House GOP majority losing its cushion in several areas
And then there were two. With Democrat Tom Suozzi's victory in a special House election in New York on Tuesday, the shrinking Republican majority in the House was on track to dwindle even further, leaving the GOP able to afford only two defections from the party line on votes when all members are present.
That will give them almost no cushion to deal with the inevitable absences caused by illness, travel delays, weddings, funerals and unforeseen events that could keep Republicans away from the House floor for votes. It comes as Congress is facing a crush of issues, including earlyMarch deadlines for funding the government and a pending emergency national security spending bill to send aid to Ukraine, Israel and other U.S. allies.
It also gives each individual House Republican even more leverage over Speaker Mike Johnson, who is already struggling to steer his unmanageable majority.
The dangers of the slim margin were already apparent on Tuesday night, even before Suozzi won the Long Island seat formerly occupied by George Santos, the Republican lawmaker who was expelled from the House in December.
In their second attempt to impeach Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, Republicans succeeded by just one vote after three of their members broke with the party to oppose it. If either of the two Democrats who were absent had shown up, the impeachment that Republicans had been promising their voters for more than a year would have failed again. (The two Democratic absentees were Rep. Judy Chu of California, who said she was isolating after testing positive for the coronavirus, and Rep. Lois Frankel of Florida, who was grounded by a delayed flight.)
When Suozzi is sworn in Feb. 28, after the House's upcoming recess, Republicans will hold 219 seats to Democrats' 213. That puts the GOP down three seats from when they won a narrow majority in November 2022, after a combination of coincidence, scandal, health issues and political turmoil that has whittled away at their numbers.
On Wednesday, as they prepared for their majority to shrink yet again, some Republicans were ruing the decision by their colleagues to expel Santos, who served as a reliable Republican vote in Congress despite being a serial fabulist, a figure of national ridicule and the subject of a 23-count federal indictment.
The minuscule majority will be Johnson's reality for the coming year. In April, Democrats are likely to fill a safe seat that was occupied by Rep. Brian Higgins, DN.Y., who left Congress this month to become president of the Shea Performing Arts Center. That seat won't change the margin of control, but will allow even less room for Republican absences.