News, Culture and NPR for Central & Northern Michigan
Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
0:00 0:00
Available On Air Stations

In the new Congress, House Republicans' slim majority gives GOP moderates leverage

MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:

Republicans are entering the new Congress with the slimmest House majority in nearly a century. They may also temporarily lose up to three members because of President-elect Trump's cabinet picks. So House Speaker Mike Johnson will have to walk a tightrope to pass legislation. We're wondering how that's going to work. So we've called Mike Ricci. He served as communications director for the Republican former Maryland Governor Larry Hogan, and he worked under two GOP House speakers. Good morning, Mike.

MIKE RICCI: Good morning.

MARTIN: So when you have a slim majority, every vote counts, but now I'm wondering if some votes count more than others kind of. I mean, is there a group that has more leverage than others? Would it be the most vocal Trump supporters or perhaps people who are more moderate or people who have slightly more purple districts? What do you think?

RICCI: I think that the way - so you probably think about whipping the way that Nancy Pelosi used to do it when she was speaker, where she would get a list of members, and she would call them each individually and basically pound each of them into submission by one. Whereas now, to your point, Republicans follow a much more collegial model, where they basically divide the members up into different groups, and it's almost the reverse. The members come in, and they basically give the leadership their priorities. And it's not about getting their votes. It's about getting their buy-in. Everybody wants to play and be involved.

So the moderates will have a decent amount of leverage, and they'll want to see action on certain tax deductions that affect blue states. The conservatives will want to see where their priorities go. So what the speaker has to do is he has to do a lot of talking. I think he has described himself at one point or another as almost like a therapist because he has to basically listen and listen and try to unlock as many votes as he can before he gets down to the little margins at the end.

So you're going to see the moderates definitely want commitments on taxes. You'll see the conservatives on the other side of things, want commitments on spending cuts, on reforms. And so he has to sort of keep all those frogs in the wheelbarrow and try to try to balance out those priorities. But it's a lot of talking, a lot of meetings, hours and hours on end in conference rooms grinding it out.

MARTIN: Is he good at that?

RICCI: He has gotten better at it. My understanding is that he, you know, when he went through - you may remember last spring, he went through this when Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene was challenging him - challenging his speakership. And he basically was willing to sit and listen for hours and hours. And that is important. It is a big - the speaker has an incredible amount of responsibilities, but his willingness to basically meet with them and to give them that time. It's very important to members. They're very sensitive about that.

MARTIN: Interesting. It's interesting.

RICCI: They do not...

MARTIN: Yeah, it's interesting because President-elect Trump has a very different approach. I mean, he's shown that he is willing to, you know, pressure Republicans...

RICCI: Right.

MARTIN: ...To vote his way he's usually to go. He's willing to go public. He's willing to threaten primaries and so forth. How will the moderates, as you've described them - you know, people kind of have a difference of opinion about whether that's - what that really means in the current environment. But how will the moderates handle this pressure when they're worried - if they're worried about keeping their seats?

RICCI: Yeah, so they - that's one reason why they try to stay in groups - right? - so that not any one individual becomes a lightning rod. But these members, especially the moderates, they are very sensitive. They're human beings. And when you see the outside ecosystem, put pressure on them and threaten them, it's not just about - don't think about it just as, well, what if they get a primary challenge from the right? They're human beings. They're very sensitive. Their families read what people say about them on social media.

So I think what you'll see is - you know, these are battle-tested members. They've been through a lot. But once the pressure starts, what'll happen is, then they'll go back to the speaker and say, hey, you have to call off the dogs, so to speak, and the inside and the outside games start to kind of knock heads against each other. So it'll be interesting to see how the speaker - and really, it does all come back to the speaker because he has - he's the one who has to get these bills through.

The speaker will have to manage the inside versus the outside. But there's no question that once, you know, once the - you know, you're going to see lists. We saw this during the recent Senate majority leader race. You're going to see lists published of members who are hesitant to support Trump bills. And once these lists start going around social media, it's going to get really messy, really fast.

MARTIN: So Speaker Johnson, like former Speaker Kevin McCarthy, had to rely on Democratic votes in the last Congress. It didn't end well for McCarthy. Could that be on the table again? As briefly as you can.

RICCI: That is certainly the case, I think, for the spending bills, especially the one that's due in March because they're going to have such limited numbers until at least April 1, when the first special election is in Florida. But I think, you know, there are 10 Democrats, about 10 Democrats in districts that Trump won, including a few in districts that Trump won twice. So you're going to see there are going to be Democrats who do want to sort of say they supported a Trump bill. But that's another - definitely another thing. But all that's done through back channels.

MARTIN: OK.

RICCI: So we're not going to really, you know, you're not going to see that really till the end...

MARTIN: OK, we have to...

RICCI: ...Of the process.

MARTIN: We have to leave it there for now. And Mike was speaking about the fact that there could be up to three special elections to fill vacancies as Trump fills his administration.

RICCI: Right.

MARTIN: All three are safe GOP seats. That's Republican strategist Mike Ricci. Mike, thank you. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.

NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.

Michel Martin is the weekend host of All Things Considered, where she draws on her deep reporting and interviewing experience to dig in to the week's news. Outside the studio, she has also hosted "Michel Martin: Going There," an ambitious live event series in collaboration with Member Stations.