Republicans will turn their focus to the U.S.-Mexico border with a House Oversight and Accountability Committee hearing featuring four Border Patrol agents next month.
Committee Chairman James Comer (R-Ky.) announced the hearing on Thursday, to take place sometime during the week of Feb. 6. Border Patrol agents Jason Owens, Gregory Bovino, Gloria Chavez and Patricia McGurk-Daniel were invited to testify.
“The Biden Administration’s deliberate actions are fueling human smuggling, stimulating drug cartel operations, enabling deadly drugs such as fentanyl to flow into American communities, and encouraging illegal immigrants to flout U.S. immigration laws,” Comer charged in a statement. “Republicans will hold the Biden Administration accountable for this ongoing humanitarian, national security, and public health crisis that has turned every town into a border town.”
Comer separately sent a letter to Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas on Tuesday requesting documents and communications detailing accounting of illegal border crossings, border security plans, changes in certain migration policies, interior enforcement actions and several other matters.
The hearing is the second that the high-profile panel has scheduled. A hearing on waste, fraud and abuse in COVID-19 relief programs is set for Feb. 1.
A focus on the border, which Comer has long said will be a top priority for his committee, comes as several House Republicans are renewing their calls to impeach Mayorkas over his handling of the border. Any impeachment actions would be pursued by the House Judiciary Committee rather than the Oversight panel.
Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) has called on Mayorkas to resign, but has stopped short of supporting impeachment.
“We can investigate, and then that investigation could lead to an impeachment inquiry. I don't predetermine because I'll never use impeachment for political purposes,” McCarthy told reporters on Monday.
A bipartisan group of senators attempting to craft an immigration compromise have an arduous task ahead of them: finding a deal that can attract the support of Democrats, moderate Republicans and the hard-line conservatives who have newfound power and influence in the House.
Ten senators last week visited multiple spots along the border for an up-close look at the issues consuming the immigration system. President Biden also traveled to El Paso, Texas, the epicenter of what members on both sides of the aisle describe as a crisis.
Despite that agreement, lawmakers must navigate the tricky contours of the politics of immigration — an issue that’s famously difficult to get agreement on while also serving as a key talking point in recent presidential elections.
That’s not deterring talks among those in the Senate, however.
"This is going to take months to potentially get to something that we could get the support in the House. We can't simply, because it’s politically difficult, say we can't touch it this Congress," Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.), one of those that made the border trip, told The Hill.
Tillis and Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (I-Ariz.), who was also among those at the border last week, made a last-minute attempt last year to win support for a narrow proposal that would have allocated tens of billions of dollars to border security and processing asylum requests while also handing "Dreamers" — those brought to the U.S. as children without authorization — a long-awaited path to citizenship.
But that push — which consisted of a framework and not a bill — was too little, too late.
Tillis and Sinema’s attempt at bipartisan compromise may have been the last chance for the foreseeable future for Congress to take action, despite both parties in Congress and the White House acknowledging the problem.
Any deal that could emerge from the Senate — meaning with the support of at least nine Senate Republicans — would likely earn resistance from far-right members of the GOP-controlled House.
“It's harder because the politics have gotten even harder for Republicans to get to ‘yes,’” said Alex Conant, who served as press secretary for Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) during the “Gang of Eight” immigration fight in 2013. “You look at the political fallout for those involved in the 2013 deal, and how a lot of Republicans have been able to use immigration to win nominations since then, it's an issue that Republicans are very wary of getting on the wrong side of.”
Since the 2013 comprehensive immigration reform package failed, the politics of the topic has only hardened on the right and the voices have gotten louder. Adding to the troubles is that members are heading into a presidential election cycle and are hesitant to deliver any wins for Biden, especially on a topic that matters this much to the base.
Many House Republicans made immigration a central issue and some are already talking about impeaching Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas. Rep. Pat Fallon (R-Texas) filed articles of impeachment against the secretary last week.
And on Wednesday, Rep. Andy Biggs (R-Ariz.) and Sen. J.D. Vance (R-Ohio) sent a letter pressing Mayorkas for answers about border issues, writing that “administration cannot continue its erosion of the southern border and its mass-parole of migrants into our country.”
“It’s been a steep hill — steep and tall — for 40 years. That’s why nothing’s gotten done. So this is just a different dynamic,” said Tillis, who blamed the “talking heads” in part for scuttling his efforts with Sinema last year. “I don’t think it’s fair to blame this Congress. This Congress could be the first one since leisure suits were popular to do something on immigration.”
Tillis, who has become a key player in bipartisan negotiations on myriad topics in the past two years, said he is expected to discuss a path to passage of immigration reform with Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) and House Freedom Caucus members.
Some political observers believe the impetus for a deal could be simple: The situation at the border now is worse than it was a decade ago as monthly encounters with migrants are near record highs.
One Senate GOP aide added that the road to a bipartisan, bicameral deal is “difficult but not impossible.”
“Details will really matter, though,” the aide said. “At the very least, it’s good to finally see a substantive bipartisan acknowledgement that there’s actually a problem at the border.”
Legislation that passes muster with both chambers, however, would need to overcome another complicating factor in the House: McCarthy, as part of the deals he struck to become Speaker, empowered a far-right contingent of his party and handed them an easier procedural avenue to oust him, just as they did former Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) in 2015 — two years after Boehner refused to bring the “Gang of Eight” bill to the floor for a vote.
“I don't think it's this,” one conservative Senate aide told The Hill about McCarthy’s lack of willingness to complicate his standing as Speaker over a Senate-negotiated immigration bill.
“What [former President Trump] showed was you can run on a pretty hard-line immigration stance and win on it,” the aide continued. “I don't think they get there without something Democrats can't stomach.”
For now, all eyes are on the Senate to see how it proceeds, though it all comes down to what McCarthy and House conservatives could accept.
“Now we have a gavel,” Tillis said. “And when you have a gavel, you have to govern.”
Tensions are rising in the GOP House over how to tackle a topic many back enthusiastically: impeaching Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas.
Republicans are largely unified in opposition to the secretary, but while some want to go full bore right away, others see fast-track impeachment as a mistake, warning that it's important to build their case before the public.
“We made the argument that impeachment was rushed — the second impeachment — and I think that's not who we are as a party,” said Rep. Michael McCaul (R-Texas), a former prosecutor, in reference to the second impeachment of former President Trump.
McCaul said it's the committees of jurisdiction that should be leading the inquiry.
“We need to have hearings on this and we need to gather evidence and facts and, look, do I think the guy has done a terrible job? Yes,“ McCaul said. “Do I think he's been derelict in his responsibilities? Yes. But we need to get all this together, and do it in a methodical way.”
In some corners, Republicans are lining up at the chance to impeach Mayorkas.
After Rep. Pat Fallon (R-Texas) filed articles of impeachment against the secretary this week, Rep. Andy Biggs (R-Ariz.) quickly pledged his own resolution while suggesting he was the one who had actually taken the impeachment action first.
“I was the first Member of Congress to introduce impeachment articles against DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas in 2021,” Biggs wrote on Twitter. “I will reintroduce these articles with even more justification very soon.”
Balancing the different interests will be another challenge for Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.), who has signaled he supports a deliberate approach.
“House Republicans will investigate every order, every action. And every failure will determine whether we can begin impeachment inquiry,” he said in November, during a trip to the border.
Twenty lawmakers have signed on to Fallon’s resolution. While he said he doesn't want to preclude any investigation, Fallon wants to prompt his colleagues to start them immediately.
“I think it's of vital import to get the ball rolling immediately. Because this is an emergency. This is break glass. This is something that we can't just sit around any longer and say, ‘Well, we'll do it in a month, we'll take it up in four months.’ Let's take it up right now,” he told The Hill.
Building a case for Mayorkas’s impeachment may not be as easy as some of his critics think.
For example, Fallon argues that Mayorkas lied to Congress in two different appearances, when saying both that the Biden administration has maintained operational control of the border and that the border is secure.
Both points are largely a matter of opinion; impeachment statutes are typically reserved for “high crimes and misdemeanors.”
“Impeachment is a very serious topic, and it's one where the facts need to lead you to the results, not have a predetermined decision,” said Rep. Tony Gonzales (R), who represents the Texas district with the longest shared border with Mexico.
Homeland Security officials, so far, have not assigned staff to deal with potential impeachment inquiries.
“Secretary Mayorkas is proud to advance the noble mission of this Department, support its extraordinary workforce, and serve the American people. The Department will continue our work to enforce our laws and secure our border, while building a safe, orderly, and humane immigration system," said Marsha Espinosa, a spokesperson for DHS.
“Members of Congress can do better than point the finger at someone else; they should come to the table and work on solutions for our broken system and outdated laws, which they have not updated in over 40 years,” she added.
Ultimately, Republicans who support impeachment and those who oppose it will have to make their case to McCarthy and his leadership team, who will weigh the costs and benefits of spending political capital on a historic measure with scant chances in the Senate.
Impeaching Mayorkas in the House would require a majority vote. In the Senate, a two-thirds majority would be necessary to win a conviction — a high bar.
Only one Cabinet member has been impeached in history — former President Grant’s secretary of war, William Belknap, who was accused of taking kickbacks from a contractor he appointed to run the trader post in Fort Sill, Okla. Belknap resigned before facing an almost-certain Senate conviction, a fate that's unlikely to play out with Mayorkas.
Other Republicans who spoke with The Hill stressed the need to go through the proper oversight channels, rather than leap into impeachment.
House Homeland Security Committee Chairman Mark Green (R-Tenn.), whose panel would be among those with jurisdiction over Mayorkas’s impeachment, was animated when he spoke about the opportunity to remove the DHS chief, pushing their own coming investigation.
“We're going to hold him accountable. That's what we're going to do. We're going to have hearings and dig into what I would say is dereliction of duty,” he said.
“All I can speak about is what we're going to do in the committee and that is a five-phased approach of tackling the fight.”
Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas) said the GOP needed to handle the matter in “the appropriate way.”
“I've been very public about my belief that he has violated his oath, that he has undermined our ability to defend our country,” he said.
“But I'm on the House Judiciary Committee in the majority now and so I'm going to talk to [Chair] Jim [Jordan] (R-Ohio) and talk to people on that committee to make sure that we're going through this and looking at it in the appropriate way.”
Rep. Dan Crenshaw (R-Texas), who was initially by McCarthy’s side for the November border trip as he stressed an eventual inquiry, has signed onto Fallon’s resolution as a co-sponsor, saying he believes Cabinet secretaries can be impeached over their policies.
“People argue about this legally, you can impeach a president because you just don't like his policies. In theory that could be considered a high crime or misdemeanor according to the current legal analysis,” he said.
“I just decided I agree with Fallon. That's basically as simple as I can put it.”
Part of Kevin McCarthy’s corrupt bargaining in his 15-round bid for the House speakership included supporting ultra-right demands for impeachment proceedings against Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas. While McCarthy allegedly held no public stance on proceedings earlier in the year, he was leading the threat himself right after the election because he didn’t have the votes to win the gavel.
Part of his corrupt bargaining showed its face this week when a Texas lawmaker on the first day of the new Congress filed articles of impeachment against the secretary. The silly political document claims Mayorkas should be removed “for high crimes and misdemeanors,” and cites in part fentanyl seizures at the southern borderas justification. Wait, they want him out for stopping the drugs from coming in? Republicans have been very weirdly mad about successful seizures. Now they want to impeach the guy over it.
But there’s more, folks. Pat Fallon, a forced birth and anti-LGBTQ Republican from Texas’ 4th Congressional District, also cites the Biden administration’s decision to terminate the previous administration’s Remain in Mexico policy. Despite the right-wing Supreme Court of the United States ruling that the administration acted perfectly lawfully in terminating the anti-asylum policy, Fallon thinks Mayorkas should be impeached for it.
Fallon further cites the Biden administration’s attempt to terminate the previous administration’s Title 42 order, calling it “a critical tool enabling the U.S. Customs and Border Protection to quickly expel illegal aliens.” But remember the public health order’s now-delayed Dec. 21 lift date followed a court ruling that found the scientifically debunked policy violated federal law. So is the GOP stance to now violate court orders?
When asked about impeachment articles, Mayorkas was reportedly “not fazed,” one report said. Even if it is successful, it’ll go nowhere in the U.S. Senate.
“I've got a lot of work to do, and we’re going to do it,” Mayorkas told ABC News. The official said the administration is “dealing within a broken immigration system that Congress has failed to repair for decades.” Fact check: True. Not only did Republicans like Texas Sen. John Cornyn help derail a bipartisan immigration framework at the end of the last Congress, McCarthy has promised no humane immigration legislation will get his signature.
“Number two, the world is dealing with the greatest displacement of people since World War II in the Western Hemisphere,” Mayorkas continued to ABC News. “Our entire hemisphere is gripped with a migration challenge.” New parole opportunities for migrants from regions including Venezuela and Haiti are a step forward in beginning to address these challenges; policies like Title 42 are not, considering it’s only increased apprehensions and forced vulnerable people back to danger.
If you want to see the depths of the GOP’s lack of seriousness, take a look at another Texas Republican: Rep. Chip Roy claimed the administration isn’t doing enough to secure the border, so he’s got a plan of his own: Defund DHS. During a floor speech, Roy urged his colleagues “to stop funding a Department of Homeland Security that refuses to secure the border of the United States.” He promised that the newly empowered Republicans would do that “this year.” You mean defund abusive immigration enforcement agencies? Defund child kidnappers, shooters of unarmed migrants, and the agents who abuse Black migrants before deporting them? Let’s fucking go.
Back to the impeachment resolution, one more thing to mention regarding fentanyl seizures is that Republicans have sought to turn this into a political issue against Democrats when its Republicanswho voted against hundreds of millions of dollars in funding for the construction and modernization of land ports of entry.
“Improvements like ‘multi-energy portal’ screening technology would increase the ability for illicit narcotics seizures at the nation’s borders without significantly impacting the massive amount of legal trade that runs through those same POEs,” immigration reform advocacy group America’s Voice said last year. But Republicans voted against that.
NBC News reported that the articles against Mayorkas “have been referred to the Judiciary Committee, chaired by Jim Jordan, R-Ohio.” Jordan, a former wrestling coach who allegedly looked the other way when young students were being sexually abused at Ohio State University, has previously supported an impeachment effort, falsely claiming “we no longer have a border.” Do Republicans believe their own bullshit? It doesn’t really matter as long as they can get others to believe it.
Chief Justice John Roberts on Monday temporarily halted the Biden administration’s planned lifting of the anti-asylum Title 42 order, granting a so-called emergency appeal from a slate of Republican attorneys general. “So-called emergency appeal,” because the appeals court panel that had last week denied the GOP request noted that the group of 19 attorneys general had waited too long to file their request.
The Biden administration had planned to lift the debunked public health order that’s used the pandemic as an excuse to quickly deport asylum-seekers in violation of their rights Tuesday evening, following a lower court order. Roberts instructed the administration to respond by this evening, indicating more action could be imminent. Legal expert Mark Joseph Stern noted that Roberts’ administrative stay “does not hint at the eventual outcome.”
Republicans have simultaneously claimed that the Biden administration has an “open borders” policy while insisting that the Title 42 policy—which was implemented against the advice of public health experts by noted white supremacist Stephen Miller and Mike Pence at the beginning of the pandemic in March 2020—must stay in place indefinitely. They have also insisted this public health order remain as they’ve consistently challenged other pandemic-related orders by the administration.
“The Biden administration, for its part, has insisted it is prepared to lift Title 42, saying the restoration of regular immigration procedures, such expedited deportations, will allow the U.S. to gradually reduce migrant arrivals and the high rate of repeat crossings recorded during the pandemic,” CBS News reported.
That last part is crucial: Title 42 in fact led to an increase in apprehensions, because desperate people blocked from their asylum rights and expelled have had no choice but to try again. It’s a failed policy, and its lifting would put our country back on the side of respecting U.S. and international asylum law. In a statement, Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said that as required by Roberts’ order, “the Title 42 public health order will remain in effect at this time and individuals who attempt to enter the United States unlawfully will continue to be expelled to Mexico.”
“While this stage of the litigation proceeds, we will continue our preparations to manage the border in a safe, orderly, and humane way when the Title 42 public health order lifts,” Mayorkas continued. “We urge Congress to use this time to provide the funds we have requested for border security and management and advance the comprehensive immigration measures President Biden proposed on his first day in office.”
House Republicans set to take power in the next Congress have indicated they’re serious about leading on immigration policy … by pushing a harebrained idea to impeach Mayorkas. Over what crimes? They haven’t figured that part out yet.
Vice President Kamala Harris similarly noted the need for lawmakers to lead on comprehensive immigration measures, and she called out for Republicans for failing to come to the table. They obsess on the issue of immigration only when it’s election season (my words, not hers). For example, a proposed framework that would have passed permanent relief for young immigrants in exchange for harsh border measures recently failed, derailed by Republicans’ “border first” excuses even though there was border stuff in there.
"I think that there is so much that needs to happen to address the issue," the vice president told NPR. "And sadly, what we have seen in particular, I am sad to say, from Republicans in Congress is an unwillingness to engage in any meaningful reform that could actually fix a lot of what we are witnessing.”
The immigration framework proposed by two bipartisan lawmakers that would have passed permanent relief for young undocumented immigrants in exchange for harsh border measures has reportedly failed.
Thom Tillis and Kyrsten Sinema “did not strike a deal that would have been able to secure the necessary 60 votes in the evenly divided Senate during the lame-duck session,” congressional officials told CBS News. John Cornyn “and other members of GOP leadership said there was scant Republican support for the plan,” CNN’s Priscilla Alvarez tweeted Wednesday.
The termination of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program through right-wing courts is not a matter of if, its a matter of when, and passage of a deal during the lame duck represented the last chance to pass some sort of relief before an anti-immigrant Texas judge issues his decision. Kevin McCarthy has already promised he’ll pass no humane relief, as part of his campaigning to become speaker. That includes a corrupt bargain targeting Department of Homeland Security Sec. Alejandro Mayorkas for impeachment.
The immigration proposal came as young immigrants (as well as the farmworkers who feed America) rallied for legislative action before the current congressional term ends in January, and was a sweet-and-sour deal attempting to garner the 10 Republicans needed to overcome the Jim Crow filibuster.
The sweet: Relief for DACA recipients, who for five years have been watching the program be attacked by Republicans, both at the federal government level and in the courts. The sour: Harsh border enforcement measures, including an extension of Stephen Miller’s anti-asylum Title 42 policy for at least another year. CNN had also reported increased border security funding, anywhere from $25 billion to $40 billion, on top of the billions that border agencies already get. But apparently, none of that was enough to convince 10 members of the GOP caucus, according to Cornyn.
Cornyn, since we’re already discussing him, once made a laughable claim in a campaign ad that he’s supported legalization for undocumented immigrant youth, and that he’s actually been fighting for them behind the scenes. But given a real, high-stakes chance to do something about, like right now during the lame duck session and as an end to the DACA program is inevitable, he's done nothing but throw cold water on the proposal.
It’s not hard to boil all this down to Republicans just not wanting to do anything about DACA recipients—even when presented with the kind of border measures they love—because they want to keep using immigrants as a political tool.
”The bill was far from ideal, but probably the best shot at heading off the crisis coming when the Supreme Court pulls the plug on DACA next June,” tweeted immigration attorney Greg Siskind. Tyler Moran, a former official with both the Obama and Biden administrations, wrote in a tweet that all Republicans “do is complain about the border—but when presented with an opportunity to provide a ton of resources for asylum, fentanyl detection & Border Patrol in exchange for DREAM, they balk. They want to perpetuate chaos, yet they are never held accountable.”
So is it over for this lame-duck session when it comes to immigration policy? There’s been a push to aid our Afghan allies evacuated to the U.S. by passing the Afghan Adjustment Act through the omnibus package. That’s something that needs to happen, because it’s owed to them. Some advocates are pushing for immigration relief via a registry update, and also through the omnibus. The hopeful part of me says it’s not over until it’s over. But the remaining options, and time, are dwindling.
“What else do we need to do,” tweeted DACA recipient Erika Andiola, a constituent of Sinema’s and a proponent of the passage of permanent relief during the lame-duck session. “How else can we get this country to accept us. To give us a chance to fully belong. Almost 15 years sacrificing so much. Fighting so hard. I’m tired. So tired.”
Republican Kevin McCarthy and others in his caucus have carried out campaign stunt after campaign stunt at the southern border, at times happeningwhen the wannabe speaker is desperately attempting to distract from certain scandals that also pertain to him. What a coincidence.
But now Republicans have won slim control of the U.S. House, and they’re apparently realizing that, shit, the usual theatrics they used when in the minority might have to be replaced with some actual work. I mean, what else explains why none of them want to chair the committee tasked with border-related issues?
“The House GOP is still searching for a senior lawmaker willing to head the politically combustible panel that oversees funding for the Department of Homeland Security and other agencies for the next Congress, according to multiple people familiar with the discussions,” Politico reports this week. Typically, you’d think that the top minority member of a committee would be absolutely chomping at the bit following a change in power, but the outlet said that the committee’s senior Republican, Tennessee’s Chuck Fleischmann, has his eyes set elsewhere.
“And Rep. John Carter (R-Texas), who previously led the committee, said: ‘I don’t know who wants it,’” the report continued.
Shitting on the opposing party’s administration policies, particularly on issues as complex and nuanced as immigration, is easy enough when you’re in the minority. You get to complain and point fingers and do it all on some right-wing program or to racist propaganda outlets. But when you control the committees, it’s a lot harder to try to blame the other party for issues that you railed on as a campaign strategy, because that’s all immigration is to Republicans. A fucking campaign strategy.
“Here the clearest sign on how little Republicans care about the border—other than using it as a political issue to divide America: The House GOP can’t find anyone to chair the committee that writes the budget for the border,” tweeted Sen. Chris Murphy, who chairs the upper chamber’s version of the committee. Somebody is going to have to head the committee in the end. Politico reports that the next Republican in line, Steven Palazzo, is also out of the running because he won’t be in Congress anymore after losing his primary. After him are Florida’s John Rutherford, who defended the previous administration’s kidnapping at the border, and Iowa’s Ashley Hinson, who once touted federal funding she had earlier labeled as “socialist.”
House Republicans are eager to begin working for the American people in January (did youset your sarcasm meter to 10 already?), focusing on priorities like Hunter Biden’s laptop, dragging Twitter employees in for questioning about the president’s son, and likely seeking an impeachment inquiry against the president himself. Over what, they haven’t exactly figured out yet. The lack of interest in this top committee continues to show they have absolutely no interest in governing. What a waste these next two years are going to be.
Well, that was an awesome way to finish out the 2022 election cycle! Co-hosts David Nir and David Beard revel in Raphael Warnock's runoff victory on this week's episode of The Downballot and take a deep dive into how it all came together. The Davids dig into the turnout shift between the first and second rounds of voting, what the demographic trends in the metro Atlanta area mean for Republicans, and why Democrats can trace their recent success in Georgia back to a race they lost: the famous Jon Ossoff special election in 2017.
We're also joined by one of our very favorite people, Daily Kos Elections alum Matt Booker, who shares his thoughts on the midterms and tells us about his work these days as a pollster. Matt explains some of the key ways in which private polling differs from public data; how the client surveys he was privy to did not foretell a red wave; and the mechanics of how researchers put together focus groups. Matt also reminisces about his time at "DKE University" and how his experience with us prepared him for the broader world of politics.
House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) is toeing a delicate line on national security issues in the lame-duck session as he seeks to win enough votes on the House floor to win the Speakership in January.
McCarthy is torn between competing factions of the GOP as he weighs a series of moves targeting the Biden administration and other Washington Democrats in the next Congress — all while trying to convince conservative GOP lawmakers to back him for Speaker.
He’s vowed to boot California Democratic Reps. Adam Schiff and Eric Swalwell off the House Intelligence Committee and Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) from the House Foreign Affairs Committee. He’s also threatened to impeach Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas for his handling of the southern border.
And McCarthy has indicated he will withhold GOP support for a lame-duck vote on a bipartisan defense policy bill as a way to fight “wokeism” in the military.
If the delay is successful, it would mark the first time in more than 60 years that has Congress failed to reauthorize Pentagon spending by the end of a calendar year; the delay would allow a GOP House to take it up next year.
Democrats have blasted McCarthy’s plans to boot Democrats from panels as purely political, while Republicans say Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) set Congress on that slippery slope when House Democrats impeached former President Trump twice and later expelled two Republicans from their committee seats.
The House voted last year to punish Rep. Paul Gosar (R-Ariz.) for sharing an animated video showing him killing Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.). Rep. Marjorie Taylor Green (R-Ga.) was removed months earlier for promoting the execution of leading Democrats before she was elected to office.
McCarthy blamed Democrats for “this new standard.”
“Never in the history [of Congress] have you had the majority tell the minority who can be on committee,” McCarthy said at the start of 2022. “This is a new level of what the Democrats have done.”
For Schiff, McCarthy has zeroed in on his role in the investigation into Trump’s ties to Russia, accusing him of lying to the public about the former president’s ties to Moscow and Hunter Biden’s work in Ukraine. He’s bashed Swalwell for his ties to a Chinese spy with whom he cut off contact after being warned of her true identity by the FBI.
Schiff said his targeting is nothing more than an effort by McCarthy to win support for his Speakership bid.
McCarthy was elected Speaker-designate in a closed-door GOP conference vote, but lost 31 votes. He will need to win over many of them to be elected Speaker on the House floor.
“McCarthy’s problem is not with what I have said about Russia. McCarthy’s problem is, he can’t get to 218 without Marjorie Taylor Greene and Paul Gosar and Matt Gaetz,” Schiff said Sunday during an appearance on CNN’s “State of the Union."
“And so he will do whatever they ask. And, right now, they’re asking for me to be removed from our committees. And he’s willing to do it. He’s willing to do anything they ask.”
The Mayorkas fight reflects the awkward line that McCarthy is trying to walk.
He courted conservative votes last week by vowing an investigation of Mayorkas but did not fully embrace an impeachment vote, allowing himself wiggle room to change his mind next year.
“If Secretary Mayorkas does not resign, House Republicans will investigate. Every order, every action and every failure will determine whether we can begin impeachment inquiry,” McCarthy said at a press conference in El Paso, Texas.
In an appearance on ABC’s “This Week,” Rep. Michael McCaul (R-Texas) expressed doubt the GOP would be able to impeach Mayorkas swiftly.
“You’ve got to build a case. You need the facts, evidence before you indict. Has he been derelict in his responsibilities? I think so,” he said.
Other Republicans, however, want to go full steam ahead, suggesting anything short of Mayorkas’s removal would put the country’s security at risk.
“He needs to go,” Rep. Ronnie Jackson (R-Texas) told Fox News on Sunday. “We need to make an example of Mayorkas. And he will be just the start of what we do in this new Congress.”
Other Republicans have dismissed an impeachment vote as a stunt.
“It would basically be putting form over substance to go through a big performance on impeachment that’s never going anywhere,” former Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff, a George W. Bush appointee, said over the weekend, “rather than actually working with the administration to solve the problem.”
McCarthy also faces divisions on delaying the defense bill, as some Republicans want to move forward and also pull back from threats to limit support for Ukraine.
McCarthy says he wants to pump the breaks on the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) and another round of funding to aid Ukraine in its battle against Russia, saying he wouldn’t back a “blank check.”
“I’ve watched what the Democrats have done on many of these things, especially the NDAA — the wokeism that they want to bring in there,” McCarthy told reporters shortly after the midterms. “I actually believe the NDAA should hold up until the 1st of this year — and let’s get it right.”
McCarthy is far from the only Republican with complaints about the NDAA. Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) put out a report slamming the “Woke Warfighters” of the Pentagon. But McCarthy is also facing pressure from the right.
“Let’s hold the bill hostage. Let’s leverage what we have,” Rep. Andy Biggs (R-Ariz.), who opposes McCarthy’s Speakership bid, recently said on a podcast.
Democrats and the Biden administration argue a delay will hurt the military.
“If you kick it off four, five, six months, you are really damaging the United States military. So I hope Kevin McCarthy understands that,” House Armed Services Committee Chairman Adam Smith (D-Wash.) said. “You are damaging the United States military every day past Oct. 1 that you don’t get it done, and certainly more so every day past" Jan. 1.
On Ukraine, some Republicans have bristled at the idea of holding back any funding as the country continues to make advances against Russia.
“We're going to make certain they get what they need,” House Intelligence Committee ranking member Mike Turner (R-Ohio) said in an appearance alongside McCaul.
“The fact is, we are going to provide more oversight, transparency and accountability. We're not going to write a blank check,” McCaul added. “Does that diminish our will to help the Ukraine people fight? No. But we're going to do it in a responsible way.”
House Republicans will take the reins of the lower chamber in fewer than six weeks, returning to power after four years in the minority wilderness to usher in a new era of divided government heading into the 2024 presidential election.
The shift comes after two years when President Biden enjoyed Democratic control of the House and the Senate. And it will have drastic implications for the workings of Washington, setting the stage for countless clashes between the House and the administration over everything from government spending and border security to the fight against inflation and the future of Medicare and Social Security.
Republicans are also promising to focus much of their energy on investigations, including the administration’s handling of the southern border, charges of political bias at the Justice Department, and the business dealings of Biden’s son Hunter.
Here are five things to watch as the House is poised to change hands.
McCarthy will struggle with narrow majority
Republicans charged into this month’s midterms with wide eyes for big gains — Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) had predicted a 60-seat flip — that would afford them a comfortable cushion for pushing legislation through the lower chamber next year.
Instead, they squeaked out a victory, and their underperformance leaves them a slim majority — just a handful of seats — and little room for error as they bring bills to the floor.
Those dynamics play to the great advantage of the far-right Freedom Caucus, the home of McCarthy’s loudest internal detractors, where members are already angling to secure a number of conservative priorities — including a balanced budget amendment and an end to U.S. funding for Ukraine — that party leaders have been reluctant to endorse.
If Republicans had scored a larger majority, GOP leaders would have been insulated from those demands. As it stands, McCarthy might be forced to consider them, even if it puts more moderate Republicans — and the GOP’s fragile majority — in danger in 2024.
“He had predicted — what? — 60 seats? If you don’t perform the way you told people, people question it. They didn’t get exactly what they wanted,” said a former leadership aide. “A tight margin makes it very difficult.”
McCarthy is also likely to face conservative pressure in the coming battles to fund the government and lift the debt ceiling — the same debates that had fueled the Tea Party movement more than a decade ago and have created headaches for GOP leaders ever since.
“When you look at John Boehner and Paul Ryan, two previous Speakers, they got out. They got out early because they could not deal with their right-wing extremists,” House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) told CNN on Tuesday. “I think McCarthy's going to find the same problem.”
Winning the Speaker’s gavel
The Republicans’ slim House advantage poses another even more immediate problem for McCarthy heading into the new Congress: Whether he’ll have enough GOP support to win the Speaker’s gavel.
McCarthy easily won the Republican nomination for the post earlier this month, 188 to 31. But he needs to surpass a much higher bar — a majority of the full House — when the chamber meets on Jan. 3 to choose the next Speaker. With Republicans on track to have 222 House seats, at most, McCarthy can have far fewer than 31 defectors.
Helping him along, McCarthy has secured support from several prominent Freedom Caucus members — including Reps. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) and Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) — as well as former President Trump.
But other conservatives are vowing to oppose him, including Reps. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.), Andy Biggs (R-Ariz.) and Ralph Norman (R-S.C.), who all say they’re firm nos. Reps. Matt Rosendale (R-Mont.) and Bob Good (R-Va.) are also voicing their resistance. Some are warning that they’re just the tip of the opposition iceberg.
McCarthy, whose Speakership bid was blocked by conservatives in 2015, is the first to acknowledge the internal challenge he’s facing.
“Look, we have our work cut out for us,” he told reporters just after winning the GOP nomination. “We’ve got to have a small majority. We’ve got to listen to everybody in our conference.”
Democrats are watching from the sidelines, wary that whatever promises McCarthy might make to win over the conservatives will make the lower chamber ungovernable.
“It's one thing if you have a large majority, and you can sort of say, ‘Well, I can afford to ignore the crazies like Marjorie Taylor Greene,’” Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) told MSNBC on Monday. “It's another if you have just a handful that are keeping you in the speaker's chair, and they're crazy.”
Change has come for Democrats
If the GOP leadership structure remains largely unchanged next year, the same will not be true across the aisle.
House Democrats will undergo a massive makeover in the next Congress after Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and her top two deputies — Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (Md.) and Jim Clyburn (S.C.) — stepped out of the top three leadership spots after almost two decades together.
The abdications opened the floodgates for a new generation of up-and-coming Democrats to seize the reins of the party. And a trio of younger leaders — Reps. Hakeem Jeffries (N.Y.), Katherine Clark (Mass.) and Pete Aguilar (Calif.) — wasted no time stepping into the void as candidates for the top three positions, respectively.
All three are running unopposed, and are expected to win their seats easily when House Democrats stage their leadership elections next week.
For Jeffries, ascending to the minority leader spot would be historic, making him the first Black lawmaker to lead either party, in either chamber, since the nation’s founding. It would also limit the Democrats’ regional diversity, putting a New York City lawmaker in charge of the party in both the House and the Senate, where Chuck Schumer is expected to return next year as majority leader.
The shakeup — Pelosi’s departure in particular — has raised questions about the strategic changes to come in both parties.
For Democrats, that means determining what role Pelosi and Hoyer — who are both staying in Congress — will play as rank-and-file members. It also means deciding whether to designate more power to rank-and-file members and the committee heads after decades when much of the authority was consolidated with Pelosi. And they’ll have their work cut out in trying to recreate the fundraising role Pelosi has played over the last two decades.
For Republicans, who have spent years and millions of dollars demonizing Pelosi, it means finding another Democratic foil to use on the campaign trail.
Meanwhile, the would-be relationship between the House’s likely top leaders, McCarthy and Jeffries, is off to a rough start.
Jeffries, as head of the Democratic Caucus, has attacked McCarthy relentlessly since the Republican leader cozied up to Trump in the weeks after last year’s rampage at the Capitol, calling him “embarrassing” and “pathetic.” And the two have not spoken in some time.
Last week, Jeffries acknowledged the absence of any real connection.
“I do have, I think, a much warmer relationship with Steve Scalise,” he said on CNN’s “Meet the Press.”
Impeachment is already on the table
For months, House conservatives have pressed the case for impeaching Biden and members of his cabinet if the House were to change hands — a warning to both the administration and any GOP leaders who might be reluctant to take that step.
On Tuesday, McCarthy threw those Republicans a bone, saying he would consider impeaching Alejandro Mayorkas next year if the Homeland Security secretary refused to resign beforehand. Republicans have long been critical of Mayorkas’s handling of the migrant crisis at the southern border, and Republicans in this Congress have already introduced resolutions to remove him.
“If Secretary Mayorkas does not resign, House Republicans will investigate, every order, every action and every failure will determine whether we can begin impeachment inquiry,” McCarthy told reporters in El Paso, Texas.
The announcement is sure to appease the GOP’s conservative wing, which is where McCarthy needs more support to win the Speaker’s gavel. But whether he follows through on the threat next year remains to be seen.
Republicans were hurt politically following their impeachment of President Clinton in 1998, and many in the GOP — including Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) — have warned against making the same mistake next year.
Yet there are also perils for McCarthy if he ignores the impeachment demands: It could spark an outcry from a GOP base — much of which is still loyal to Trump — that’s keen to avenge the two impeachments that targeted the former president. And conservatives will be watching closely, ready to lash out at GOP leaders deemed insufficiently aggressive in taking on the Biden White House.
McCarthy seems to be keeping his options open, promising only that Republicans will investigate Mayorkas and see where it leads.
“This investigation could lead to an impeachment inquiry,” he said in El Paso.
Other fights to watch
With Republicans taking over the House, most of Biden’s ambitious domestic agenda is likely to come to a screeching halt. But that doesn’t mean the end of high-stakes legislating.
Congress next year will still — at a minimum — have to fund the federal government in order to prevent a shutdown, and raise Washington’s borrowing limit to stave off a government default.
Both debates are expected to squeeze House GOP leaders between the more moderate forces of the Senate — where McConnell will have to sign off on any fiscal deals — and the conservative firebrands of the lower chamber who say they’re ready to risk shutdowns and defaults to rein in government spending and realize other pieces of their legislative wishlist.
Part of that debate could feature a balanced budget amendment, which was the reason Ralph Norman said he’s opposing McCarthy’s Speakership bid. There’s also likely to be a push from the right to cut the big entitlement programs — Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security — which are on autopilot and represent a huge chunk of the federal budget.
Must-pass government spending bills would also provide ready opportunity for House Republicans to attach other priority items, including provisions to build a border wall, expand domestic oil drilling and roll back environmental regulations.
A Democratic-led Senate would balk at such provisions — and Biden would likely veto any such bill that got that far — but the GOP-led House could force the issue.
Funding for Ukraine will get outsized attention next year. Under Democratic control — and with broad bipartisan support — Congress has approved tens-of-billions of dollars to help Kyiv weather the Russian assault. But a number of conservatives are vowing to oppose any new funding, saying that’s money better spent fixing problems at home.
Some Democrats are already voicing their concerns.
“It's not hard to figure out that with a tiny, tiny majority — you know, Matt Gaetz and Paul Gosar and Marjorie Taylor Greene together in a room control the fate of Kevin McCarthy,” Rep. Jim Himes (D-Conn.) told MSNBC on Tuesday. “And so the question is sort of, how much does he feed them?"
Is Greg Abbott looking to the 2024 presidential race? Quite possibly, and groan, because after trouncing Beto O’Rourke in the 2022 election by nearly one million votes, the right-wing governor is continuing his string of nativist stunts, this week officially declaring supposed powers that he claims allow him to take “unprecedented measures” to defend Texas “against an invasion.”
No one’s being invaded, and Abbott knows that. He’s instead signaling to the white nationalists who like to use this language. But just as importantly, some of the supposed powers that Abbott claims he has, like returning migrants to the border, are strictly the job of the federal government. A number of lawmakers from Texas say it's incumbent on the government to intervene.
“As members of Congress representing the great state of Texas, we are deeply disturbed with recent comments made by the Governor of Texas suggesting he has invoked invasion authorities under the U.S. Constitution to justify the use of state resources to further militarize our southern border,” lawmakers led by former Trump impeachment manager Sylvia Garcia tell the Biden administration in a letter obtained by The Hill. They not only object to Abbott’s supposed authority, they object to his reckless, flame-throwing rhetoric.
“Legal authority aside, there is simply not an invasion happening at the border,” they continued. “Many of the immigrants arriving at our border are exercising their right to claim asylum and other forms of humanitarian relief. They are not waging war against the United States or Texas.”
It is sad that even has to be said, but Abbott has a history of signaling to violent white supremacists through his rhetoric. He knows damn well that “invasion” wording was used by the racist mass gunman who murdered Texans at a Walmart in 2019, yet he’s continued to echo that rhetoric as recently as this past summer. Greg Abbott knows exactly what he’s doing. He’s further endangering lives—even as racist mass shooters since El Paso have echoed that wording.
“Declaring an invasion under the U.S. Constitution is an incendiary and divisive idea that will certainly lead to unnecessary litigation and will encourage dangerous anti-immigrant sentiments,” lawmakers continued in their letter. “Put simply, this type of reckless stunt will only continue to put Latino communities at risk of greater violence.”
The Hill also reports that Abbott’s actions are again pissing off Mexican officials, who said in a statement that “implementation of migratory laws, border control and the negotiation of international agreements are exclusive authorities of the federal government.” Abbott already faced ire from the Mexican government during his short-lived, massively expensive flop of a stunt forcing commercial vehicles to undergo redundant checks that actually didn’t do much of any checking. Facing international blowback and massive financial losses, Abbott quickly ended the disastrous policy.
Abbott has continued his busing stunt using migrants as human props, expanding his scheme to Pennsylvania. Among those he sent to Philadelphia was a 10-year-old girl who reportedly arrived so sick with fever and dehydration that she had to be immediately hospitalized. But Greg Abbott doesn’t care.
“The Governor of Texas is taking a white nationalist conspiracy theory that has inspired multiple domestic terrorist attacks and making it official state policy by declaring migrants to be a literal invading force,” said Zachary Mueller, Political Director at America’s Voice. “In 2019, a Texas man murdered 23 people in El Paso, Texas, in an act of domestic terrorism, which he believed would stop the ‘Hispanic invasion.’ After three years and another terrorist attack in Buffalo, New York, inspired by ‘invasion’ paranoia, Gov. Abbott is fully embracing this deadly racist lie and giving it a governmental imprimatur.”
