What a difference President-elect Donald Trump makes.
Congressional conservatives don’t have fewer reservations about House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) than they did when he was first elected. If anything, they have more.
But the handful of conservative dissidents still had no realistic path to the speakership themselves. They had no viable alternative, which is how they wound up with Johnson in the first place after ousting former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy in 2023.
So Johnson was reelected, on the first ballot after a delay instead of the 15 ballots it took to install McCarthy two years ago. With the exception of Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY), nobody wanted to delay the certification of Trump’s victory or the enactment of his agenda as Republicans gain unified control of the federal government, even if they are not particularly unified themselves.
It took two House Republicans switching their votes at the last second. It was still preferable to days of division and chaos.
The problem is that with a small House GOP majority, strong fiscal conservatives have not been able to get the votes for the things they have wanted. They have tried to pull the conference in their direction by withholding their support from legislation on the floor. This strategy seemed to peak under President Barack Obama, when House conservatives wrung spending concessions from an otherwise Democratic government, even if they could not change the overall fiscal trajectory of the country, which remains soaked in debt.
Since then, this approach has only made Republican speakers more reliant on Democratic votes to pass bills, especially to keep the government open or avoid defaulting on the federal debt. This has led to worse legislative outcomes, even if it has averted catastrophes that might hurt Republicans on Election Day.
McCarthy started passing legislation with more Democratic than Republican votes. Johnson had to pass legislation that did not have support from a majority of the House Republican Conference, in violation of the Hastert Rule, named after former House Speaker Dennis Hastert.
But there was no one to Johnson’s right who had a clear path to 218 votes. No one to his left could be elected speaker either, at least not without Democratic votes. Johnson had Trump’s endorsement. The presidential election results were due to be certified on Monday. There needed to be a speaker to usher in the new age of Republican governance.
“It doesn’t matter how conservative the speaker is if you can’t govern,” a leading House Republican told the Washington Examiner before the vote.
Many conservatives signaled afterward their basic concerns about Johnson remain. So does the fundamental arithmetic problem. Republicans have a small majority. It is reliant on votes from members in bluish districts in California and New York, who cannot always vote the conservative line. The Freedom Caucus doesn’t have anything close to a majority itself. Neither does the Republican Study Committee. Both conservative subgroups will occasionally find themselves clashing with Trump as much as Johnson, as December’s government funding showdown signaled.
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Trump’s leadership likely saved Johnson’s. But not even the incoming president can count on 100% support from Republican lawmakers all the time, not even in the fractious House.
For House Republicans, it’s one day at a time.