Roughly four months after the Jan. 6 attack, congressional negotiations began in earnest on how best to investigate the insurrectionist violence at the Capitol. A variety of members envisioned a panel along the lines of the 9/11 Commission, but it fell to a handful of members to work out the details.
GOP leaders dispatched a trusted ally, Republican Rep. John Katko of New York, to negotiate the terms. Then-House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy carefully included unreasonable demands he expected Democrats to reject. That plan didn’t work: Katko successfully struck a deal in which Democrats agreed to the GOP’s terms.
At that point, Republican leaders rejected the compromise they’d asked for, and Katko was the odd man out. The New Yorker did exactly what was expected of him — he reached a bipartisan deal his party ostensibly wanted — before discovering that his party had changed its mind.
Lately, Katko’s experiences keep coming to mind.
A couple of weeks ago, for example, House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Jason Smith announced a bipartisan agreement with Senate Finance Chairman Ron Wyden on tax policy. Following months of talks, the Missouri Republican secured an extension of Trump-era tax breaks for businesses, while the Oregon Democrat secured an expansion of the child tax credit.
It’s not yet clear whether the plan will pass — though we probably won’t have to wait too long to find out — but what is clear is the fact that Smith isn’t exactly being celebrated by his allies. Axios reported over the weekend:
The House GOP’s top tax writer doesn’t just face blowback over the surprise deal he unveiled this month: Now the background chatter suggests Rep. Jason Smith (R-Mo.) could lose his gavel. … Senior Republican sources said Rep. Vern Buchanan (R-Fla.) — who narrowly lost a heated three-way race for the position in 2023 — has been urged to challenge House Ways and Means chairman for the top job.
Meanwhile, in the upper chamber, a…
Read the full article here