Meanwhile, in Congress
Mike Johnson’s House majority is falling apart. But we can’t say we didn’t see this coming.
When your best strategy to prevent a discharge petition from advancing is to keep the House in perpetual recess, you’re telegraphing that you cannot manage your conference.
House leaders typically have little difficulty keeping their members from joining with the minority to force a vote on something the leadership dislikes. They have sweeteners and sticks they can use to persuade members to remain inside the party tent.
That’s why discharge petitions rarely succeed, and why it was such a blow to Mike Johnson when the House defied him and approved the discharge petition requiring a vote on legislation mandating the Department of Justice release the Epstein Files last fall.
And it’s why the scenes we saw on the Hill this week reflected how Johnson has lost control of his slender majority.
Three things in particular stand out.
