Divided Republicans could struggle to pass much law despite House majority

Former Republican speaker of the US House of Representatives John Boehner described his time in office when his party had control of the chamber as being like “the mayor of Crazytown”.

Boehner was tormented by some right-wing conservatives who were elected to the US Congress as part of the Tea Party movement in 2010. Eventually he stood down in 2015. “I may have been speaker, but I didn’t hold all the power,” Boehner concluded in his 2021 autobiography.

His right-wing adversaries had ready access to conservative TV and radio outlets and could raise their own funds from the outrage generated by particular issues among supporters across the country. Critics suggested some were more interested in generating chaos than governing.

Last week shows the turmoil and infighting between the different wings of the Republican Party has not abated. The top Republican in the House, Kevin McCarthy, faced a four-day revolt by right-wing hardliners opposed to him becoming speaker. The House was left paralysed as Republicans fought among themselves – on occasion nearly literally, with the cameras capturing one politician appearing to lunge at a colleague who was opposing McCarthy before being hauled away.

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In the political vacuum, House members could not be sworn into office and legislation could not be passed.

The slim Republican majority following the November midterm elections afforded great leverage to the hard right, which appeared divided on their reasons for opposing McCarthy. Some just wanted someone else in the job while others wanted to shake up the way politics is carried out in Washington and viewed McCarthy as a key part of the “establishment”.

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Eventually those on the right forced McCarthy to agree several important concessions before allowing him to take the speaker’s gavel. The deal restored a previous arrangement under which just one politician can initiate moves to oust the speaker. McCarthy allies had previously contended such a move effectively could see him held hostage by more extreme elements of the party.

Within days of McCarthy becoming speaker, Republicans introduced new operating rules for the House, despite misgivings among some moderates. The package included a measure known as the Holman rule, which allows politicians to use spending Bills to defund specific programmes, fire federal officials or reduce their pay. The new rules also opened the door to the establishment of a special committee to look at what conservatives contend is the “weaponisation” of the federal government against them.

The McCarthy deal provides for greater transparency in how legislation is put together and seeks to avoid large omnibus Bills covering many areas and sometimes running to thousands of pages.

There were murmurings of secret addendums to the deal - and questions of whether offers of jobs had been made in return for promises of support

The deal facilitated McCarthy to become speaker, but there are concerns about the ability of the Republicans to govern with their small majority.

A crucial test later this year will be whether right-wing conservatives seek to leverage their key votes when it comes to authorising an increase in the US debt ceiling. Will they seek concessions elsewhere, such as on social spending programmes? Any threat of a US debt default could have significant implications for the global economy.

With the speaker position secured, in early moves this week Republicans immediately put forward measures, particularly on tax and abortion, that would go down well with their supporters. They voted to cut funding for the US revenue service and for changes to the tax system. They also backed measures on abortion – one condemning attacks on anti-abortion facilities and another requiring doctors to provide care to an infant that survived a termination procedure.

The appointment to coveted positions on key House committees of a number of politicians who had opposed McCarthy for speaker also provoked claims that there was insufficient transparency about the whole agreement – with murmurings of secret addendums to the deal – and questions of whether offers of jobs had been made in return for promises of support.

US president Joe Biden and vice-president Kamala Harris have seized on the Republicans’ plans on tax and the revenue service. They maintain Republicans want to allow millionaires, billionaires and corporations to “cheat the system” and replace tax on income with tax on sales. Biden promises to veto any such legislation. While these tax proposals as well as anti-abortion measures are highly unlikely to become law, they are popular among conservatives.

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John Feehery, long-time Republican strategist and former aide on Capitol Hill to Republican leaders, says the nature of the US political system – which requires measures passed in the House to go to the Senate and to the president before becoming law – means that although the party holds a majority, it is unlikely to pass a lot of legislation.

“The expectations are pretty low that they will be able to get too much done from a legislative perspective, but they will be able slow down the Biden administration and provide oversight and that is probably as good as you could hope for,” he says.

“The best-case scenario is Republicans can try to divide Democrats on specific issues, and those that seem to resonate right now are border control, energy production and some tax policy. Those are the most likely places where Republicans will be able to make some progress and get some Democratic votes. Unless they figure out some way of getting bipartisan legislation, they are probably unlikely to get too much done in dealing with the challenges of a Senate controlled by the Democrats and overcoming a presidential veto.”

Feehery says the Republican group in the House is essentially a coalition, just like in Ireland, even though it is made up of members of the same party. One significant issue could be the US defence budget, he says. “A lot of hardline guys are more than happy to see military spending scaled back a little bit while most Republicans want to see more money go to defence.

“They [the hard-right faction] think over the last two years there has been way too much spending and are happy to scale back some defence spending as they want to really scale back domestic spending.”