Mike Johnson - Congressional Caesar
At The Races in the GOP Conference
Do you know the definition of insanity? Electing a new Speaker again and again and expecting them to deliver a true conservative spending package this time.
Ushered in by the fiscally Conservative successors of the Tea party in November, Speaker Johnson famously proclaimed that there would be no more Continuing Resolutions under his leadership. On Thursday the 18th January, Johnson passed a Continuing Resolution, relying on the entirety of the Democratic caucus to do so in order to prevent a Government shutdown on the 19th. What went so very wrong?
The answer is simple, and it’s why the Louisianan currently wields the Speaker’s gavel. The far right/House Freedom Caucus flank of his party simply have no wish to govern. They thrive off of the carnage and sensationalism they have wrought in the 118th Congress and have no desire to be brought under rein. Deposing McCarthy wasn’t enough, blocking Scalise wasn’t enough, looking in the mirror after Jim Jordan failed on the House Floor wasn’t enough, and finally getting one of their own, an extreme, deeply religious Southern conservative, still isn’t enough. These people don’t want a budget, they want disorder, but the Democratic minority has bailed the nation out every time. The Democrats, rightly, won’t act to save Johnson.
In the run-up to the passage of this CR, the House’s furthest right members began to flex their muscles, letting the Speaker know that the motion to vacate still very much requires just one member to call it. Rep. Crane (R-AZ) was the first to do so, and he seemingly has the tacit support of Texas’ Chip Roy (R-TX). Democrats will not bail the Speaker out, and if a motion to vacate is called it would require just three Republicans to vote in favour - or a handful to not be present - in order to pass. But how likely really is this?
Today’s article will discuss the ongoing calamity in Congress, Johnson’s involvement, and ponder a world post-Johnson should the GOP decide to turn their daggers on the new Caesar.
Deep Southern Inexperience
Johnson’s big mistake was expecting that the House Freedom Caucus would accept him with loving arms. He thought that, due to his ideological alignment with their cause, he could never face the same fate that West Coast elite Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) did. This was his first miscalculation.
The Freedom Caucus don’t care who occupies the Speaker’s chair. They care about culture war issues, crushing fiscal policies and calamity stopping at no end to ensure that they get their way. As you can imagine, now that Johnson has passed a CR which maintains the exact same funding levels that McCarthy was ousted over, his right flank isn’t best pleased. Even if Matt Gaetz (R-FL) who led the charge against McCarthy has aligned himself with Johnson, this isn’t enough to appease the rest of the far right, who were ready with pitchforks before the vote even happened. But how did we get to the point where a Democrat backed CR was necessary to fund the federal Government, and back to a mirror image of October and the exact same scene which spurred McCarthy’s downfall?
Truthfully, we may never know - but it’s fun to speculate. The way I see it, there are two possibilities. One, Johnson thought he had the moxie and negotiating skills to outflank Biden and the Senate to pass a strict, big C Conservative spending package. Or two, that Johnson knew he could never pass a budget to appease his entire conference and would rather dedicate himself to smaller issues that he has a chance of passing, expecting to take a spending stand-off in his stride. Whichever one it is, they were both badly miscalculated and could spell his demise. Further, reports of Johnson’s meetings with House members shine no light on what his thinking was as he told more centrist Reps that their wishes would be granted, while telling Freedom Caucus members that they could expect budget cuts, including limits on aid to Ukraine. Perhaps his mind is working on a level which we can’t comprehend for better or, most likely, for worse.
If it is the former, and Johnson thought he could outmanoeuvre Biden and the Democrat controlled Senate, then this exemplifies a level of naivety or overconfidence that I wouldn’t think possible. His credentials in the House and as a negotiator are shaky at best - having never held a leadership role before being propelled into the Speakership after no other Republican could seemingly get the votes. As such, perhaps he can’t be judged too harshly for thinking he could pull off such a move, but he was wrong to do so - especially considered that a number of Senate Republicans even voted to pass the CR. The same spirit of disorder, which fuels the House, doesn’t extend to the upper chamber, and it seems impossible to me that Johnson would ever be able to pass a spending bill in the House that would pass the Senate. It would rely on not only every single Republican but at least two Democrats/Independents to support a far right spending package - an impossibility which I struggle to believe that Johnson thought was possible.
Assuming that Johnson wasn’t inexperienced enough to believe that he could sneak a conservative spending bill through the Senate, the alternative is that he was well aware that none of his right flank’s priorities would ever make it to the spending package and has been lying to them since November. If this is the case, then Johnson made the decision to just pretend that everything was okay, speak sweet nothing’s to the Freedom Caucus and hope that they wouldn’t cannibalise him when their demands weren’t met. Given how he inherited the gavel, this would be a deeply naive tactic, but I have little alternative that I can see possible right now. Of note, Matt Gaetz’s conversion from chaos catalyst extraordinaire to Johnson’s far right foot soldier indicates that Gaetz at least knew that the right’s spending demands were unlikely to be met - information he was potentially privy to which other Freedom Caucus members weren’t. This would indicate that a CR was always Johnson’s plan, and that he wanted to keep his loosest cannon tight if/when he failed to deliver a conservative budget. Either way, this is what has happened now, and the question is whether or not Johnson is prepared for the fall-out and, in all honestly, I can’t say I have much faith that he is.
Revenge of the Freedom Caucus
With a continuation of McCarthy’s final budget in place, Johnson now has to weather a right wing storm without much more than an umbrella. The immediate aftermath of the CR is still unfolding, but quotes from Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) last weekend that, “if he [Johnson] made that deal in exchange for $60 billion for Ukraine, I would vacate the chair, and I still stand by those words.” While this bill doesn’t do that, it paves the way for the DoD to do so and hasn’t rendered Ukraine aid contingent on something like border spending - which a number of House Republicans had been pushing for. Both of those are contingent on a bipartisan Border-Ukraine bill, which has made its way through the Senate, but Johnson has indicated will die in the House.
Aside from MTG, other far right acolytes such as Arizona’s Eli Crane have floated the idea of vacating the chair a number of times. Crane is openly questioning Johnson’s capacity to lead the House majority and that he believes Johnson will cave to Democrats on issues of the border. While proof of very little, a tweet of Crane’s remarks regarding vacating the chair was liked by fellow conservative Chip Roy and in a House where Republicans currently hold 217 seats to Democrats’ 213, only three defectors are needed to bring Johnson down before his first hundred days are up. The calculus is fairly simple. Just one Republican would need to join Crane and Roy for Johnson to be out of the Speaker’s chair - it would shock me if they couldn’t find one.
As a result, Johnson is left putting out fires on top of fires to try and maintain his empire of dirt as the Speaker of what many have suggested is a, “lame duck Congress,” due to its passage of the least number of bills in the modern era. His most imminent threat is from the right, and the cure for that is up for debate. There are only so many bones he can throw them that are likely a) to pass the House and b) to pass the Senate, so anything Crane, Roy and other potential defectors can get out of Johnson will almost certainly be for show. The most likely concession they will be searching for is increased border funding or a rightward change to immigration policy that would likely fall flat in the Senate or on Biden’s desk.
The federal Government is currently working on a bipartisan border bill, which has found great success in the Senate but next-to-no love in the House. Johnson, on a call with the GOP conference, has even allegedly ruled out the Senate bill before all its details have been fleshed out. A meeting between Biden and the leaders in both chambers of Congress was also broadly unsuccessful, with Johnson being the largest problem in the room. For House Republicans, their main contention is that the bill would increase funding for Ukraine along with the border. This is a stipulation which Johnson accepts, but those like the aforementioned MTG are steadfastly in opposition to. He cannot afford to upset those of her ilk, but cannot afford inaction on the border, as conservatives in border states become more and more restless by the day. Johnson’s retort is to say that it’s okay because the border cannot be dealt with until a Republican is in the White House, but this is hardly a tangible solution that obstinate border state Republicans can use in their re-election campaigns. Put simply, the line that Johnson is walking is becoming thinner and thinner as time goes on, and it’s unclear that a solution exists which won’t result in his ouster.
So Long, Sweet Prince
With the above considered, I feel there are too many leaks in the Louisian’s boat to be plugged, and it would be a shock to me if he either avoided a leadership challenged or survived one given the size of the House Republican majority. So what does the world look like post-Johnson, and who is already starting to pitch themselves as his successor?
From outside Congress, the three immediate challengers that come to mind are Majority Leader Rep. Scalise, GOP Conference Chair Rep. Stefanik (R-NY) and Rep. Jordan (R-OH). Scalise and Jordan have already taken a stab at the speakership, with the former being brought down by the Freedom Caucus and the latter succumbing to more moderate/institutional members of the GOP conference. Nonetheless, both of their names will always be floated as contenders given the grip they hold within the party. Scalise is the most interesting of these two men, having just reported a fundraising haul of $27 million at a time when the NRCC is scrambling for cash to fill the void left by champion fundraiser Kevin McCarthy. Johnson’s fundraising credentials have left much to be desired, and in the run up to November’s elections Scalise may well be able to pitch himself as the man who can steady the funding ship and guide the GOP majority into the election before potentially fading out of the limelight. Jordan, on the other hand, is a modest fundraiser but a pariah of the far right, being held up by the Freedom Caucus at every turn. If Jordan wills it, he can sink any other candidate for Speaker, so his ambitions will need to be seriously considered by any other contenders should Johnson be deposed.
The third contender mentioned is Elise Stefanik of New York, a rising star and the only woman in House leadership, she has a real shot at the Speakership should she take aim at it. She is fortunate to have the policy positions which are sufficient enough for her party’s rightmost flank and the institutional support that comes from being involved with leadership. Perhaps more importantly though, she is in Donald Trump’s good books and is one of his favourite voices on Capitol Hill, so much so that she is allegedly in consideration for Trump’s VP slot. Should Trump offer, I imagine the native New Yorker will accept which would obviously take her out of the running for the speakership, which is why I’m considering her separately to her other potential competitors. However, should Trump choose someone else for his Veep slot, such as Govs. Kristi Noem (R-SD), Sarah Huckabee-Sanders (R-AR) or failed Gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake (R-AZ) then Stefanik would massively rise in my rankings as a potential successor to Johnson.
That said, we’ve been here before and Louisiana’s golden boy wasn’t on my radar during the last Speaker race, and there’s a very real chance that either Johnson clings on to the gavel or a contender I haven’t yet considered takes the gavel. This is just a moment in time where the aforementioned candidates appear as the frontrunners as of now.
Wrapping Up
With all said and done, I feel fairly confident in concluding that Speaker Johnson has too many fires to put out and not nearly enough water currently. He is an impossible bind with balancing Ukraine aid, not driving the bus which is the US Government off a cliff and the border crisis. With one flank of his party threatening to depose him over the border, a similar but not the same flank threatening his ouster if he continues funding Ukraine and having just made the same fool’s gambit which stung McCarthy, I think I’d rather be anyone bar him right about now. Of course, Johnson may be more of a cockroach than expected and find a way to outlast these impending crises, but his experience is questionable, his allies few and his enemies incredibly sly.
Et tu Freedom Caucus.
What a mess they’ve all made and not one wants to clean it up but only make it worse. We’ve got to vote these boogers out!
Miss you Pete