Last week should have brought an easy win for congressional Republicans. An end was in sight to the partial government shutdown that has left the Department of Homeland Security without funding for more than six weeks. The Senate approved a deal that would reopen DHS without yielding to Democrats’ demand for new limits on President Donald Trump’s deportations efforts. Small wonder that GOP senators felt comfortable flying home for a two-week-long break.
But then Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., snatched defeat from the jaws of victory. The House snubbed the Senate’s bill and passed its own before likewise skipping town. In doing so, Johnson managed to intensify the pressure on Republicans to find some way out of the ongoing stalemate. Moreover, the speaker gave voters another reason to doubt that Republican lawmakers even remember how to govern after decades of letting those skills ossify.
In rejecting a compromise from Senate Majority Leader John Thune, Johnson has reframed the fight from one between the parties into an intraparty struggle. Rather than taking the off-ramp present, the House has chosen to careen headlong toward a dead end.
This is a preview of Hayes Brown’s latest column. Read the full column here.
|
