House Republicans Pick Up Momentum

Photo by Elijah Mears on Unsplash

House Republicans are slowly finding their way and securing wins as they are nearing 100 days in power. With both the debt ceiling negotiations and major legislation still underway there are many challenges that they are going to have to face in order to keep the conference in harmony.

In January, when the new Congress started, House Republicans had to go through a lengthy election process before managing to elect House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) in January. This also led to many doubts about how successful they would be with only a five-seat majority. Still, despite the pushback from moderates, House Republicans still managed to secure enough votes for the removal of Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) from the House Foreign Affairs Committee. They also managed to push for a delay on a border and immigration bill that had previously been expected to have an early floor vote.

In the past few weeks, the House GOP has managed to secure a number of legislative victories which have also led to division among the Democrats.

This was particularly obvious when President Biden changed his position and backed the blocking of a D.C. crime legislation. House Democrats felt particularly left in the dark about this as Biden had not informed them of his choice prior to the vote. The president is also widely expected to veto a House GOP-led measure that would annul a federal rule that requires environmental, social, and governance (ESG) standards to be considered in investments.