As members of Congress prepared to take a two-week break, House Speaker Mike Johnson hoped to tackle some priorities on his to-do list. First up was a bill to reauthorize Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), which intelligence officials consider a critical surveillance tool. The Louisiana Republican supported the measure, and he thought he might have the support to get it through the chamber.
He thought wrong. Facing a backlash from his own GOP members, Johnson was forced to pull the bill.
Around the same time, Johnson tried to advance a modest tweak to the cap on the state and local tax deductions (better known as the SALT issue). GOP leaders again thought they had a chance to succeed, and again failed on a procedural vote. (Up until very recently, a House majority conference hadn’t lost a vote on “adopting a rule” in decades — a New York Times report called it “all but unthinkable” — but now, it’s becoming rather common: It’s now happened six times over the last year.)
A Punchbowl News report concluded, “This is the most chaotic, inefficient and ineffective majority we’ve seen in decades covering Congress.”
To be sure, these problems are not entirely new. A month ago, Punchbowl News spoke to a “well-plugged-in House Republican,” who is not a Freedom Caucus member, who said a growing number of GOP members have “significant concerns” about the House speaker. The unnamed Republican lawmaker added that there was a “growing feeling” that Johnson was in “way, way over his head.”
That was before the House GOP leadership’s debacles from last week, followed by another round of fiascoes this week.
As the House Republican conference unravels, it’s reached the point at which Politico reported that some are starting to long for the days of former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy’s miserable tenure.
For nine months in his speakership, Kevin McCarthy seemed like a man with a title but no power — desperately…
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