The GOP Braces for Divided Government—and a Divided Party

GOP centrists are trying to find their footing in a chaotic caucus.

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House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy conducts a news conference after securing the Republican nomination for speaker on November 15. (Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images)

When the 118th Congress convenes for the first time on January 3, the wrangling will begin almost immediately—and there is little evidence that it will let up. This reality has left centrist Republicans wondering whether their deeply divided party can produce any meaningful legislation over the next two years. 

House Republicans have already said they plan to prioritize investigations of the origins of COVID-19, the Biden administration’s chaotic Afghanistan withdrawal, and Hunter Biden’s business dealings, among other issues. Turning legislation into law will be much harder: Even if House Republicans’ now 222-member conference can agree on a bill, it will still need President Joe Biden’s signature along with support from a narrowly blue Senate.

“If you pass legislation out of here, and it can’t pass a Democrat-controlled Senate, then you’ve done nothing for our country,” socially moderate GOP Rep. Nancy Mace said in a recent interview. Mace has stood apart from most House Republicans on a number of issues, including the  Respect for Marriage Act and the House-passed Right to Contraception Act.

Mace maintains that her independent-minded approach to policy issues is the reason she carried her swing district by 14 points in an otherwise lackluster midterm cycle for her party. “Leadership will need to look at the positions of more centrist-minded Republicans in order to be successful,” Mace said.

But House Republicans like Mace will be competing with hard-line members of their conference also jockeying for power—and opportunities to buck establishment figures like Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy. Next week, that means threatening to derail the Californian’s speakership bid. 

McCarthy needs 218 votes to win, though “present” votes or absences would lower that number. Currently, even five no-votes would trigger at least a historic second round of voting for the first time in 100 years: Only 14 House speakership elections in American history have gone to multiple rounds of votes, 13 of which preceded the Civil War.

Centrist Republicans have spent recent weeks campaigning for McCarthy with the message that they will not let a handful of members push them—on January 3 and beyond. 

“They’re undermining the whole conference, and they’re strengthening the hand of Hakeem Jeffries,” GOP Rep. Don Bacon said in a recent interview of House Democrats’  newly elected leader. “If we don’t act as a team, that forces the leader to have to get some Democrats on board on any bill.” He’s threatened to work with centrist Democrats to elect a moderate alternative to McCarthy if prospective defectors refuse to get in line.

One area of contention heading into next year is the Freedom Caucus’ preoccupation with reinstating a rule called the “Motion to Vacate the Chair,” which would allow any member to bring up a vote to oust the speaker at any time. The rule’s existence at the time precipitated former Speaker John Boehner’s resignation as speaker in 2015.

Fiscal hawkishness also remains a sticking point for the right-most flank of the party next year. Before Congress passed the $1.7 trillion omnibus government spending package last week, for example, 13 hardline House Republicans vowed in a December 19 letter to “oppose and whip opposition to any legislative priority of those senators who vote for this bill including the Republican leader.”

The strategy quickly paid dividends. McCarthy slammed the package, which had been championed by Republican Sen. Mitch McConnell and others. “This is one of the most shameful acts I’ve seen in this body,” McCarthy said of the omnibus package on the House floor ahead of the vote.

That rhetoric worked while Democrats controlled the House and stakes were low for McCarthy. But if he manages to clinch the speaker’s gavel next year, McCarthy will have to find ways to work with members who represent swing, or even modestly Republican, districts. 

One member to watch is Rep.-elect Anthony D’Esposito, who flipped a Democrat-held seat Biden carried by 14 points in 2020. “The reason why we prevailed was that a lot of moderate Democrats felt especially that their party was just too far to the left, and we appealed to a lot of the independents,” D’Esposito said in a recent interview. “If you govern too far to the right or too far to the left, you’re not going to be in this job very long.”

Newly elected swing district Democrats voice similar concerns about what the next Congress will look like. Take Rep.-elect Marie Gluesenkamp-Perez, an auto shop owner and Second Amendment-supporting rural Democrat who in November ousted GOP Rep. Jaime Herrera Beutler in Washington’s Republican-leaning 3rd Congressional District.

“Extremists don’t pass bills,” Gluesenkamp-Perez said in a November interview. “You need to be able to build a coalition to do that.”

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  1. Avatar photo
    George.Rozes

    Thankful that Nancy Mace is my representative. Unfortunate that she will be one of a few lone wolves in an otherwise angry mob of Republican reps who will use their gavel to unearth Hunter Biden treasures, Fauci's intent to kill millions while lining his own pockets, and other non stories.

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    Dlyons

    Will be critical, for a Republican controlled House, to focus on areas where egregious overreach has occurred by the administration. Oil recently reached 70 dollars a barrel, a price where more than a token announcement of a promise to buy 3 million barrels should have been taken advantage of. The continued freeze on student loans leaves a bad taste for many playing by the rules in education. And a third area, although controversial, allowing a foreign leader to address a joint session of congress, and raise their flag, while an additional 2 trillion dollars was being debated, has damaged momentum gained by Democrats from the midterms.

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      Lchrisberg

      What's wrong with a foreign leader raising their flag? The only thing controversial about that is that anyone would object.

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        Dlyons

        You are correct....Should have specifically addressed the flag should not have been raised in Congress. Happy New Year.

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  3. Borkus Flimflam

    Republicans, I sense that you are in denial about what you’ve done, and thus lack repentance. So I’m going to lay it out for you.

    
The Republican Party is evil and is the party of treason. It must be destroyed and its leaders and media brought to justice.
    
In the mid 90s your plans to rip out the welfare state and return to Gilded Age died. Clinton adopted half your policies, neutered them, and succeeded. And so under Gingrich, you took the model of religious talk radio lying and polarization, created a fake news channel (Fox), and started polarizing your constituents. You had to get them to hate the Democrats so much that you could do anything to them. At the same time you adopted a new adversarial stance and turned them into a bunch of screaming and lying freaks.

    Through the 2000’s you manipulated that population into ever increasing craziness. When Obama took the reins, you transformed it further into crazy, birthing such garbage as the Tea Party movement. You pulled the party so far right, that if they put their minds to it, they no longer believed in liberal democracy.

    Then you lost control. A demagogue arose, grabbed the working class out of the hands of the democrats who decided to care more about trans movement social justice crap, and proceeded to destroy conservatism and replace it with populist nationalist authoritarianism.

    Then at least most of those here shat their pants and rightly bailed. You then wandered about in a daze screaming and retching: “how could this have happened?” Well you stupid dinguses, in your quest for absolute power in a democracy you birthed a nightmare, that’s what you did. And you are wholly to blame.

    
And so, what did this monster you created then do? Here is a brief overview, omitting much.

    

1. They committed treason and attempted to overturn the election and impose tyranny - the greatest crime ever committed in this nation by anyone second only to the attempt to secede. The slaughter of a million people is a smaller crime than this.

    2. They attacked and attempted to disband NATO at the moment where Russia was reasserting its imperial ambitions. This nearly led to the loss of our front yard in Europe to an ally of China.


    3. During a pandemic they attached opposition to public health and vaccines to their political identity to shore up support using oppositional politics, killing more than 200,000 people.


    4. They built on the polarization lies to insulate nearly all Republicans from outside information. They lied that they alone were not fake news and so now most only listen to party propaganda. They will listen to nothing else. Most now believe the most outlandish of lies and conspiracy theories.



    5. The Christian wing corrupted itself on its own lust for power during all of this. Many of you were always fake Christians anyway. A group of Jesus followers who were armed to the teeth and dumping guns by the boatload into civilian circulation. Running militias. An evangelical movement borne of segregation, adopting abortion opposition to further its own power dynamic. But then pursuing policy that blocked all attempts to reduce unintended pregnancies, which drove HALF of all abortions. And you attacked every minority that every breathed so you could increase your own social cohesion.

    6. 

Then, they tried to elect lunatic authoritarians who ran on promises to nullify any election your party didn't win.


    So, what is wrong with you that led you to create this monster?
    Ambition for power at all costs and thus disloyalty to the United States and democracy.
    Fake Christianity.
    Lying.
    Polarization as a means to power.
    Raping whole segments of the population to line your pockets and destroying the foundation that enabled your economic elitism. You learned this one by eating up whatever came out of Ayn Rand’s and Hayak’s collective anuses.

    
So how did you turn into a bunch of immoral imbeciles?
    You didn’t follow Christ.

    Fix it.

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    1. Avatar photo
      JDW

      The biggest domestic policy problem facing us today is entitlements. They are eating us alive and are not sustainable. Democrats want to increase them. Donald Trump wanted to increase them. Populism is by it's nature about giving people whatever they want and who cares about the consequences. Democrats have been populist my whole life.

      The Republicans have big problems but no bigger than the Democrats. Trump is poison but he is one man. Republicans in some ways are too much like Democrats in wanting to spend. We need real conservatism. Let's get out of the social welfare business at the national level. It's not a federal government mandate at the national level.

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      1. Borkus Flimflam

        You are a libertarian set adrift by a demagogue and a party that has awoken to the fact the you shipped the middle class manufacturing labor pool to China. You used to be a member of movement conservatism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Movement_conservatism

        But you’ve been replaced by populist nationalist authoritarians. They reacted against you when they elected a demagogue, babe. What’s almost as bad is that you think a 100 million person sized labor force can run without healthcare or any promise of a safe retirement without winning at the market casino.

        I suggest that your only recourse is to balance your own budget and sit in the corner reading Hayak while licking Ayn Rand’s dead feet.

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    2. Diane Hansen

      I find your comment myopic, biased, angry, and offensive. The GOP is currently misguided, not evil. Trump isn’t a Republican, he’s a NYC Dem, populist, opportunist. The GOP elected Trump in response to Dems warp speed jerk towards central planning and woke nonsense. Evangelicals do not make up the whole of the Republican Party…..some of their leadership went off the rails, but religious people are not evil. Moreover, they’ve been marginalized by Dems and woke policies. Hopefully the GOP will right their ship, but the Dems need a complete overhaul.

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      1. Diane Hansen

        Stow it Borkus, I’m no Trumpette. Reread my initial comment for meaning this time. There are no Trumpers on the Dispatch…..that’s your first mistake. Moreover, Trumpers are a faction in the party, and they’re dwindling by the day. Movement conservatism is still alive and well right here on the Dispatch, and Trump is no conservative. ….he’s a populist, nationalist, opportunist. The GOP is not evil or treasonous……Biden was elected president, the peaceful transfer of power was preserved, and last time I checked he still central planning this country on the path to socialism. Most Republican leadership behind the scenes view Trump as a toxic blight and would be thrilled to see him gone. You are myopic and biased, and you need anger management.

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    3. Jfan

      "In the mid 90s your plans to rip out the welfare state and return to Gilded Age died." Republicans in 1995 passed a budget which provided for 7% annual increases in Medicare spending. Clinton vetoed it. Please get your temporal slurs straight.

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      1. Borkus Flimflam

        Lol, I think not. You are either attempting a sloppy job at rewriting history or you are simply ignorant. I think it is the former because I’d have to be an imbecile to take a strategic budget inflection as what happened before Gingrich ripped it all out. I lived it, so I’m not so easily deceived by your lying bullshit.

        I advise you to study some of the history of your own party - the move after Goldwater to destroy the Eisenhower republicans and replace it with efforts to rip out the new deal. This ultimately materialized as the movement conservative factional alignment that set economic policy at the time of Reagan to reflect Hayak’s school of thought. Thatcher did the same thing. Plus union busting all around to break the lower middle class.

        Standard Republican economic policy adopted neoliberalism with a high libertarian bent and began removing the manufacturing industry overseas. Etc etc etc. you hollowed out our middle class so you could line your leaders’ wallets. At least your Trumpian imbecile wing has recognized this. You’ve been itching to rape the welfare state since you were born. Learn some history.

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        1. Jfan

          I wrote that Republicans in 1995 passed a bill providing for 7% annual increases in Medicare spending. Borkus calls me "ignorant" and says I should "learn some history," and proceeds to trash-talk me and the Republican Party, but does not actually dispute the number. These are the tactics of Donald Trump.

          The budgeted amount for Medicare in 1995 was $176 billion, though the year was not yet over when the bill was written. The bill allocated $194.2 billion for 1996, $206.3 billion for 1997, $217.8 billion for 1998, $229.2 billion for 1999, $247.2 billion for 2000, $266.4 billion for 2001, and $289.0 billion for 2002.

          Borkus calls my claim "lying bullshit." The above numbers come from HR2491, passed November 20, 1995, and are reported on page H13488 of the Congressional Record. Does Borkus think these numbers are fake? Which ones?

          (289/176)^(1/7) = 7.3%. Or does Borkus dispute math too?

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          1. Borkus Flimflam

            I suspect you are not in error on the numbers, but that is not my dispute and you duck into arithmetic to avoid the charge to which you are exposed. You use this agreement to intimate that Republicans did not plan to rip out the welfare state. And indeed that is lying bullshit, for the reasons I gave above. Learn your own history. Perhaps you need to have a chat with Paul Ryan about that history.

            But, in reality you are a deceiver. You know of what I speak, as do many Republicans here. You are indeed whores that lined your own wallets on the backs of the populace. You verily deserve the ruin you put to your own house.

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  5. Avatar photo
    Earl King

    I pray for the day that both Parties look for consensus. Rep. Mace is right, what is healing to this nation is moderates passing bills in bipartisan way. Democrats jamming bills thru or the GOP doing the same doing nothing but angering the other side is not a prescription of unity or the health of our nation.

    I know there will always be red line that neither party can accept. That is fine. I pray that the parties can accept that we can not forever borrow money at such a rate. Our interest on the debt with is or has approached $1 Trillion dollars. That is money being flushed down the drain. That doesn’t even begin to address the deficit the annual budget deficit. War with China will be costly to defend against. Another Pandemic, possibly worse is not without concern. We have a recession to go thru still, calls for spending to ease the pain of unemployment will occur. Do we have the money for that? Congress and the Trump and Biden Administrations have spent like drinking sailors. The Fed with printing so much money along with Congress caused inflation. Wages are not keeping up....We have serious financial problems. It would be nice if we could agree on a period of catch up while addressing some looming security priorities.

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    1. Brook

      I know not the size of the choir to whom you are speaking, but count me in. You are spot on.

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  6. Jfan

    To amplify Nikitas Hatzimihail's point, Audrey's statement that Marie Gluesenkamp-Perez ousted Jaime Herrera Beutler is not just a careless error but a major oversight. Since Beutler lost to Joe Kent, who then lost to the Democrat, the lesson is that conservative politicians can win swing districts, as Beutler did for years, as long as they are not crazy.

    The "'Motion to Vacate the Chair,' which would allow any member to bring up a vote to oust the speaker at any time," is a diversion with no significance. Any member can already bring up such a motion at any time. It does not matter whether the rules say it is in order. Proper order is whatever a majority of the members in the chamber at a given time say it is. If a member brings up such a motion, and the Speaker pro tem rules it out of order, the member can appeal to the membership. If there is a majority to oust the Speaker, then there is a majority to win on the point of order. Something similar happened to Speaker Joe Cannon in 1910, who ended up holding onto his office but was stripped of most of his powers. I do not know, however, whether the Freedom Caucus has the brains or knowledge to understand this.

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    1. Avatar photo
      PaulH

      @jfan: I am not sure of your analysis. If it is in order for one member to bring a motion to vacate the chair, then it is likely that the Democrats would vote in favor (it would depend on the circumstances). But if the motion was clearly out of order, I am not sure that the Democrats would vote to overrule the Speaker -- they might not want to create the precedent of ignoring an established rule.

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      1. Jfan

        That is true: If things sound different, then that may encourage politicians to treat them differently. The situation is analogous to the Senate filibuster: The rules in 2014 said that confirming a presidential appointee required 60 votes, and that it was not in order to change that without, if I recall correctly, 67 votes. From 2003, when Democrats invented the previously unthinkable practice of filibustering appointees, to 2006, Republicans could have stopped the filibuster, but certain Republican senators were intimidated by the idea that would violate the rules, and John McCain used that to get six other Republican senators to join him in letting the Democrats continue to filibuster. In 2014, the Democrats scrapped the filibuster for appointees by a majority vote. The rules said they couldn't, but they didn't care; the rules were whatever the majority said they were. So yes, "they might not want," as you say, to do something, but they are free to do it if they want to. Still, you have a point. John McCain would not have been able to get six other senators to join him if they were not intimidated by the rule and -- this is crucial -- if the senators did not have so weak a grasp of democratic principles that they did not understand that it is unconstitutional for one senate to make rules binding their successors. That is why I qualified my post by stating "I do not know, however, whether the Freedom Caucus has the brains or knowledge to understand this." Legally the rules are irrelevant; politically they do matter.

        On the other hand, the Democrats have a history of screaming at the top of their lungs about constitutional principles, then scrapping them the moment it's convenient. In 1990 the Democrats and the media -- but I repeat myself -- said that Congress was entitled to make the budgets, so when President Bush vetoed the Democrats' budget the resulting shutdown was his fault. In 1995, when Clinton vetoed the Republican congress's budget, Democrats and the media proclaimed that the shutdown was the Republicans' fault. Filibustering presidential appointees was unprecedented until Democrats began in 2003; the Abe Fortas case was the exception that proves the rule. Then Democrats began filibustering routinely, and denounced as tyrannical any proposal to abolish the filibuster. Then when Republicans filibustered Obama's appointees in 2014, Democrats promptly abolished the filibuster for nominations, and now they propose abolishing it for legislation. So I doubt that the Democrats care what "precedent" they create; they will make up new rules as soon as it is convenient, and will trust the media to help them erase their past records.

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    2. Avatar photo
      Stephanie

      Thank you for clarifying.

      I had read elsewhere that the motion to vacate is not anything like just snapping your fingers and making a trap door open under the Speaker. But it has to be demoralizing if it’s even brought to the floor. Or viewed as a threat to undermine.

      This would seem almost like a kind of spectator sport for those of us paying attention.

      But it’s a little stomach-turning to see Kevin McCarthy making Faustian bargains right and left to be Speaker.

      If he succeeds it means this spineless political hack totally bereft of integrity is second in line to the Presidency. I’ll be praying for Joe Biden and Kamala Harris’s safety and health for the next two years.

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    BrettH

    The House GOP is likely to self-immolate in a matter of days. This is going to be a sad affair to watch, but they deserve all the grief coming their way.

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    1. DTruitt

      Nope

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    Rlritt

    So the most important things to do for the Republicans are investigate Hunter Biden (who holds no position in government at all) Investigate the orgins of Covid two years after the shut down, and which we now have vaccines to prevent. And rehash the US departure from Afghanistan where we had been fighting for 20 years. Do they want to go back and invade Afghanistan?

    These are the most important issues for Republicans. Basically rehashing their constant grievances and not doing any work governing the country.

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      Lchrisberg

      What the poster seems to fail to understand is that these inquiries aren't about the actual events, it was about the exercise of authority by the Administration. What was behind the suppression of discussion of Hunter's laptop and the letter by all those morally bankrupt foreign policy experts that swore it was Russian disinformation. I think the American people need to make sure their credentials are canceled as they obviously have no scruples.
      Americans deserve to know just how strongly the military opposed the way the Afghan bailout was conducted. Accountability is the pillar of good government.
      Finally, the American people absolutely need an explanation why their civil liberties were so egregiously violated by shutdowns so that it never happens again.
      I understand why the progs don't want investigation into their behavior. Too bad.

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      Lchrisberg

      They don't govern the country. The progs hold the Senate and the Presidency. As the most vocally partisan President in history, what expectation should the GOP have that Biden will remain awake and coherent long enough to consider GOP legislation?
      Do you believe in unicorns as well?

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    3. Very Old Grumpy Guy

      These are, apparently, the best ideas my former party has.

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        Rlritt

        You're not alone. I've voted for my share of Republicans, but now even supporting a responsible member of the GOP might encourage the extremists.

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    Mattjabour

    I just love that moderate conservatives "threatening" to cross the aisle and pass bipartisan legislation is seen as some kind of horrendous betrayal, never mind electing someone who could speak for both sides.

    Did the two parties ever actually work together in Congress? Was there like, one year back in the 19th century where they agreed on something?

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      Rlritt

      Yes they did. But that was before Fox News started reporting that the Democrats were the spawn of Satan. The two parties used to just be plain ordinary opposition parties.

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      1. Very Old Grumpy Guy

        Fox News took its cues from Newt Gingrich. When your sole strategy for getting elected becomes painting your opposition as satanist, child eaters, it is hard to work with them to compromise.

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        PaulH

        LOL -- it is all Fox News' fault. You really believe that?

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          Stephanie

          Fox News has certainly created the Bizarro World of alternate facts their fans are continually spouting, and encouraged this very odd groupthink based on a questionable premise: that you can’t trust the “mainstream” media—only us.

          I see people parroting that even here.

          If any media outlet told me that my reaction would be to not trust THEM.

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          Rlritt

          No, they are just another example of winning at all costs. But they were encouraged to make the opposition look treasonous. Grant it there were Democrats who were also on their own crazy train, but the mainstream of the Party still tried to be business as usual.

          I remember six months ago Laura Ingram saying on air " We all now who the real terrorists are: the Democrats." I found that chilling. If she says Democrats are terrorists does thst mean they should be killed?

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            PaulH

            Well you have a highly selective memory. I can remember when the "resistance" insisted that Trump was not legitimately elected and there should be no "normalizing" his presidency (i.e. working with him). Pelosi and Schumer were all on board with that; and Biden claiming that Republican wanted to put blacks back in chains; and Bush being compared to a Nazi. All of that is mainstream Democratic party rhetoric (for the more extreme stuff you have to go to MSNBC). To claim that somehow it is just Fox News and the right that are the problem, just shows that you are a partisan who is part of the problem.

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    2. Hikingguy

      Yes. The parties would routinely co-operate on some things. Reagan and Tip O'Neill would get together and drink some whiskey and work things out. This is called "politics" and Reagan knew how to practice it. He got a lot done, even though the Dems held majorities in congress.

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      1. Jaybrown

        And Gingrich and Clinton made a pretty good stab at it, for a little while.

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  10. Raincheck

    “If you pass legislation out of here, and it can’t pass a Democrat-controlled Senate, then you’ve done nothing for our country,”

    This is the bottom line. Successful legislation requires bipartisanship.

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      Kahster

      For both parties, at this point the goal is not to pass legislation, it’s to raise money and get re-elected. Legislation is more of a means than a purpose. The incentives are incredibly broken.

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