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☆ Mike Johnson and the Uneasy Coalition Government Keeping Ukraine Funded - The New York Times
▼ + stars: | 2024-04-22 | by ( Brendan Buck | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

On Saturday, the House of Representatives approved the most consequential legislation of this Congress, a foreign aid package for American allies. More Democrats than Republicans voted in favor of the measure that allowed the package to pass. The speaker, Mike Johnson, holds his role only because a few hard-line Republicans ousted the previous speaker for being too dismissive of their demands. For all its rank partisanship, the House right now is functionally and uneasily governed by a bipartisan group of Republicans and Democrats. Instead, a coalition has emerged that is willing to do what is necessary to save the House from itself.

Persons: Mike Johnson, Johnson Organizations: Republicans, Democrats, Republican

“See, this is the great part,” Mr. McCarthy told reporters who questioned how — if he could barely get his colleagues to elect him — he would ever be able to govern his slim and unruly House Republican majority. Mr. McCarthy is set as early as Wednesday to bring to the floor his proposal to lift the debt ceiling for a year in exchange for spending cuts and policy changes. That includes soliciting “yes” votes from right-wing members who have never before voted to increase the debt ceiling and take pride in that fact. But after late-night wrangling on Tuesday, Mr. McCarthy appeared to have acquiesced at least in part, moving up the imposition of stricter requirements by a year, to 2024. “The last five votes, you’re standing there begging,” Mr. Gingrich said he has told Mr. McCarthy of his own experience with tough bills.

☆ Veterans of 2011 U.S. debt-ceiling fight see tougher battle ahead
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-31 | by ( Andy Sullivan | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +5 min

As in 2011, Republicans aim to pair this year's debt-ceiling hike with sharp spending cuts to narrow annual budget deficits that have ballooned in recent years due to tax cuts and COVID-19 relief. 2 House Republican spent hours with Biden trying to find a solution, said the president's no-negotiations stance may prove unsustainable. Any agreement that emerges from that chamber will need bipartisan support, which could prove difficult for a Republican House majority to accept. Some House Republicans protested when McConnell in December 2021 cut a deal to raise the debt ceiling and avoid default. "That's what things like the debt ceiling are built for - they're forcing mechanisms that create an artificial deadline," he said.

WASHINGTON — Conservative hard-liners are consolidating power in the narrow new House majority, presenting early challenges for Republicans in swing districts ahead of the 2024 election as Democrats seek to paint the entire party as beholden to extremists. Twenty House GOP hard-liners have set the tone, extracting a series of concessions from Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., to change House rules while securing plum committee assignments and winning assurances about advancing their legislative priorities. “If you can’t win independent voters, you can’t win elections.”Democrats are targeting 25 districts to win back the House majority next year, including 18 Republican-held seats that Biden carried in 2020. In the narrow Republican majority, McCarthy has only four votes to spare before he requires Democratic support to pass measures. Lance, the former congressman, argued that renominating former President Donald Trump could cost Republicans the House.

Democrats bucked dire forecasts in national races, clinched governors' races in states seen as crucial to the next election in 2024, and passed left-leaning measures like codifying abortion rights in Michigan. "Amazing," said one stunned Biden aide as results results trickled in at the White House overnight. Donald Trump saw Republicans lose 40 House seats in his first midterms, and Barack Obama more than 60. Aides and allies believe his efforts to cast the election in terms of abortion rights, right-wing political extremism and healthcare staved off a Republican "wave." While Republicans cited high inflation and crime as top voting issues, Democrats said they were more motivated by abortion rights and gun violence, exit polls show.

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