The Republicans Have No Majority
Speaker Mike Johnson averted a government shutdown by relying on the strategy that doomed his predecessor: a bailout from Democrats. How much longer will conservatives let him get away with it?
Mike Johnson now knows what Kevin McCarthy was dealing with.
At the new speaker’s behest, House Republicans today relied on Democratic votes to avert a government shutdown by passing legislation that contains neither budget cuts nor conservative policy priorities. The bill was a near replica of the funding measure that McCarthy pushed through the House earlier this fall—a supposed surrender to Democrats that prompted hard-liners in his party to toss him from the speakership.
Johnson is unlikely to suffer the same fate, at least not yet. But today’s vote laid bare a reality that’s become ever more apparent over the past year: Republicans may hold
