Mike Johnson’s Big Problem: House Republicans Lack a Governing Majority

With a tiny margin in the House, right-wing rebels’ defections and Democratic control of the Senate and White House, the G.O.P. has relied on Democrats to head off calamity, sapping its leverage.

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Speaker Mike Johnson has now twice followed his ousted predecessor’s lead to keep the government funded, infuriating his party’s right wing.

Republicans may control the House, but when it comes to enacting any significant measure this Congress, it has fallen to Democrats to supply the bulk of the votes.

When Speaker Mike Johnson pushed through a stopgap spending bill on Thursday to avert a partial government shutdown, it was the fourth time over the past year that a Republican speaker, facing opposition from his right flank, has had to rely on Democratic votes to push through legislation needed to head off a calamity.

It was the latest sign of a punishing dynamic Mr. Johnson inherited when he won the speakership in the fall. With a minuscule and shrinking majority, a restive right wing willing to defect on major issues, and a Democratic Senate and president, Mr. Johnson is presiding over a House majority in name only — not a governing majority — sapping his leverage.

And his hold on that majority is tenuous at best.

Moments before the temporary spending bill passed on Thursday, it appeared Mr. Johnson might fall just short of mustering the support of a majority of his majority — long the informal but sacrosanct standard for determining what legislation a G.O.P. speaker would put to a vote. It was only at the last second that one Republican lawmaker appeared to switch from “no” to “yes,” pushing him just over the threshold. One hundred and seven Republicans voted for the stopgap bill and 106 opposed it, with Democrats supplying most of the votes — 207 — to push through the bill.

Leaning on such a coalition became a well-worn play for Kevin McCarthy, the former speaker, who used it in May to pull the nation back from the brink of its first default, and again in September to avoid a shutdown.

Stuck between a government shutdown and using the same tactic as his ousted predecessor, Mr. Johnson now has twice followed Mr. McCarthy’s lead to keep the government funded. It is a move that has infuriated hard-right Republicans, who had crowed at the beginning of the year that the party’s thin margin would force the speaker into a coalition government with them. Instead, it has driven two consecutive G.O.P. speakers into the arms of Democrats.

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