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It was the political challenge heard ‘round the political world. Two months ago, as members of Congress prepared to leave Capitol Hill for their Thanksgiving break, Republican Rep. Chip Roy delivered impassioned remarks on the House floor.
“One thing. I want my Republican colleagues to give me one thing — one! — that I can go campaign on and say we did,” the Texan said. “Anybody sitting in the complex, if you want to come down to the floor and come explain to me, one meaningful, significant thing the Republican majority has done.”
No one rushed to respond to his challenge.
A month later, Republican Rep. Andy Biggs of Arizona complained during an on-air Newsmax interview that GOP lawmakers have “nothing to campaign on” in the fall because the party hasn’t accomplished anything. “It’s embarrassing,” the congressman added.
Few have challenged the premise of such complaints. Even if someone were willing to overlook the GOP’s pointless messaging bills, the GOP’s government-shutdown threats, the GOP’s debt-ceiling crisis, the GOP’s meritless censure resolutions, GOP members’ willingness to oust their own House speaker for the first time in American history, and the expulsion of a GOP member, the fact remains that this Congress is on track to be the least productive since 1932.
After voters handed Republicans control of the House in the 2022 midterms, expectations were low as the current Congress got underway. At least so far, lawmakers have fallen short of those dismal hopes. NBC News reported:
They’ve passed little substantive legislation since winning the majority in 2022 and struggled to do the basics of governing with a Democratic-led Senate. Their first year was instead marked by fractiousness and chaos, complicating the party’s pitch to voters this fall. The challenge is accentuated by likely GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump making “retribution” against his enemies, rather than shared policy goals, the centerpiece of his comeback bid as he continues to spread fabricated claims that the 2020 election was stolen from him.
To be sure, 2024 is just getting started, and there’s precedent for motivated officials getting things done in an election year. In 1996, for example, then-Speaker Newt Gingrich scrambled to work out legislative deals with then-President Bill Clinton, despite their partisan and ideological differences, in the hopes of preserving his Republican majority.
Is it possible the public will see something similar this year? In theory, sure. A bipartisan immigration compromise is taking shape in the Senate, and a meaningful bipartisan agreement on tax policy is advancing in the House. Two bills would not a successful Congress make, especially compared to the Democratic accomplishments from 2021 and 2022, but such breakthroughs might give pause to those already labeling this one of the worst Congresses in American history.
But there’s no reason to assume either of these measures will actually pass. Indeed, as my MSNBC colleague Hayes Brown noted in his latest piece, many of the far-right lawmakers complaining the loudest about their lack of accomplishments are the same members who refuse to support compromises that would add to their list of accomplishments.
And therein lies an underappreciated point: The Republicans’ lack of successes is the result, not of an accident or unfortunate circumstances, but of a deliberate choice.
As last year got underway, GOP leaders and their members could’ve invested time and effort into drafting a credible governing blueprint, reaching out to the Democratic-led Senate and White House to explore possible areas of common ground, and preparing a good-faith effort to engage in serious policymaking.
Such a course was never seriously considered. The contemporary Republican Party remains a post-policy party — insert obligatory reference to my book here — that still isn’t interested in governing. Its members have no one to blame but themselves for their blank list of accomplishments.
Rep. Pete Aguilar, the chair of the House Democratic Caucus, told NBC News, “This is clearly a Republican conference where the only thing that brings them together are impeachments and censures. That’s what they’re about because they can’t pass an agenda. They can’t do anything substantively to help the American people.”
The California Democrat added, “And so we plan on making that an issue throughout the year.”