Despite the generally underwhelming midterms, Decision Desk HQ officially declared that the GOP had won control of the House of Representatives on Tuesday evening. Currently, Republicans are ahead with 219 races called in their favor, a net of 9 seats, while Democrats sit at 206 races called. 10 seats are still up for grabs.
A majority, no matter how big or small, is still a majority, and we can celebrate the fact that for the next two years we’ll have a divided government. Would it have been great to have the Senate majority too? Yes, there’s no doubt about that. But there are still plenty of good things to be happy about with the House majority.
Payback on committee assignments
Last year Speaker Pelosi and the Democrats stripped Republicans from their committee assignments. It was petty, ridiculous, and a departure from precedent. It was also extremely hypocritical. Efforts by the GOP to boot Democrats from their committee assignments were rejected by the Democrat majority, and as long as House Speaker Kevin McCarthy follows through on his promise, Reps. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), Eric Swalwell (D-Calif.), Maxine Waters (D-Calif.), and Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) will all be stripped of their respective committee assignments.
Roe v. Wade won’t be codified
Joe Biden made a big promise to voters in the run-up to the midterm elections: that the Democratic Party would codify Roe v. Wade into law if they were successful in retaining control of the House and expanding their majority in the Senate by two seats. They failed on both counts.
“I don’t think there’s enough votes to codify, unless something happens unusual in the House. I think we’re going to get very close in the House. I think we’re going to be very close, but I don’t think we’re going to make it,” Joe Biden admitted earlier this week. If the goal of codifying Roe v. Wade wasn’t enough to get enough pro-abortion voters to polls this year to keep the Democrats in control, it likely won’t have an impact in future elections either.
No federal election overhaul
Last year, the Democrat-controlled House passed the Freedom to Vote Act, the John R. Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act, and the For the People Act. Fortunately, they were unable to approve those proposals in the Senate. Through these political laws, mail-in voting, ballot harvesting, and felon voting would all be institutionalized at the federal level. They would also make it easier for Democrats to cheat with various regulations designed to keep them in power — including banning voter photo ID laws. Democrats have also set their sights on abolishing the Electoral College. That’s not going to happen now.
The partisan J6 Committee is toast
Democrats tried and failed to keep the public’s attention set on January 6, and who knows how long the blatantly partisan committee would have kept going if Democrats held onto the House. It’s a moot point now that Republicans have won the House.
Finally, some accountability!
While incoming House Speaker McCarthy has been reluctant to embrace impeaching Joe Biden or Biden administration officials, investigations into administration corruption, Hunter Biden, and the origins of COVID are coming. I suspect this concerned Joe Biden more than anything else about the GOP winning back the majority.
