New House Speaker Mike Johnson is a mystery to the vast majority of people outside of his congressional district, his podcast audience and government. But we will get to know a great deal about his managerial and political skills over the next, few critical weeks in Washington.
The list of items that must be addressed is daunting, and could get even more so:
The most immediate deadline facing Johnson is the expiration of the government's current funding on Nov. 17. In a letter sent to House Republicans earlier this week, Johnson mapped out a timeline for immediately bringing the GOP-crafted spending bills that haven't yet passed the House up for votes.
But because the House will need to reach an agreement with the Senate and White House—widely seen as infeasible for all 12 bills within the next three weeks—Johnson said House Republicans may need to buy themselves more time by passing a stopgap spending measure that would continue current funding levels either into mid-January or mid-April, depending on Republicans' preference. The goal would be to eliminate the year-end pressure that often compels Congress to pass a massive spending package in a rush before Christmas.
“We all understand that our next Speaker must be prepared to negotiate from a position of strength with the Democrat-controlled Senate and White House,” Johnson wrote in the letter.
That last bit – negotiating from, “a position of strength”— would be a substantial achievement for Johnson, who may have the chamber's top job, but only has a four member majority. And as we've seen since the beginning of the year, that majority is barely enough to get much of anything done.
Unless one's conception of accomplishment is throwing sand into the gears of the House of Representatives for clicks and checks.
But on that score, it's best to give the new Speaker the benefit of the doubt. Perhaps he can bring order to a caucus that seems to resist the concept. It would be a marked improvement over recent months, and is something Republicans sorely need to happen as the party stumbles toward the 2024 elections.
Because even congressional nihilists need to show they've accomplished something positive and useful for the time, money, and trust voters have placed in them. Memes, photo-ops and gotchas aren't going to cut it.
The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the positions of American Liberty News.
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