The House GOP is stuck in neutral

House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., is struggling to get several pieces of must-pass legislation through his chamber. In other words, it is a day ending in “y” on Capitol Hill under the ever dysfunctional, deeply unpopular GOP majority. What is remarkable about the straits in which Johnson finds himself this week, though, is not the fact that he is once again being buffeted by his caucus while up against the clock, but how routine it has become.

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Since becoming speaker, Johnson has become known for pulling last-minute wins that don’t exactly excite his team but at least are sufficient to forestall disaster. But beneath the shifting chaos engulfing the GOP’s slim majority this week is a much deeper problem: The House is stuck in neutral with no clear next step. And this time, even the pressure that normally produces results may not be enough to kick the legislature into gear.

Most of Tuesday in the House was spent with GOP leaders wrangling over how to bring as many priorities to the floor as possible before (another) scheduled recess begins Friday. Earlier in the day on Tuesday, Majority Leader Steve Scalise, R-La., warned reporters that it would be a late night of voting. By early evening, though, that promise had collapsed as Johnson informed members that any planned votes were canceled.

The speaker made that call as the House Rules Committee was still in session, desperately attempting to hammer out a “special rule” that could move three major pieces of legislation forward simultaneously. As of Tuesday evening, when the committee finally managed to pass its rule, it seemed as though it would likely fail on the House floor. It was only after holding the vote open for more than two hours Wednesday, with seven Republicans at one point in opposition, that the rule finally passed.

It used to be that a rule failing to pass would be a major crisis for House leadership, because they usually pass with only the majority’s votes. Failing to get through the first step of fast-tracking a bill to the floor would be seen as an ominous sign for a speaker’s grip on their caucus. But as House Republicans in the past four years have only held on to the majority by a handful of votes, it has become an ordinary, if frustrating, occurrence that a rule fails. Johnson managed to avoid that fate this time, but to have struggled this hard to get past the first step in getting these bills finalized doesn’t bode well for their future.

On top of that, there’s a time crunch spurring the House to act. Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which allows U.S. intelligence agencies to spy on foreign nationals abroad without individual warrants, will expire on Thursday. The White House warned Tuesday that the funds that President Donald Trump ordered shuffled around to pay Department of Homeland Security staffers will run out as of Friday.