What can the GOP House actually do?
Byron York
WHAT CAN THE GOP HOUSE ACTUALLY DO? On Sept. 23, 2022, Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-CA), then the House Minority Leader, traveled to Pennsylvania to unveil the GOP’s midterm campaign platform, the Commitment to America. The document was a “plan for a new direction,” McCarthy said. “We want to roll it out to you, to the entire country, so you know exactly what we will do if you would trust us and give us the ability to take a new direction for this country.”
The Commitment to America was divided into four parts. First was “An Economy That’s Strong,” which included pledges to “fight inflation and lower the cost of living,” “make America energy independent and reduce gas prices,” and “strengthen the supply chain and end dependence on China.” The second part was “A Nation That’s Safe,” which included promises to “secure the border and combat illegal immigration,” “reduce crime and protect public safety,” and “defend America’s national security.” The third part was “A Future That’s Built on Freedom,” which included a commitment to “make sure every student can succeed and give parents a voice,” “achieve longer, healthier lives for Americans,” and “confront Big Tech and demand fairness.” Finally, the fourth part was “A Government That’s Accountable,” which included promises to “preserve our constitutional freedoms,” “hold Washington accountable,” and “restore the people’s voice.”
It all sounded good. The collection of promises would certainly unite all Republicans, plus many independents. And indeed, the GOP won control of the House, and now McCarthy has been elected speaker. So it is time to go back to the Commitment to America. How much of it, if any, can Republicans, with a five-seat majority in the House, a Democratic Senate, and a Democratic White House, actually accomplish?
Subscribe today to the Washington Examiner magazine that will keep you up to date with what’s going on in Washington. SUBSCRIBE NOW: Just $1.00 an issue!
The answer, in terms of legislation, is almost none of it. Of course, everybody knew that going in. Unless Democrats joined in the effort — and there was no chance they would adopt the opposition party’s Commitment to America — House Republicans could pass bills and then send them to the Senate, where the legislation would die.
So it is with the first bill passed by the new GOP majority — a one-page bill known as the “Family and Small Business Taxpayer Protection Act.” What the bill did — it was really just one paragraph — was rescind the portions of the Inflation Reduction Act, passed last year by 50 Democrats plus Vice President Kamala Harris, that provided billions of dollars for the IRS to hire as many as 87,000 new employees, which would nearly double the size of the tax-collecting agency. Many observers at the time, including those who favored an increase in funding for the IRS, believed the amount of money given to the agency was far, far more than what was needed.
The new House Republican majority quite reasonably wants to do something about that. So they passed a new bill to repeal the massive funding increase for the IRS. Except they can’t actually do it. The Inflation Reduction Act, bad as it is, is law. To repeal part of it, or all of it, Congress would have to pass another law. That means the House would have to pass it, the Senate would have to pass it, and the president would have to sign it. That will never, ever happen in this case. Senate Democrats and President Joe Biden are not going to go along with dismantling their premiere legislative achievement.
The repeal-87,000-IRS-agents bill passed the House 221-to-210 on a perfect party-line vote. Every Republican voted for it, and every Democrat voted against it. So what House Republicans have done in this case is to pass what is often called a “messaging” bill — that is, a bill that no one believes will actually become law but instead makes a statement of what the majority party wants to do. It stakes out a position on an issue but not much more.
The GOP majority then turned to the issue of abortion. Just looking at the Commitment to America, it was clear that abortion was not at the top of the Republican Party’s promise list, which was dominated by the economy, national security, immigration, and other issues. Indeed, it is now conventional wisdom that abortion, in the form of many voters’ negative reaction to the Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision, actually worked against some Republican candidates in the midterm elections. But the new House majority decided to hold a vote on the “Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act.” It passed 220 to 210 on a nearly perfect party-line vote. Every Republican voted for it. One Democrat voted for it, another voted “present,” and 210 voted against it. It now goes to the Democratic-controlled Senate. Which means that, as with the IRS agents bill, the abortion measure is going nowhere. That’s what messaging bills do — they go nowhere.
All of this points to the most important fact about the 118th Congress: The Republican House majority was not elected to pass bills. It was elected to stop the Biden agenda. It cannot pass bills into law on its own, and it cannot repeal bills that have already been passed and signed into law. But it can stop Biden and his Democratic allies from furthering the president’s agenda by passing far-reaching new legislation. That will not happen with Republicans in control of the House. And for most Republicans, that is accomplishment enough.
McCarthy and the GOP majority can do two other things. The first is to set the agenda in a way that only the majority party can. Republicans have created a new select committee on the “strategic competition between the United States and the Chinese Communist Party,” now known as the China committee. It passed overwhelmingly, 365 to 65, with 146 Democrats voting for it and just 65 Democrats opposed. Democrats did not create such a committee when they had power. Republicans did. Rep. Mike Gallagher (R-WI) will be the chairman. Republicans will set the agenda.
The GOP also established a subcommittee on the “weaponization of the federal government.” Unlike the China committee measure, it passed on a straight party-line vote, 221 to 211. But the vote doesn’t matter now. The subcommittee exists, under chairman Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH), and it can explore questions of great concern, even some that Democrats do not want to explore.
The second thing the new GOP majority can do is conduct investigations, which you have no doubt heard a lot about. There will be GOP-led inquiries into the disaster on the U.S.-Mexico border, the disastrous U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan, the Biden administration’s COVID response, and, yes, Hunter Biden’s business dealings involving his father.
So there it is: Stopping the Biden agenda. Setting a new agenda for the House with two new committees. And investigating topics that Democrats would not. That’s a lot for the new GOP House to do, even if it cannot, on its own, make any new bill law.
For a deeper dive into many of the topics covered in the Daily Memo, please listen to my podcast, The Byron York Show — available on the Ricochet Audio Network and everywhere else podcasts can be found. You can use this link to subscribe.