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Could Congressional Gridlock Lead to More Government Shutdowns?

Congressional gridlock brought on by far-right Republicans now seems more likely to lead to government shutdowns.

The House speaker elections last week turned a typically routine government procedure into a dramatic affair. They also exposed a major vulnerability in Congress: A small segment of lawmakers can stop the process of basic governance to obtain what it wants, with potentially big ramifications for the country.

In the speaker fight, the immediate consequences were relatively small. A Republican speaker, Kevin McCarthy, is leading a majority-Republican House.

More critical is how Republicans got there. McCarthy made concessions that will weaken his power, make it easier for lawmakers to oust him and give the right-wing rank-and-file greater input in legislation and in lawmakers’ assignments to committees, where Congress does much of its work.

The graver consequences will unfold months from now if the ultraconservatives who prolonged the speaker selection again withhold their votes until they have their way on looming spending bills. Congress must pass such legislation to keep the government open and avoid economic calamity. If deadlines for these bills come and go without a resolution, the government could be forced to shut down or, worse, default on its debt obligations, likely triggering a financial crisis. (More on that later.)

The right flank has already connected its opposition to McCarthy to such spending bills. In speeches during the four-day speaker battle, far-right Republicans cited a $1.7 trillion spending bill Congress passed last month to argue that establishment figures, including McCarthy, have failed to reduce government spending. Among the concessions that ultraconservatives drew from McCarthy was a promise that any increase on the country’s debt limit, a congressionally set cap on the federal debt, will be paired with spending cuts.

Some hard-liners have been clear that they would take drastic action again to have their way on spending. “Is he willing to shut the government down rather than raise the debt ceiling? That’s a nonnegotiable item,” said Representative Ralph Norman, a Republican critic of McCarthy who ultimately voted for him.

Haiyun Jiang/The New York Times

The ultraconservatives have said that one of their main goals is to shrink the size of government. “If you don’t stop spending money that we don’t have to fund the bureaucracy that is undermining the American people, we cannot win,” said Representative Chip Roy, a Republican who voted against McCarthy in 11 ballots.

One way to achieve this goal is by pushing Congress toward inaction. Consider some of the assurances the holdout Republicans received from McCarthy: more time to read and debate legislation, as well as to propose unlimited changes to it.

In theory, these changes might sound like common sense, since legislators should, ideally, be taking time to understand and finalize bills. But in practice, these kinds of allowances have slowed Congress’s work, if not halted it altogether, by giving lawmakers more chances to stand in the way of any kind of legislation.

This roadblock is especially likely in a closely divided Congress. Since House Republicans have a slim majority of 222 votes out of 435, they must rely on their right-wing faction to reach a majority in any vote (absent unlikely support from Democrats). Last week, that faction showed it will wield its leverage.

“It’s all about the ability — empowering us to stop the machine in this town from doing what it does,” Roy said.

If the ultraconservatives use these tactics in future legislative debates, Congress could miss deadlines to keep the government open and avoid a financial crisis.

Among the looming fights is one over the debt limit. If the government ever reaches this limit, it can no longer borrow money to pay off its debts, potentially forcing a default. That could cause serious damage to the global financial system, which relies on U.S. Treasuries as a safe investment.

The government is expected to hit the current debt limit in late summer. Republicans have already suggested that they will try to use negotiations over raising it to draw spending concessions from Senate Democrats and the Biden administration, a tactic that conservatives used during Barack Obama’s presidency. But Democrats have said that they will not negotiate over the debt limit this time.

If both sides stick to their word, the government could be on track for the most treacherous debt-limit debate since 2011, my colleague Jim Tankersley reported. That year, Obama and a new Republican House majority nearly defaulted on the nation’s debt before reaching a deal.

Similarly, the government will have to pass a spending bill in September to remain open. Republicans have, again, suggested that they will use their control of the House to reduce government spending. Democrats have said that they will push back. If both sides fall short of an agreement, the government will shut down, halting or slowing functions like the payment of military salaries, environmental or food inspections and the management of national parks.

The battle over the speaker, then, is potentially a preview of what’s to come: a Congress unable to perform even its basic duties because a small segment of lawmakers are willing to say no.

  • History suggests that House Republicans’ plans are likely to bring more gridlock and instability, Carl Hulse writes.

  • House Republicans are preparing to investigate law enforcement and national security agencies.

Evaristo Sa/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
  • Thousands of supporters of Brazil’s former president, Jair Bolsonaro, stormed the country’s Congress and presidential offices over false claims of a rigged election.

  • Brazilian authorities cleared the government offices and arrested at least 200 people, an official said.

  • These videos show how rioters stormed government buildings in protests that resemble the Jan 6., 2021, attack in the U.S.

  • Bolsonaro is believed to be in Florida after spending months promoting the myth of a stolen election.

  • Two buses collided in Senegal, killing at least 40 people.

  • Ultra-Orthodox politicians in Israel are pushing to cement their community’s special status under Benjamin Netanyahu’s new government.

  • Noma, the Copenhagen restaurant rated the world’s best, will close next year. Its chef says its style of dining is unsustainable.

  • President Biden made his first visit to the southern border since taking office.

  • Winds knocked out power for hundreds of thousands of people in Sacramento. More storms are coming to California this week.

  • A new Korean War memorial has many names of American service members misspelled or missing.

  • An avalanche buried and killed two snowmobilers in Colorado, emergency responders said.

  • The Phoenix police are investigating their detention of a Black journalist for The Wall Street Journal who was reporting outside a Chase Bank.

Noncompete clauses lower wages and decrease competitiveness across the economy, says Lina Khan, the Federal Trade Commission chair.

Gail Collins and Bret Stephens discussed the speaker chaos.

Our society is failing visual thinkers, to everyone’s detriment, Temple Grandin writes.

Damar Hamlin’s injury was serious but rare. Head trauma, heart disease and other more common conditions pose greater dangers to football players, Chris Nowinski writes.

Lauren Lancaster for The New York Times

Expensive, treacherous, beautiful: The battle over dirt roads.

A $17,000 delay: A check-in agent’s mistake made her miss an Antarctic cruise.

Metropolitan Diary: Food never tasted as good as it did at 3 a.m.

Quiz time: Take our latest news quiz and share your score (the average was 8.7).

A morning listen: 2022 was Bad Bunny’s year.

Advice from Wirecutter: Stop killing houseplants. Try Lego flowers.

Lives Lived: Russell Banks brought his blue-collar background to bear in novels that vividly portrayed working-class Americans. He died at 82.

Bears’ conundrum: Chicago will pick first overall in the 2023 N.F.L. Draft. Should they take an elite college quarterback or continue building around Justin Fields?

N.F.L.: The Bills, in their first game since Damar Hamlin’s collapse, beat New England. Detroit’s win over Green Bay sent the Seahawks to the playoffs and cemented postseason seeding.

An injury: Kevin Durant injured his right knee in last night’s Nets win over the Heat.

Kathleen Fu

One name you won’t find on the cover of Prince Harry’s memoir, “Spare,” is J.R. Moehringer, the book’s ghostwriter. That’s because the job of ghostwriters — even the famous ones, like Moehringer — is to put ego aside and disappear into their subject’s voice.

Michelle Burford, who has written books for several celebrities, explains to her clients that they provide the materials to build a house and she puts it together. “You own the bricks,” she tells them. “But you — and there should be no shame in this — don’t have the skill set to actually erect the building.”

Moehringer, a Pulitzer Prize-winning former reporter, is known for his intense process. “He’s half psychiatrist,” said the Nike co-founder Phil Knight, who collaborated with Moehringer on his memoir. “He gets you to say things you really didn’t think you would.”

Related: Prince Harry appeared at ease and at times emotional in high-profile interviews.

Romulo Yanes for The New York Times

Broccoli and Cheddar soup has a following on the internet.

In “The Edge of the Plain,” the journalist James Crawford asks whether good fences really make good neighbors.

Seven songs we nearly missed last year, including tracks by Flo, Becky G and Karol G, Monster and Big Flock.

The pangram from yesterday’s Spelling Bee was judicial. Here is today’s puzzle.

Here’s today’s Mini Crossword, and a clue: Vernon Dursley, to Harry Potter (five letters).

And here’s today’s Wordle.


Thanks for spending part of your morning with The Times. See you tomorrow. — German

P.S. Sapna Maheshwari, a Times business reporter, will cover TikTok and emerging media.

Here’s today’s front page.

“The Daily” is about Speaker McCarthy.

Matthew Cullen, Lauren Hard, Lauren Jackson, Claire Moses, Ian Prasad Philbrick, Tom Wright-Piersanti and Ashley Wu contributed to The Morning. You can reach the team at themorning@nytimes.com.

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Source: Elections - nytimes.com


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