Congress is officially back in Washington today, and the atmosphere on Capitol Hill is as tense as I’ve ever seen. The week after the 2016 election, Democrats sulked around in public while they made plans in private to counter the erratic incoming president. This time, they’re both sulking and planning way harder, despite having very limited options given the incoming Republican trifecta. Things are going to get more fraught as we roll towards 2025. If you want to keep up with the chaotic new administration, the pushback to its policies, and the legislative upshot of a consolidated MAGA government, sign up for Bulwark+. We’re in for some wild twists, but I’ll do my best to keep your head on straight. Today’s edition starts off with President-elect Donald Trump, who, fresh from his successful campaign, is taking aim at his own feet. His quick-draw nominations of two House Republicans to roles in his administration could complicate the slim GOP majority in the lower chamber, especially if there are more call-ups to come. In addition, Chuck Schumer is now tasked with confirming as many judges to lifetime appointments as he and other Senate Democrats can before Republicans take control of the chamber in January. We’ll then take a look beyond the Capitol to check in with the Democratic governors who are already preparing to defend their state prerogatives from the incoming administration. All that and more, below. House Republicans to Trump: Stop Picking UsPlus: The Senate is racing to confirm Biden’s judicial nominees.
Since winning the 2024 election, President-elect Donald Trump has wasted no time in staffing up his new administration. House Republicans have been asked to fill key roles: He tapped Reps. Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.) to serve as Ambassador to the United Nations and Mike Waltz (R-Fla.)¹ to be his national security advisor, and according to CNN, he’s not done poaching from the lower chamber yet. There’s one problem: Taking Republicans out of the House reduces the size of their majority, which is already thin enough to make the designers at Brandy Melville jealous. If Trump keeps it up, there might not even be a Republican House majority anymore. The possibility that Trump might shave the majority is becoming an urgent concern for top Republicans. In a press conference this morning, House Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-La.) told reporters:
House Speaker Mike Johnson also said he and Trump have “talked about this multiple times a day for the last several days,” adding:
Decision Desk called the House majority for Republicans on Monday. While ballots are still being counted in a few races, even if the GOP catches some good late breaks in the final tallies, their incoming majority will be slight. Each House Republican nominated and confirmed to an administration position will resign and leave a seat open until a special election is held to fill it. (This isn’t like the Senate, where governors can appoint replacements for lawmakers who do not complete their terms.) Special elections for vacated House seats can take anywhere from several weeks to a couple months to be completed. It’s also worth noting that Democrats have had some recent success in specials—and the party out of power tends to do better in them. With a small majority, the math of the chamber can be easily thrown off by illnesses, deaths, and even delayed flights, as Johnson mentioned. The 118th Congress had two deaths (Reps. Sheila Jackson Lee and Bill Pascrell), and there were also quite a few illnesses that sidelined lawmakers for weeks at a time. In other words: Trump’s playing with a bit of fire. The Chuck stops hereOutgoing Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) is gearing up for what could be the most consequential few weeks of his career. Schumer’s last, most important task before the 118th Congress concludes is to push the Senate to confirm Biden’s outstanding judicial nominees as fast as possible. These positions are primarily lifetime appointments that the incoming Trump administration cannot disrupt, and they would serve as a blockade to many of the aggressive and questionable policies the new administration is eager to implement. (Of note: Trump and Senate Republicans did the same at the tail end of 2020, confirming, among other judges, one Aileen Cannon.) “We are going to get as many done as we can,” Schumer said in a statement. Later this afternoon, the Senate will vote on April Perry to become district judge for the Northern District of Illinois. If confirmed, Perry will serve a lifetime appointment. She was previously nominated to be U.S. attorney in the same district, but Vice President–elect JD Vance blocked her confirmation in September. In an op-ed for Time, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) outlined ways Democrats and others can use the final weeks of the year to preemptively limit the authoritarian excesses of the incoming administration:
Warren added that “Democrats should also acknowledge that seeking a middle ground with a man who calls immigrants ‘animals’ and says he will ‘protect’ women ‘whether the women like it or not’ is unlikely to land in a good place. Uniting against Trump’s legislative agenda is good politics because it is good policy.” Progressive groups are also pushing the last-minute dash to confirm Biden’s judicial nominees. “The reality is that we now have a rapidly closing window to confirm well-qualified, fair-minded judges who will protect our rights and serve as one of the last guardrails in upholding our nation’s laws and the Constitution,” said Demand Justice’s managing director, Maggie Jo Buchanan, in a statement published shortly after it became apparent the Senate would come under Republican control in January. There are currently 47 vacancies with 17 pending nominations. Of the vacancies, six are in states held by two Democratic senators in addition to vacancies in the District of Columbia. Governors without governorsAs Democratic lawmakers on Capitol Hill strategize and plan for Trump 2.0, in governors’ mansions across the country, other members of the party are preparing their own responses to a radically changed federal government. The emerging strategy among Democratic governors is to fortify their states into bastions of liberalism, places where the federal government’s authority runs into hard stops everywhere it turns. After the election was called, California governor Gavin Newsom summoned the state assembly to a special session that will begin on December 2. The plan for the session includes “several urgent priorities to be defended . . . by bolstering legal defenses against federal actions,” including by providing additional resources to the California Department of Justice to counter the Trump administration and “support the ability to immediately file litigation and seek injunctive relief against unlawful federal actions.” “The freedoms we hold dear in California are under attack—and we won’t sit idle,” Newsom said in a statement. “California has faced this challenge before, and we know how to respond. We are prepared, and we will do everything necessary to ensure Californians have the support and resources they need to thrive.” Given the Democratic party’s power in his state, Newsom has the most leeway to play the role of Trump’s great antagonist. But he has the least amount of time. Newsom’s final term will end in just two years, and after that, he will be on his own—free to get a jumpstart on his own presidential campaign, as many expect him to do. The Democratic governors of Illinois and Colorado intend to use their powers to push back on the incoming Trump administration as well. Discussing his efforts to protect rights that could be under threat in his state during a second Trump term, Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker struck an adversarial note: “You come for my people, you come through me.” Colorado Governor Jared Polis put things in less pointed terms, but he was no less firm: “no matter what . . . we will do everything in our power to protect all Coloradans and our freedoms.” Additional Democratic states are likely to follow these examples. Democrats aren’t traditionally the ones pushing the notion of states’ rights. But Trump’s presidency will put their governors in a place where that now becomes a rallying cry—and, perhaps, a political springboard. Thinking cynically for a moment, this situation will create opportunities for anyone who has an eye on 2028, which is certain to be another pivotal election year. But let’s be honest. No one in their right mind wants to think about that just yet. Just politicians and journalists—like I said, no one in their right mind. 1 You may recall a recent edition of Press Pass in which I reported that Waltz made the most appearances on Fox News weekday programming of any member of the House during the 118th Congress. It looks like all that airtime paid off. You’re a free subscriber to Bulwark+. For unfettered access to all our newsletters and ad-free and member-only podcasts, become a paying subscriber. Did you know? You can update your newsletter preferences as often as you like. To update the list of newsletter or alerts you received from The Bulwark, click here.
|
House Republicans to Trump: Stop Picking Us
November 12, 2024
0
