OPINION: This article may contain commentary which reflects the author's opinion.
When Republicans won control of the House following the 2022 elections, predictions of a huge “red wave” proved to be overblown, though the party did control the chamber by a comfortable amount.
Not anymore.
Over the past 18 months, the GOP majority has been steadily eroding thanks to early retirements — many of them due to disagreement over the way former House Speaker Kevin McCarty, one of the early retirees, was treated — and others due to self-inflicted wounds, such as the vote to expel now-former Rep. George Santos of New York, who was charged with federal crimes but not tried or convicted yet (in the Dem-controlled Senate, Bob Menendez faces an increasing number of federal charges, but Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (N.Y.) has no intention of expelling him).
All of this has left the Republicans with a single-vote majority, leaving them on the cusp of losing control of the chamber to Democrats months before the November election — and handing them the opportunity to ram through so much more of President Joe Biden’s far-left agenda.
“Control of the House of Representatives has never flipped in the middle of a Congress. But if it’s going to happen, the 118th Congress is as ripe for that possibility,” Fox News’s political analyst Chad Pergram noted in a Monday column.
He noted further:
House Republicans face chaos in their conference. Members who planned to retire next January are now ditching Capitol Hill early. The House is an acrimonious place with yet another move afoot to dethrone the Speaker. FOX is told that other Republicans are angling to get out as soon as they can. A big payday in the private sector could lure some members to cash in their voting cards early.
Congress is called “Congress” because that is when House members and Senators come together in Washington.
The word “Congress” means “coming together”.
Lawmakers have been meeting at the Capitol for the 118th time since starting the 1st Congress in 1789 at Federal Hall in New York City, Pergram noted.
In November 2022, voters elected House members and about a third of all Senators to the present 118th Congress. Each “Congress” begins at noon ET on January 3 and ends at 11:59 am ET on January 3 two years later.
Therefore, the 118th Congress was launched on January 3, 2023, and it will expire in the late morning of January 3 next year. This means that the term of all House members, which began last year, will run out at the same time next January. Those elected this November will serve in the 119th Congress, which will begin on January 3 next year, he added.
Pergram, in his analysis, also noted that Republicans expected upwards of a 50-seat majority when they convened in January 2023, but in reality, their majority was much smaller. Then it took several days to elect a Speaker — Kevin McCarthy, but only under the condition that a single member could vote to vacate the Speaker’s chair, which happened several months later (thanks to Rep. Matt Gaetz-R-Fla.).
In the Senate, the set of seats contested this year are in extremely favourable states for Republicans. In the House, Democrats campaigning against the chaos of GOP leadership may manage to wrest back control. A double flip has never happened before https://t.co/uPv5F6HJ6f
— Andy Langenkamp (@AndyLangenkamp) March 25, 2024
Now, Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) is on the verge of being ousted, this time by Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, after he allowed a $1.2 trillion omnibus spending bill to be brought to the floor with little time to read through the 1,000-plus page document.
Already, there is fallout from that; the measure funds a new Justice Department division that will focus on so-called “red flag” laws in states to deprive Americans of their Second Amendment rights without due process, under the guise that they pose a “threat” to themselves and others.
“House Republicans do have to be worried about holding their majority,” said Darrell West of the Brookings Institution. “It would be extraordinarily unusual. I mean, stuff like that just does not happen. But it shows the extent of the dysfunction – the divisions within the Republican House caucus.”
