‘With The Consent of Hakeem Jefferies’: Democrats Will Have Outsize Power, Ex-Congressman Predicts
Infighting and tiniest of majorities will leave Republicans weakened, NY Democrat says
With political infighting among Republicans — and the incredibly tiny majority those Republicans will hold in the new House of Representatives — Democrats will wield power beyond what one might expect from a minority party.
That’s according to a former Democratic congressman from New York.
House Republicans earlier this month offered just the latest example of just how in disarray they truly are, when billionaire Elon Musk nearly derailed must-pass legislation called a continuing resolution, or CR, to fund the federal government.
House Republicans will be working with a majority of perhaps just a single vote for the first several months of the upcoming Congress, as a result of the lawmakers leaving to join Donald Trump’s new administration.
That will leave House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jefferies (D-NY) and his Democratic members with the power to actually shape what emerges from Congress, according to one-time congressman Max Rose.
And this comes as House Republicans will be trying to enact Trump’s far-right agenda.
“We have to remember, there were 38 Republicans that just stood up, a matter of a week or two ago, in open defiance of Donald Trump, the leader of their own party, when it came to voting for this CR because they didn’t want to vote for continued increased government spending. They did that in open rebellion and opposition to Donald Trump, even though they also consider themselves the center of this MAGA base,” said Rose, who represented an Empire State district for a single term between 2019 and 2021 before going to work in the Biden administration. “This was the same group of people that pushed [former House speaker] Kevin McCarthy out. It’s why in many ways the only way that this very slim Republican majority is going to be a able to get anything done that is productive in any way, shape or form in the House, that could pass a filibuster in the Senate — remember, that’s 60 votes — it’s going to be with the consent of Hakeem Jefferies and the rest of the Democratic members of Congress, or at least a majority of those members.
“Doesn’t matter if that’s Speaker [Mike] Johnson or any other speaker, those same dynamics will be in place because you have these 20 or 30 members of the Republican House that basically want to burn the house down. That’s their nature. Does not matter who the speaker is,” Rose added.
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