As 2023 came to an end, and members of Congress wrapped up their work on Capitol Hill, Axios highlighted an underappreciated pattern: “Republicans may hold the House majority, but Democratic yeas outnumbered GOP votes on every major bill that landed on President Biden’s desk this year.”
As 2024 gets underway in earnest, the pattern remains intact. NBC News reported on the latest steps lawmakers took to prevent another government shutdown.
Congress passed a bill on Thursday that would prevent a partial government shutdown this weekend and keep federal funds flowing through March 1 and March 8. The Democratic-led Senate voted 77-18 on final passage after considering a few amendments. The Republican-led House soon followed suit, passing it by a vote of 314-108.
The bill was then sent to the White House for President Joe Biden’s signature. He will, of course, sign it before the shutdown deadline, which is 16 hours away.
But before the political world turns its attention to the next fight, it’s worth pausing to appreciate the specific vote totals. In the Senate, the final tally was lopsided, but 18 far-right Republicans — representing more than a third of the conference — balked at the bipartisan measure.
The roll call in the GOP-led House was even more notable. While the bill passed with 314 votes, most of those votes — 207 — came from the House Democratic minority. Republicans, meanwhile, were evenly split, with 107 GOP members voting for the measure, and 106 voting against it.
Put another way, to prevent a government shutdown, House Republican leaders grudgingly embraced the obvious solution they wanted to avoid: They relied on Democrats to govern.
Or more to the point, GOP leaders relied on Democrats to govern again.
Last September, to prevent a government shutdown, it was Democrats who provided most of the votes. Two months later, again to prevent a government shutdown, Republicans also relied on Democratic votes.
During the mid-November debate on that bill, Democratic Rep. Sean Casten of Illinois joked during floor remarks, “Next week, Americans will gather around their dinner tables and share what they’re thankful for. I hope my Republican colleagues will use that moment to reflect on how lucky you are to work with us House Democrats.”
A month later, when the House needed to pass the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), Democrats again provided a majority of the votes.
And when Republicans threatened to crash the economy on purpose by leveraging the debt ceiling, it was — you guessed it — Democrats who cast most of the votes to pass the bipartisan solution.
When John Boehner was a Republican House speaker, he too found himself dependent on Democrats when his far-right members didn’t want to govern. During Paul Ryan’s tenure, it happened some more. When Kevin McCarthy did the same thing, it contributed to the intraparty revolt that cost him his gavel.
And now, here we are, watching House Speaker Mike Johnson do the same thing.
When GOP leaders need to create a spectacle, they turn to their own members. When GOP leaders need to legislate, they turn to Democratic members. (Insert obligatory reference to my book about Republicans abandoning their role as a governing party here.)
As for the latest stopgap spending measure — known as a “continuing resolution,” or “CR” — the new bill extends the two-part government funding deadlines from Jan. 19 to March 1, and from Feb. 2 to March 8. Between now and early March, lawmakers will at least try to pass the 12 appropriations bills that fund federal operations through the remainder of the fiscal year. Watch this space.
