Given the way things are going for House Republicans, it’s not far-fetched.
More retirement announcements within the GOP House conference are expected early this winter, as is a brutal power struggle over government spending that runs out in late January and early February. House Republicans will also battle over security assistance for Ukraine, Israel, and Taiwan, which is supposed to be coupled with immigration fixes that they say they want—but will likely oppose anyway. Their shared goal will be to avoid appearing to compromise with President Joe Biden.
With the expulsion of George Santos and the coming resignation of Rep. Bill Johnson—who will depart next March to become president of Youngstown State University—Speaker Mike Johnson will be managing a majority on the edge of one or two seats by the spring. The special election to replace Santos on February 13 will be highly competitive and the GOP can’t bank on retaining that seat.
In early November Rep. Chip Roy took to the House floor to embarrass his fellow Republicans, declaring them useless. In a vein-popping rage he urged his colleagues to come “explain to me one material, meaningful, significant thing the Republican majority has done.”
Like all important votes this year, Johnson had to depend on Democrats to pass the bill. An Axios analysis found the minority party has provided more votes for must-pass legislation this year than the majority has, making Democrats the “shadow majority” of the House.
Rep. Patrick McHenry, who served as interim speaker for a short while after McCarthy was deposed, announced his pending retirement last month and was pretty blunt with Fox News’s Chad Pergram when he said: “We have good years. We’ve got bad years. We’ve had horrible Congresses. And wonderful Congresses. You have meaningful policymaking. And then you have the utter depths of stupidity.”