This week the Republican Party showed the country how it plans to spend its last seven weeks in power. It has nothing left to lose, and it’s playing dirty. And the Democrats, just elected to hold this administration accountable, showed up like the fight was already over. In the span of two days, they were caught off guard twice and failed to respond to predictable but dirty tricks by Republicans in Congress.
This piece goes into a little detail about congressional procedure, so stick with me. I’m going to tell you how the game really works.
Start with Tuesday. Republican Congressman Thomas Massie forced a vote on impeaching Pete Hegseth. The vote was scheduled for 5:30 in the evening. Everybody knew it was coming.
This should have been an exciting moment for Democrats. They had just won the House and the Senate in the worst beating Republicans have taken in fifty years. And just one week after the election, Democrats got the chance to vote on impeaching the Secretary of Defense. Not to mention, they had a Republican voting with them.
GOP leadership had spent months making sure the vote never happened. Speaker Mike Johnson literally sent the whole House home early in September to avoid it. If they’ll shut the House down to dodge a vote, there’s not much they won’t do.
Around 5:30 p.m., right on schedule, Republicans called up a completely predictable procedural vote that would have effectively killed Massie’s articles of impeachment.
At 6:02 p.m., the vote was closed. The motion passed 211 to 204, with eleven Democrats not voting.
Why wouldn’t they vote, you ask? Great question. They should have been chomping at the bit to cast this vote. But they missed it. Several of them say a traffic incident and a police escort near the Capitol kept them from getting back in time from a campaign event. The election was last week, people!
Now to be fair, Republicans were down seven members themselves. If the board had started tilting toward Democrats, leadership would have kept that vote open until they had the numbers. I’ve watched them do it.
But that’s fine. Make them do it. Make them hold the vote open for an hour with the cameras on while they hunt for bodies to save Pete Hegseth. Democrats couldn’t even make them sweat, because some of their own members were at a reception down the street.
It was a disappointing start. On their first big vote back after a landslide, Democrats had one job. Be in the room, and cast your vote. But they dropped the ball.
Then came Wednesday, Veterans Day. The House was scheduled to vote on a veterans bill that has been a fight since the day it was introduced. Democrats and the VFW opposed it over cuts to disability benefits. And GOP leadership had already pulled it from the floor once in July when Democrats came within a single vote of defeating it.
So everybody was expecting a close vote. But while Democrats were looking the other way, the bill was passed.
It passed by voice vote, which is meant for bills with overwhelming support like renaming post offices. Contentious bills like this one almost always require a recorded vote, where every member has to go on the record with a yes or a no. And they either pass by a handful of votes or they don’t pass at all. But it certainly shouldn’t pass by voice.
This was a dirty move by Republicans. Democrats say they were handed some last-minute paperwork to look over, and while their heads were down, Republicans called the bill up and passed it in seconds.
That’s a rotten thing to do on any day, and they did it on Veterans Day. Just despicable.
But this could have been avoided. Democrats knew that GOP leadership was sweating this vote. Somebody from the minority is always supposed to be standing at the microphone, ready to demand a recorded vote. That’s the whole job of the minority. And on Wednesday, nobody was there.
Now, this one is less consequential than the Hegseth vote. The bill still has to make its way through the Senate, and that’s no sure thing. But that’s twice in two days that Democrats got embarrassed on the floor when they didn’t have to. They need to get it together.
The Republican Track Record
Republicans haven’t done much of anything with their majority. By any measure, this has been one of the least productive Congresses in modern history. A big reason is that they spent the whole time protecting their swing-district members from tough votes. That problem is gone now. A lot of those members lost last week or are retiring. They have nothing left to lose.
So everything that was too toxic to vote on before November is back on the table, and they have seven weeks to ram it through. They control the schedule and the gavel. They decide what comes up and when, and how long a vote stays open. After this week they also know that if they move fast enough, Democrats might not be able to keep up.
Republicans aren’t hiding it, either. After Tuesday’s vote, Mike Simpson, a Republican from Idaho, told a reporter, “More of that’s going to happen probably.”
And I believe him. Republicans have spent two years bending the rules when it suited them. They have even less reason to care about the rules now.
For now, the only thing Democrats control is their own caucus and how well they execute as the minority for a few more weeks. And, to be blunt, this week it wasn’t close to good enough. They showed up like the fight was already over. It isn’t. Republicans have seven more weeks, and clearly they intend to use them.
The GOP stopped caring what their voters wanted a long time ago, and it’s a big part of why they lost. Voters gave Democrats control of Congress to hold this administration accountable. After two years of a Congress that let this president do whatever he wanted, Americans are counting on Democrats to make it function again.
Democrats, you’re off to a rocky start and the whole country is watching. We all know the GOP is going to play dirty. You better bring your A game.
—Adam
The current batch of Dems are weak, especially the minority leader, Jeffries! He should have been prepared for these dirty tricks. I hope the newly elected House members are paying attention and elect someone stronger as the majority Leader. No more playing nice.
For God’s sake, Jeffries, get it together. The dirty Republicans are wiping the floor with you.