WASHINGTON – While the anticipated Republican “red wave” did not materialize, the GOP-controlled House will impact President Joe Biden’s policy agenda and increase the chances for possible investigations when the divided 118th Congress convenes in January, analysts say.
“One-party Democrat rule in Washington is finished. We have fired Nancy Pelosi,” House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-California, said in an interview with Sean Hannity on Fox News Wednesday. He hopes to be the next House speaker but is having trouble securing the necessary votes in his own divided caucus.
Pelosi, D-California, announced Thursday she would step aside from leading the House Democrats but would remain in the House.
With a divided government, some observers are concerned about potential government shutdowns and conflicts over the debt ceiling.
“I think one of the outcomes will be even more of a paralysis for the government, not just the division between the White House and Congress,” said former Maryland Governor Parris Glendening, a Democrat, in an interview with Capital News Service. “When your margins are that near, it’s very difficult to do anything significant.”
It is unlikely that a Republican-controlled House would cooperate with Biden, according to Jacob Rubashkin, an analyst for Inside Elections, a nonpartisan newsletter.
“I think that a lot of the Republicans…have very little incentive to work with Biden and the Democrats,” Rubashkin told CNS. “Their voters really don’t like Biden, and they were elected off of anti-Biden sentiment.”
Political stalemates could lead to Biden to rely more on his executive power to enact more of his initiatives.
“You’re going to see Joe Biden recede into the world of executive orders and presidential memoranda, much the way Barack Obama did after losing the House (in 2010),” Todd Eberly, a political science professor at St. Mary’s College of Maryland, said in an interview with CNS.
By contrast, Michelle Whyman, an assistant political science professor at Florida State University, said that there is still a semblance of bipartisanship in the government and collaboration between House Republicans and Biden on the legislation could be possible.
“American institutions are explicitly designed in order to incorporate diverse preferences,” Whyman told CNS.
After the Democrats retained a narrow majority in the Senate, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-New York, called on his Republican colleagues to collaborate with Democrats on important issues for the benefit of the American people.
“If we come together and stick to our principles, we can get a lot done, often working with the other side,” Schumer said. “Just in June and July, we passed 5 major bipartisan bills.”
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Kentucky, sounded less conciliatory in Senate floor remarks on Monday: “Senate Republicans have spent two years working to check and balance reckless policies; it will be an outstanding thing for the country to have new reinforcements arriving on the other side of the Capitol.”
“If Washington Democrats do not want to pivot to sanity and common sense… if they will not help us address the ways their policies are hurting families… they will encounter stiff resistance from the sizable Senate Republican Conference that half the country has elected to be their voice, to be their champions, to fight for them,” McConnell warned.
The fact that Republicans have clinched a slim majority in the House, and not a large one as many polls projected, also may impact the organization and power structure of the party.
“You know that the Democrats have a very small majority right now (in the outgoing House). It’s about five seats. Nancy Pelosi has done a fantastic job of holding them together,” Eberly said. “There is not the same degree of unity in the Republican Party caucus, and I think that a small majority creates a nightmare scenario for McCarthy.”
However, McCarthy said he is confident that the Republican party can work together as a unit, and that even with a small majority, he has enough power to accomplish his agenda in the speaker’s chair.
“They don’t hand the gavels out in small, medium, and large sizes,” McCarthy said. Republicans certainly are not sounding discouraged by their small majority.
In a press conference Thursday, Rep. James Comer, R-Kentucky, and GOP colleagues announced plans to investigate Biden and his son Hunter’s business dealings.
“We are trying to stay focused on if Joe Biden was directly involved with Hunter Biden’s business deals and if he was compromised,” Comer said.
Glendening said that some Republicans in the Freedom Caucus, like Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, and Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Georgia, will use their new power in the majority to “try to do very explosive and damaging things.”
McCarthy, meanwhile, said he wants to investigate numerous issues, such as COVID-19 in Wuhan, China.
“We want to know the origins of where COVID began, so it never happens again. Who funded it? How did it get there?” McCarthy said.
Also, some Republicans have threatened to impeach Biden. However, Eberly said there are strong divisions in the party, and a small majority could prevent this, and investigations, from happening.
“There’s an appetite on that wing of the party to impeach by anything that they can think of, but it would take enough Republicans so that they can overcome the fact that there’s at least a handful of folks who don’t want to go down that road,” Eberly said.
While most of Biden’s agenda may be stymied by the Democrats’ loss of House control, he can still use the Democratic Senate majority to confirm more judicial nominees, which has been a priority over the last two years.
“Senate Democrats have been committed to restoring balance to the federal judiciary with professionally and personally diverse judges,” Schumer said last week. “With two more years of a Senate Democratic majority, we will build on our historic pace of judicial confirmations and ensure the federal bench better reflects the diversity of America.”
While Democratic control was cemented with wins in Arizona and Nevada, it is still unclear whether their majority will consist of 50 or 51 senators. If Sen. Raphael Warnock, D-Georgia, defeats Republican Herschel Walker in the Georgia runoff on Dec. 6, Democrats would have 51.
The addition of one seat would make a huge difference because under Senate rules it would allow for a more streamlined confirmation process for nominees.
“It will mean appointees and judges will get appointed much more quickly,” Schumer said Monday on MSNBC.
For his part, Biden struck a hopeful tone after the House was called for the GOP, saying in a statement on Wednesday that “I am ready to work with House Republicans to deliver results for working families.”
“In this election, voters spoke clearly about their concerns: the need to lower costs, protect the right to choose, and preserve our democracy,” the president said. “As I said last week, the future is too promising to be trapped in political warfare. The American people want us to get things done for them. They want us to focus on the issues that matter to them and on making their lives better. And I will work with anyone – Republican or Democrat – willing to work with me to deliver results for them.”