With the Republican majority dwindling, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) has said that the House GOP’s “chaos” and “dysfunction” has “effectively” given Democrats the majority.
Mr. Jeffries made the comments during a May 6 interview with Norah O'Donnell for CBS’s “60 Minutes.”
During the exchange, Mr. Jeffries contended that the Democrats have direct control of the House because of the disintegration of the Republican majority.
“Even though we’re in the minority, we effectively have been governing as if we were in the majority because we continue to provide a majority of the votes necessary to get things done,” Mr. Jeffries said. “Those are just the facts.”
“It’s a difficult situation on the other side of the aisle because many of my Republican colleagues are more interested in creating chaos, dysfunction, and extremism.”
Just five Republicans make up the House majority, if all are present, so the Republican majority can afford to lose only one vote to the Democrat side, meaning that House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) has little room to pass contentious legislation without involving Democrats.
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) has criticized Mr. Johnson for forming a “uniparty” by collaborating with Democrats and threatened to remove the speaker from office.
Democrats and Mr. Jeffries have pledged to defend Mr. Johnson in the face of Ms. Greene’s request to vacate.
Mr. Johnson will likely face the vote to take his gavel within a few days.
However, House Democrat leadership announced on April 30 that they would vote to save Mr. Johnson, should Ms. Greene activate her motion to vacate.
They cited the House GOP leader’s recent help in passing $95 billion in foreign aid to Ukraine, Israel, and the Indo-Pacific that had been stalled for months.
“If she invokes the motion, it will not succeed,” Mr. Jeffries, Minority Whip Katherine Clark (D-Conn.), and Democratic Caucus Chair Pete Aguilar (D-Calif.) said in a joint statement.
In March, in response to Mr. Johnson’s initiative to secure broad Democrat support for $1.2 trillion in government financing, Ms. Greene presented a motion to vacate that she characterized as a “warning” or “a pink slip.”
Since then, two other Republicans have publicly backed the motion: Reps. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) and Paul Gosar (R-Ariz.).
Undeterred by the speakership’s backing, Ms. Greene appears ready to move forward, telling reporters: “I believe in recorded votes. That is our job—our job is to vote.”
“If this vote fails,” she said, “that’s a list of names—and the voters and the American people ... they deserve that list.”
The speaker said in a statement on May 1, “This motion is wrong for the Republican conference, wrong for the institution, and wrong for the country.”
Rank and file Democrats are reportedly divided, being told by their leadership to vote their conscience on the issue.
Rep. Gerald Connolly (D-Va.) told reporters he was hesitant to support the Republican speaker, saying: “If you’re asking me do I believe Democrats should help Mike Johnson, I do not ... he is very right-wing. I don’t know why I'd support that.
“Frankly, if he stays in office at the sufferance of Democrats, he’s a marked man in his own party,” he added.
Rep. Delia Ramirez (D-Ill.) spoke even more harshly about the issue, saying: “Mike Johnson is absolutely against everything that I believe in.
“There is no way I would vote for someone like him to be able to stay in his seat.
“Let the Republicans, and maybe others do that, but that won’t be me.”
