Miami University in Ohio is my alma mater. And for decades, Miami\u2019s football teams played on a field which featured a mystifying, archaic, non-digital game clock which nobody \u2013 and I mean nobody \u2013 could understand.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Not even the players and coaches from Miami.<\/p>\n
Most clocks tell time.<\/p>\n
But all that old clock told was ambiguity.<\/p>\n
No one was ever quite sure how many minutes or seconds were left in the game.<\/p>\n
House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., never set foot on Miami\u2019s field. But the clock he\u2019s dealing with in Congress is reminiscent of the bizarre timepiece on the gridiron in Oxford, Ohio.<\/p>\n
Johnson\u2019s held the Speaker\u2019s chair for less than a month. But he is already on the clock. And much like football games at Miami, no one quite knows how to read the clock or how much time is left in the game for Johnson.<\/p>\n
The Speaker maneuvered to pass an interim spending bill last week to avoid a Thanksgiving government shutdown. Johnson did so with a margin nearly identical to that of his predecessor to sidestep a September shutdown. Only that bill cost former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., his job.<\/p>\n
Everyone knew that McCarthy was on the clock this year after it took 15 ballots and parts of five days to elect him Speaker back in January. McCarthy\u2019s clock was far different from the outmoded clock at Miami.<\/p>\n
McCarthy\u2019s clock was a chronograph with quartz movement. Everyone knew it was just a matter of time with McCarthy.<\/p>\n
McCarthy finally won the gavel following the longest Speaker\u2019s election since 1859. But to understand Johnson\u2019s clock management, one only need to examine the failure of a procedural vote on the House floor just before lawmakers abandoned town for the Thanksgiving recess.<\/p>\n
The House was trying to rifle through one more, individual spending bill before the break. This measure would fund Commerce, Justice and Science (CJS) programs. Also on the docket: a bill to freeze $6 billion in Iranian assets the U.S. sent to Tehran as part of a prisoner exchange.<\/p>\n
House Republicans have struggled for weeks to pass even their own appropriations bills. That was a hallmark of McCarthy\u2019s tenure. Things haven\u2019t gotten much better under Johnson. In fact, the GOP leadership has either yanked from the schedule or the House has blocked an astonishing four spending bills during Johnson\u2019s abbreviated Speakership.<\/p>\n
Such was the case last Wednesday when House conservatives teamed with Democrats to bar the House from even beginning debate on the (CJS) appropriations bill and the Iran measure.\u00a0<\/p>\n
With no bill to debate, the House brass pulled the plug and sent everyone home a day-and-a-half earlier than expected.<\/p>\n
\u2018The swamp won,\u2019 said Rep. Chip Roy, R-Tex., about Johnson writing yet another temporary spending bill. But he called Johnson \u2018a good man.\u2019<\/p>\n
Still, Roy was just heating up.<\/p>\n
\u00a0\u2018Republican voters are tired of promises to fight. We want to actually see change,\u2019 barked Roy on the House steps.<\/p>\n
A few minutes later, Roy was inside, ranting on the House floor. Roy\u2019s voice cracked in anger as he bellowed about Johnson\u2019s bipartisan gambit to fund the government.<\/p>\n
\u2018I want my Republican colleagues to give me one thing \u2013 one \u2013 that I can go campaign on and say we did! Anybody sitting in the (Capitol) complex, if you want to come down to the floor and come explain to me one material, meaningful, significant thing the Republican majority has done besides \u2018Well, I guess it\u2019s not as bad as the Democrats,\u2019\u2019 beseeched Roy.<\/p>\n
The Texas Republican had no takers.<\/p>\n
Except perhaps by Democrats.<\/p>\n
Republicans might not have a lot to show for their efforts. But considering the chaos on the GOP side of the aisle \u2013 punctuated by the three-week vacancy in the Speakership \u2013 Democrats will likely deploy Roy\u2019s diatribe about the dearth of GOP accomplishments in every political ad for competitive House contests next year.<\/p>\n
Roy was relentless in his criticism of how Republicans quickly reverted to old ways under Johnson. That\u2019s why he and other conservatives torched the provision for the House to consider the spending bill and Iran measure.<\/p>\n
\u2018We went through an entire month without a Speaker and we just did the same damn thing that we\u2019re doing,\u2019 exploded Roy. \u2018I didn\u2019t come here for more excuses. I didn\u2019t come here to have the Speaker of the House assume the position and\u00a0in 17 days, pass a continuing resolution (the interim spending plan) on the floor of this House through suspension of the rules.\u2019<\/p>\n
Johnson used a procedure called \u2018suspension of the rules\u2019 to approve the emergency spending plan because Roy and other right-wing members would have blocked the House from considering the \u2018rule\u2019 required to put a bill on the floor. The House must first approve a \u2018rule\u2019 before it considers most major pieces of legislation. No rule? Then no debate on the floor.<\/p>\n
That is, unless you go around the rule and consider the measure as a suspension bill.\u00a0<\/p>\n
House Freedom Caucus Chairman & Rep. Scott Perry, R-Penn., described the CJS\/Iran bill as \u2018very, very, weak.\u2019<\/p>\n
Rep. Anna Paulina Luna, R-Fla., was more strident.<\/p>\n
\u2018We\u2019re going to make sure that he follows through on what he said he was going to do,\u2019 said Luna of Johnson.<\/p>\n
Yours truly asked Johnson why the Speaker\u2019s two-step spending plan \u2018didn\u2019t seem to satisfy some of the arch-conservatives in your caucus.\u2019<\/p>\n