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As 2022 got here to a detailed, Home Republicans weren’t fairly certain who their speaker could be — Kevin McCarthy was nonetheless searching for votes on the time — however Home Majority Chief Steve Scalise was nonetheless optimistic concerning the GOP’s legislative prospects. On Dec. 30, the Louisianan despatched members an inventory of “significant, ‘ready-to-go’ laws” that the chamber would take up early within the new Congress.
These “commonsense measures,” Scalise stated, “ought to garner broad assist and supply a sign of our daring agenda to return.”
As Politico famous this morning, the Home Republican majority will attain the 100-day benchmark this week, and of the 11 “ready-to-go” payments the Home majority chief touted, 5 haven’t but handed. Of the six proposals the GOP did cross, not one has turn into legislation — and the percentages of those measures producing critical consideration within the Democratic-led Senate are successfully zero.
A CNN report added late final week:
With little room for error of their razor-thin majority, Republicans have thus far struggled to ship on key priorities. ... Regardless of the handful of successes, the celebration’s extra susceptible members are pissed off with how the Home Republican majority has thus far spent its time in energy, which has additionally included a heavy concentrate on investigations and operating protection for former President Donald Trump.
The frustration is comprehensible. McCarthy, Scalise and their convention spent final 12 months telling voters how nice Congress could be as soon as GOP leaders had been ready of energy. However after the final Congress ended, McCarthy struggled mightily to persuade his personal members to rally behind him, and even after he bought his fingers on the gavel, the celebration discovered it troublesome to do significant work.
There are a number of explanations for this, beginning with the truth that the Republican Occasion stays a post-policy celebration with no significant governing agenda or legislative imaginative and prescient. However that’s just the start: McCarthy is a weak Home speaker with a small majority — he can lose not more than 4 votes on any given invoice or decision — who leads a convention that doesn’t imagine in compromise and may’t agree on many points.
Even on must-pass measures such because the debt ceiling, McCarthy clearly isn’t on the identical web page as Home Price range Committee Chairman Jodey Arrington, and The New York Occasions reported final week that the speaker not solely lacks confidence in Arrington — McCarthy has reportedly advised many who he considers the Texan “incompetent” — he additionally believes he can not depend on Scalise, describing the Louisianan as “ineffective, checked out and reluctant to take a place on something.”
In different phrases, because the Home Republican majority prepares to have a good time 100 days in energy, the GOP has no actual legislative plans, no price range, weak management, a number of “ready-to-go” payments it will possibly’t cross, and key inside divisions.
Late final week, the Pew Analysis Middle printed the outcomes of its newest nationwide survey, which confirmed President Joe Biden fighting a low 37% approval ranking. Congressional Democrats had been even much less well-liked, with a 33% approval ranking. However congressional Republicans had been even additional again, with a 29% approval ranking.
If GOP leaders anticipate that quantity to enhance anytime quickly, they need to in all probability decrease their expectations.