By Jonathan Bernstein
Bloomberg Opinion
Before asking whether new House Speaker Mike Johnson is up to the task ahead of him, it’s worth detailing just how challenging that task is.
Congress must pass spending bills for the remainder of the current fiscal year; beginning with another temporary extension likely needed in just three weeks. It must approve the annual military authorization bill and the farm bill, which covers food assistance programs. It must debate extra spending for Israel and other global crises. And this is all happening in a House that was already behind schedule even before Republicans threw away three weeks arguing over the speakership, and whose Republican majority opposes the positions that the majority of the Senate supports.
A lot of the early reporting has stressed Johnson’s extremely conservative policy preferences, as well as his role in supporting Donald Trump’s effort to overturn the 2020 election. What matters much more, however, is whether he has the skill set needed for the job he just won. Scratch that: It’s pretty clear, as a former adviser to former GOP speakers John Boehner and Paul Ryan points out, that Johnson doesn’t have the skills yet. So the question is whether he can develop them in what is likely to be a challenging if not hostile environment.
Johnson needs to keep 221 Republicans, each with individual demands, happy. He needs to convince them to work together as a unified party even when they disagree. He needs to steer bills through the House floor, and then he’ll need to cut deals with the Senate and the White House. Then, when those deals are finalized, he’ll need scores of House Republicans to vote for bills many of them would rather oppose; and he’ll need those who are going to oppose them to limit themselves to complaining (however loudly) about it rather than attempting to take down the party in revenge. Or take down the speaker in revenge. Or, as has happened over the last two months, both.
It’s possible that Majority Leader Steve Scalise can be help Johnson and the party as the new speaker learns how to do the job. But Scalise and Majority Whip Tom Emmer were both humiliated as speaker nominees, not even getting a floor vote. It’s unclear that they’ll be able to wield much influence going forward. Are they — as well as former Speaker Kevin McCarthy and the other almost-speaker, Jim Jordan — going to be looking to avenge their humiliations? Do they each think he will be the true power behind the gavel? It’s rare for even one rejected party leader to remain in Congress. Now there are four.
As a third-term member who has been on the fringe of leadership and whose pre-congressional career was in advocacy, Johnson has practically no experience in this sort of thing. His resume suggests he’s more of an ideologue than a pragmatist. But his ability to win broad support in his party suggests that he must be able to portray himself as more than purely an advocate for a set of ideas.
If he’s lucky, Johnson will get a bit of a honeymoon from a Republican conference that is probably a little shell-shocked. But if the radicals who helped bring down McCarthy are perceived as having won this round and act triumphant rather than conciliatory, things could quickly spiral out of control.
For an example of how things could go wrong, consider that Johnson has said that he would support another short-term extension of lapsed spending bills while House Republicans (finally) pass their own versions of full-year bills. Several radicals have argued that any such bills are a violation of conservative principles. Will they claim that Johnson is selling them out, just as McCarthy did? Then, when full-year bills are ready, will the party unite and vote for the rules that govern consideration of each bill; even if individual members aren’t happy with the bill as a whole? If not, there’s essentially no working majority, and Republicans are back to where they were in September.
McCarthy, it must be said, wasn’t very good at the job. At the same time, Republican dysfunction within the party goes back decades, and confounded even skilled party leaders. Nor does it help that Trump is likely to continue to toss grenades that would disrupt even a healthy party. Realistically, muddling through is probably the best Johnson can hope for, even if he proves to be unusually good at the job. If not? House Republicans have already challenged experts’ imaginations about how bad things can get. So I won’t even try to imagine it.
Jonathan Bernstein is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering politics. He is a former professor of political science at the University of Texas at San Antonio.
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