The 119th Congress of the United States will officially sit for the first time on Jan. 3, 2025—marking the official close of the particularly tumultuous and divided 118th Congress.

The Congress was defined by ideological splits among House Republicans, whose narrow majority meant that everything—from who held the speaker’s gavel to how the government would be funded—was on the line, and Republicans needed broad agreement to advance any course of action.

With President Joe Biden in the White House and Democrats in control of the upper chamber, partisan divisions were also especially pronounced.

While Republicans mounted investigations into the administration and executive officials, Democrats broke records in the Senate for judicial confirmations.

Aside from the compromise deals that resulted from House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) and House Speaker Mike Johnson’s (R-La.) negotiations with Democrats—largely related to financial issues—there were few major legislative agreements during this Congress.

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Splits between conservatives and moderates have always defined the party. With such a narrow margin in the House, the impact of these divisions was substantially magnified. Republicans could only afford a small handful of defections on partisan votes. That meant that members of both major GOP factions were able to hold an outsized influence on the most controversial bills.

Those dubbed moderates—members like Reps. Mike Lawler (R-N.Y.), John Duarte (R-Calif.), Juan Ciscomani (R-Ariz.), and others—showed a willingness to break with their party when they thought the majority was pushing too far.

The conservatives—members like Reps. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.), Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.), and Cory Mills (R-Fla.)—pushed for leadership to go further in forcing financial and other concessions from Democrats.

These splits were compounded by irregular but impactful interventions by then-candidate Donald Trump, who enjoys a far greater influence in the House than in the Senate.

In the House Rules Committee, which considers the rules governing votes and debate on bills, conservatives like Reps. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.), Ralph Norman (R-S.C.), and Chip Roy (R-Texas) often tanked legislation that came before the panel.

Massie opposed a short-term spending bill in September intended to avert a government shutdown. The bill later passed under suspension.

Suspension of the rules, under which a bill can pass the House without passing the Rules Committee, became a mainstay in the 118th Congress due to the challenges posed by Massie, Norman, and Roy on the Rules panel.

A recognized leader in the House Republican conference since the early 2010s, McCarthy was considered the heir apparent to the speakership on the day the 118th Congress first sat.

However, many Republicans were unhappy with McCarthy. His most prominent critic was Gaetz, with others like Roy, Norman, Rep. Bob Good (R-Va.), and others opposing the California Republican.

McCarthy’s conservative credentials were questioned, and he was seen by his critics as too aligned with the establishment and unable to effectively lead GOP opposition to the Biden administration.

The votes dragged on for days, raising questions about McCarthy’s ability to win.

Ultimately, Gaetz and other holdouts relented, voting “present.”

But that came at a cost, as these conservatives forced several key concessions from McCarthy—a return to the one-member motion to vacate the chair, seats on the Rules Committee for conservatives, and budget-related concessions.

While McCarthy was able to clinch a narrow victory, it may have been a pyrrhic one in the end—and it set the tone for the 118th House moving forward.

In 2023, the House GOP passed the Limit, Save, Grow Act to lift the debt ceiling by $1.5 trillion while implementing significant fiscal and other reforms.

Even conservative Republicans backed it due to its features: clawing back COVID funds, reducing energy regulations, revoking green energy, and strengthening some federal welfare requirements.

However, this package was unable to pass Congress due to Democrats’ opposition. Instead,

Congress ultimately agreed to the Fiscal Responsibility Act—a compromise between McCarthy and Biden—to suspend the debt ceiling until January 2025.

Aside from suspending the debt ceiling, it reclaimed unspent COVID funds, capped non-defense discretionary spending, strengthened federal welfare requirements, and streamlined energy permitting.

This bill—which 71 Republicans opposed—further disenchanted some Republicans with McCarthy’s handling of the speakership.

To fund the government every year, each chamber of Congress must pass 12 appropriations bills by Sept. 30 to keep agencies running. Failure to do so triggers a government shutdown, when only essential services and personnel are retained.

But many conservative House Republicans take a firm stance against any spending they perceive to be wasteful and have historically refused to back government funding plans that could win Democrats’ support.

That made it difficult to reach an agreement on any of the funding bills—particularly as the Democratic Senate was opposed to substantial spending cuts.

This led leadership to rely on a slate of stopgap government funding bills, dubbed a “continuing resolution” (CR) in Washington-talk.

The year 2024 saw multiple  CRs passed, the latest of which squeaked through on Dec. 20, just hours before the deadline.

The CR passed on Dec. 20 was the “plan C” version of the bill, which extends government funding until March 14. The first attempt was a massive 1500-page package that failed amid opposition by Trump and others; the second was much shorter, coming in at 118 pages.

It didn’t include any provisions related to the debt ceiling, a last-minute demand put forward by Trump in an effort to avoid a showdown on the issue during his term.

During his relatively short time in the speaker’s chair, McCarthy faced heightened scrutiny from conservative Republicans, who felt he had failed to win acceptable concessions from Democrats or to fight on budget issues.

After McCarthy backed a continuing resolution on Sept. 30, 2023, these criticisms came to a head.

Gaetz, an outspoken McCarthy critic, brought to the floor a motion to vacate the speaker’s chair. That motion was possible only through a rule change that allowed a single member to bring such a resolution to the floor—one of the multiple rule changes McCarthy agreed to in order to win the job.

Seven other Republicans joined all Democrats to oust McCarthy, who became the first-ever speaker to be deposed by the mechanism.

This led to three weeks of paralysis as Republicans tried to find a replacement. Three candidates, including Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-La.), House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), and Majority Whip Tom Emmer (R-Minn.) each unsuccessfully sought the top spot.

Ultimately, Rep. Mike Johnson (R-La.)—until then a little-known lawmaker—was able to win enough support to be named speaker, in part, Republicans have said, because his personality made him popular with moderates and conservatives alike.

McCarthy ultimately left Congress in December 2023.

In May, it looked as though Johnson too might be removed, a push led this time by Greene; as in the case of McCarthy, Greene’s resolution was based on Johnson’s decision to pursue a CR with Democrats.

However, Greene’s effort didn’t gain momentum, and it failed after Democrats joined Republicans to table the motion to vacate.

The 10-month effort was in response to the Pentagon funding travels for servicewomen to get an abortion in response to the Supreme Court’s overturning of Roe v. Wade. Tuberville said that this violated existing rules against using government funds for abortions.

Military promotions for high-ranking members require Senate approval. Usually, this is given relatively easily unless a senator places a hold. Tuberville’s hold would have required the Senate to consider each of the hundreds of nominations—which eventually exceeded 400 people—one by one.

Democrats decried Tuberville’s initiative, but Republicans were mixed.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) called the holds “a mistake.” House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Michael McCaul (R-Texas) shared the position, saying that the holds were “paralyzing” the Pentagon.

These critics were concerned that the holds would have a net negative impact on national security by preventing the military from filling essential, vacant positions.

Tuberville ultimately caved, dropping most of his holds amid pressure from other Republicans but keeping a handful of holds on four-star generals.

The Pentagon did not change its abortion travel policy.

Specifically, debates centered around Section 702 of FISA, which permits the government to conduct warrantless surveillance of foreigners. However, in practice, it also captures information on Americans with whom the foreign target communicates.

The FBI has since made reforms to the program, and the intelligence community maintains that Section 702 is a vital tool for national security and countering foreign espionage operations.

Still, many lawmakers from both parties, citing civil liberty concerns, were hesitant to extend the program without substantial reforms. Many demanded a warrant be required for any querying of American data.

Ultimately, the 118th Congress agreed in April 2024 to a two-year extension with some reforms. No changes were made to warrant requirements.

Punting the issue off means that it will next come up around April 2026.

On Dec. 1, 2023, New York Republican George Santos was expelled from the House of Representatives in a 311–114 vote following a House Ethics report alleging he misused campaign funds and lied on Federal Election Commission paperwork.

He also was indicted for allegedly using campaign funds for personal use.

Santos is best known for his multitude of lies about his biography, including fabricating Jewish ancestry and falsely claiming his mother was at the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001.

Santos was the sixth member ever expelled from Congress.

Santos and some other Republicans were critical of the move to expel him, saying it stripped him of due process since he had yet to be convicted of a crime when the resolution passed.

These efforts began practically as soon as the 118th Congress first sat, with McCarthy announcing the formation of a Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government under Jordan’s Judiciary Committee.

Republicans considered that the Biden administration had overreached its authority and had politically targeted conservatives using law enforcement; Democrats on the panel, meanwhile, claimed that there was no such targeting.

That comes after a joint report by three GOP committees in August accused Biden of impeachable offenses by engaging in an influence-peddling scheme with his son Hunter Biden. Biden has persistently denied any wrongdoing.

When Attorney General Merrick Garland refused to turn over audio tapes of the president’s interview in a special counsel probe into his handling of classified documents, the House voted to hold Garland in contempt of Congress.

The year 2024 also saw the impeachment of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas by the House, based on the allegations that he had refused to enforce the law and breached public trust through his handling of the southern border.

The Biden administration called that effort “unprecedented and unconstitutional,” and Democrats said that the existence of a crisis at the border didn’t legally justify removing Mayorkas from office. The Senate quickly dismissed both impeachment articles.

The effort passed the House along party lines by one vote, and failed in the Democrat-led Senate where it would need a two-thirds majority to succeed.

Recently-deceased former President Jimmy Carter still holds the record for the most confirmations in a single term at 262.

The slate of Biden-appointed judges makes up around one-eighth of the entire federal judiciary, allowing the outgoing president to leave his stamp on the third branch of government for years to come.

It’s possible Republicans will take up the issue again in the next Congress in an effort to offset the residual impact of Biden’s nominees on the court system.