The bitter disarray consuming House Republicans could soon culminate in a dramatic climax never before seen in American history: control of the chamber changing hands before an election. And if it happens, Democrats need to be ready, because they could seize a once-in-a-lifetime chance to pass popular, vital legislation that Speaker Mike Johnson has blocked.
This tantalizing possibility has inched from fantasy toward reality thanks to the chaos fomented by the House Freedom Caucus, which has driven multiple Republicans to resign from Congress early, leaving vacant seats in their wake. And more could soon follow.
When Colorado’s Ken Buck—one of those fed-up Republicans—announced his resignation earlier this month, he offered a warning to his colleagues.
“I think it’s the next three people that leave,” he told Axios, “that they’re going to be worried about.” Less than two weeks later, Buck’s comments began to look prophetic when Wisconsin Rep. Mike Gallagher said he, too, would quit before his term was up.
And now Fox News’ Chad Pergram reports that “other Republicans are angling to get out as soon as they can.” Some, he says, “are just exasperated.” Others are tired of being asked about Donald Trump’s never-ending outbursts. And still others may simply be eager for a “big payday in the private sector.”
But whether it’s because of exhaustion or avarice, the GOP’s perilously tiny majority could shrink even further—and perhaps collapse into a minority. There would likely need to be at least four more Republican departures for that to happen, but even if that doesn’t come to pass, Norm Ornstein of the American Enterprise Institute points out that it would only take a small COVID outbreak, say, to temporarily reduce GOP ranks to the point where Democrats could seize control.
In a conversation with Daily Kos Elections, Ornstein, one of the foremost scholars of Congress in the country, explained what exactly Democrats would have to do to capitalize on an unprecedented opportunity like this. The mechanics are straightforward, but the most important thing, Ornstein emphasized, is that Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries and his leadership team have to start planning now so that they are fully prepared to take advantage of what would likely be a very limited window to act.
“Democrats should be mapping out a careful plan,” Ornstein said. “If you have a week, you need a package ready to go that you can move with lightning speed.”
Should the moment arise when the number of Democrats in the House exceeds the number of Republicans, the first step will be a familiar one: Democrats would need to file a motion to vacate the speakership. That’s the procedure that led to Kevin McCarthy’s ouster last year, and the one that Marjorie Taylor Greene is threatening to wield against Johnson now.
Democrats would then move to elect Jeffries as the chamber’s new speaker. Immediately after that, Ornstein said, Democrats would need to adopt “a package of rules changes to alter ratios on committees.” That’s because the House speaker faces a critical limitation on any bills he brings directly to the floor: They must be passed by a two-thirds majority. Enraged Republicans would have no reason to provide the necessary margins.
Bills that emerge from committees, however, don’t face that restriction. Right now, though, Republicans have a majority on all relevant committees, so Democrats would need to take charge of those committees to eliminate a key bottleneck.
The most important committees to address, according to Ornstein, are the Rules Committee, which sets the ground rules for how each bill moves through the House, as well as the Budget and Appropriations committees, which would be responsible for drafting the substantive legislation Democrats would seek to pass.
The focus then turns to the upper chamber. Ornstein said Democrats would need to prepare a “carefully crafted reconciliation bill” that could pass the Senate. “Reconciliation” is one of the ways senators can bypass the filibuster and was used to pass two of President Joe Biden’s signature achievements: the American Rescue Plan and the Inflation Reduction Act. It can be used here as well.
As tempting as it might be, however, to toss every Democratic priority onto the pile, the final product has to be something that can garner 50 votes in the Senate. That means it must appeal to the likes of West Virginia’s Joe Manchin or Arizona’s Kyrsten Sinema.
“You don’t want your eyes too big,” Ornstein cautioned. “You don’t want to throw everything into a reconciliation bill.”
So what might that bill look like? Ornstein’s wish list includes a permanent fix to the debt ceiling so that Republicans can no longer use the threat of defaulting on our loan obligations to hold the government hostage. Another popular inclusion would be making permanent the expanded child tax credit that dramatically reduced child poverty during the pandemic but expired thanks to opposition from Manchin and Republicans.
Democrats would also be wise to fund the government through next year, because the recent spending deal that Congress agreed to expires at the end of September—just before Election Day. A prolonged shutdown would make it harder for the federal government to monitor the election, something that many in the GOP would be only too happy to see.
House Democrats could also advance other bills that have already been approved by the Senate but have been stymied by Johnson, most notably funding for Ukraine and the bipartisan border deal. Ornstein suggested that these measures could be passed on their own, or they could be wrapped into the reconciliation package as an incentive to secure broader support.
“I just don’t have any doubt that Jeffries gets the Democrats” in the House, Ornstein said, but the Senate remains the bigger question. Distasteful as such a move might be, Manchin could perhaps be wooed by a giveaway to his pet cause: the fossil fuel industry. But another intriguing target could be Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski, who recently told CNN she wouldn’t rule out becoming an independent. A provision benefitting her home state could lock down her backing.
The opportunity to achieve all of this may not arise this year. But if it does, Democrats could not only pass critical legislation, they could also demonstrate to the public exactly what it’s like when grownups are in charge. They’d be helping Americans across the country—and helping themselves at the ballot box at the same time. And it would all be thanks to Republican disarray.