The Republicans do not have a mandate

On November 23, 2024By Littum

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (DN.Y.) on Tuesday rejected the idea that voters delivered an Election Day mandate to Donald Trump and Republicans, arguing that the GOP’s razor-thin majority in the House means nothing will get done in Washington without Democratic support.

“Despite the claims of some of my Republican colleagues, who have spent a lot of time over the last two weeks talking about a big, massive mandate — I’m looking for it,” Jeffries said during a news briefing at the Capitol.

The comments were a shot at Republicans, who, after winning control of the House, Senate and White House in the next Congress, have claimed broad powers to pursue a strongly conservative political agenda.

That includes Trump, who used his election-night victory speech to claim “an unprecedented and powerful mandate,” and Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.), who argued Tuesday that voters gave Trump the authority to sit in his preferred Cabinet picks — regardless of any controversy swirling around them.

“President Trump is looking for people who will shake up the status quo, and we got a mandate in this election cycle to do that,” Johnson told reporters at the Capitol. “The status quo is not working for the American people. And so these are individuals who are going to step in and bring real reforms — significant reforms — to the agencies they lead.”

Jeffries, who was re-elected to lead House Democrats in the next Congress on Tuesday, promises to work with the incoming administration on areas of common interest, while vowing a fight if Republicans try to cut back on Democrats’ sacred cows, including abortion rights. and benefits under Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and ObamaCare.

“We will push back against right-wing extremism when necessary,” Jeffries said.

House Democrats are likely to have some influence in the upcoming political battles. While Republicans will control all levers of power in Washington next year, GOP leaders have struggled repeatedly to unite their warring troops to pass even the most fundamental bills, such as funding the federal government.

Those difficulties are expected to continue in the next Congress, even with an ally in the White House, as GOP leaders seek to move Trump’s ambitious — and expensive — legislative agenda in the face of expected opposition from conservative deficit hawks. While Republicans held House control in this month’s elections, their majority will be razor-thin, as it has been throughout the current Congress. And the Senate filibuster ensures that Democrats, even if relegated to the minority in the next Congress, will also retain significant influence over most bills moving through the upper chamber.

That combination, Jeffries said Tuesday, means Democrats will have plenty of legislative clout in the next Congress — contradicting the GOP’s claim for a mandate.

“The question of this notion of some mandate to make massive far-right political changes — it doesn’t exist. It doesn’t exist,” Jeffries said.

“And so in the new Congress, for something to happen — especially as it relates to an informed spending deal or making sure America doesn’t default on our debt and crash the economy and hurt ordinary Americans for the first time in our nation’s history — It’s clear , that Republicans can’t do it on their own.”

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