months. The true source of the 118th’s dysfunction arises from the presence in the House of a faction of Republicans committed not to legislating but rather to obstructing governance altogether.

Ordinarily, a small group of malcontents would not have power to obstruct the functions of the House.

Party discipline based on seniority and loyalty have maintained an orderly process in the chamber for generations. Obscure traditions, like always voting with your party in the Rules Committee, had insured that the Speaker would control the floor, determining which bills are brought to a vote. Additional pressure could be brought to bear on rebellious members by party leadership’s role of appointing House Committee members, and the Speaker’s power to appoint Committee Chairs.

Any Congressperson who wants to advance in the House hierarchy, is wise to defer to those senior party leaders as much as possible. So while there are innumerable ways the system could be reformed (see Rep. Mike Gallagher’s 2018 Atlantic magazine essay How to Salvage Congress), there has long been a predictably dependable path for members to gain power and influence.

Of course, individual Representatives have always had their own priorities and ambitions. And there have always been various factions, caucuses and interest groups. But normally there’s general agreement that the purpose of being a member of the House of Representative is to address the country’s problems through legislation. And the path to legislation is debate, persuasion, and compromise within the existing structure. That’s what all the committees, motions, resolutions and ultimately voting is about. It’s the essence of a democratic representative government.

But the MAGA extremists are different from other political factions in the House. They are nothing like the Libertarians, or even the Tea Party. Their members support and identify with January 6 conspirators. They speak openly and proudly of a coming civil war. In effect, they are furthering the assault on our institutions of self-government from within the chamber itself. And consequently, they have little interest in the institution’s norms and traditions, or in their own career advancement.

Rather than addressing the country’s problems, their intent is to exploit and aggravate those problems. Rather than governing, their intent is to overthrow the government itself.

MAGA’s main tactic in this undertaking has been to insist that only legislation meeting their approval can be brought to the floor for a vote. They’ve been able to achieve this by first, extorting Kevin McCarthy to appoint MAGA members to the Rules Committee, and then by those members refusing to join the majority in bringing bills to the floor. With no attempt at compromise, and traditional Republicans committed to the tradition of maintaining party unity, there has been a steady stream of bills passing the House with exclusively Republican support.

Since the Senate is majority Democratic and the President is a Democrat, the result has been near total legislative paralysis.

To date, the 118th Congress has passed only 51 bills that became law. That number includes such measures as issuing a commemorative coin, naming federal facilities, modernizing issuance of the duck stamp, and appointing Smithsonian Regents. For comparison, the last 10 Congresses averaged 391 bills signed into law per term.

During the first several months of the 118th Congress, this tactic was remarkably effective. Speaker McCarthy, desperate to keep his position as Speaker of the House, was willing to accommodate the extremists time and again. It was only when the full faith and credit of the United States was threatened by MAGA opposition to raising the debt ceiling, that Mr. McCarthy finally turned his back on them.

For one brief moment last Spring, the first flickering of a possible bipartisan governing coalition had emerged. It seemed that our goal may be within reach.

Negotiations between Speaker McCarthy and President Biden produced an agreement that could pass only with support of Democrats, and traditional Republicans who finally drew the line at defaulting on our national debt. The Fiscal Responsibility Act (FRA), which raised the debt limit until 2025 and established spending levels for the coming fiscal year, passed in the House on May 31, 2023, by a vote of 314 - 117. The bipartisan majority consisted of 149 Republicans and 165 Democrats.

But the moment quickly passed. Within days, Speaker McCarthy reverted to form. Rather than call out the extremists as disloyal Republicans, he once more acceding to their demands — until the next crisis arose. Meanwhile, those moderate Republicans who had voted with Democrats to raise the debt ceiling retreated behind the facade of party unity.

That next crisis was the threat of a government shutdown.

As the October 1 deadline for funding our government into the new fiscal year approached, MAGA extremists were refusing to pass any appropriation bills that met the parameters of the FRA. Again, the crisis was averted by Mr. McCarthy breaking with the MAGA faction to pass a Continuing Resolution with a bipartisan majority vote.

As we all remember, a motion to vacate the chair was immediately filed by Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL). Following custom, Democrats voted against the opposition party’s leader, and together with the dissidents brought him down. Mr. McCarthy was succeeded by Mike Johnson (R-LA), and the cycle of dysfunction resumed.

Over the next few months, another series of Continuing Resolutions passed with bipartisan support to keep the government funded until all the appropriation bills were finally passed — again with bipartisan support. As the feuding over appropriations continued, passage of the Ukrainian military aid bill was also being delayed because of MAGA opposition, until (once again) it finally passed with bipartisan support.

The pattern had become clear. Essential legislation in this Congress would pass only if it has strong support from Democrats. A de facto bipartisan coalition is in place.

“We’re going to do what we’ve done throughout the entirety of the Congress, which is to make sure we take care of the business of the American people. We have consistently done that. No one has to ask whether we will shirk our responsibilities when every major piece of legislation that has passed during the 118th Congress has passed with a majority of Democrats and in many cases a minority of Republicans.”
—Leader Hakeem Jeffries, April 18, 2024

All that remains to be done now is for Democratic leadership to publicly demonstrate the coalition’s durable existence. And surprisingly, Rep. Greene is about to play her part in doing just that. She’s planning to plow ahead with the motion, which will permanently record how tiny and powerless her extremist faction has become. Nothing could more convincingly formalize this bipartisan alliance than the imminent defeat of her motion to vacate the chair.

For those keeping score at home (Another Defeat for MAGA) :