Dem Leader Calls House GOP ‘Marauding Bands Of People Who Hate Each Other’
The shambolic nature of the House of Representatives in the just-ended 118th Congress has Democrats pinning at least some of their hopes for stopping Republicans in the new Congress on disunity within the House GOP.
Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) put it plainly in his weekly press conference at the U.S. Capitol Wednesday in responding to Speaker Mike Johnson’s (R-La.) taunt Tuesday that Democrats were struggling with their identity after the 2024 election losses.
“Why are you talking about an identity crisis?” Jeffries said when asked about Johnson’s comment.
“The Republican conference is filled with marauding bands of individuals who can’t stand each other. And Democrats, as far as I can tell, are unified in our determination to make life better for the American people.”
Jeffries didn’t specify why he described Republicans that way, but there were many examples in the last Congress.
The most famous was probably Rep. Chip Roy’s (R-Texas) imploring on the House floor for his Republican colleagues to tell him “one thing” he and his fellow party members had done for America.
On significant bills to keep the government open temporarily or provide more military aid to Ukraine, the House GOP conference split sharply and Johnson had to turn to Democrats for help.
Overall, the 118th Congress saw 224 laws passed, the lowest number since at least the 82nd Congress, which met in 1951 and 1952. While that productivity low cannot be blamed entirely on the House, as Democrats controlled the Senate and the White House, it gives some idea of the holding pattern nature of the 118th, as many issues were kicked down the road to see who would win in November.
House Republicans hold a historically narrow 219-215 edge in the House now, even smaller than the one in the previous Congress. Jeffries mocked how well that will work for the House GOP ahead.
“It’s going to be interesting to see how Republicans, with their overwhelming majority in the House and the Senate and the overwhelming electoral mandate that they have, can get things done to lower costs for the American people,” he said.
“That’s the situation in front of us. I look forward to the proposals that are put forth by my extreme [Make American Great Again] Republican colleagues to actually keep their word.”
