Rep. Jim McGovern (D-MA), the ranking member on the House Rules Committee, unleashed on Republicans Thursday night during a hearing in which he labeled the Republican majority “the most ineffective, incompetent majority” the country has ever seen.
“This is the most ineffective, incompetent majority, I think, in American history. Full stop,” McGovern said. “It has been nearly an entire year since anything that we have done in the Rules Committee has gone to the president’s desk and the last time it did happen, it was with Democratic votes.”
He continued: “Republicans have tried and failed to pass their own rules seven times this Congress. Seven times. This House has been stuck at a standstill because of their infighting. Before this Congress, it had been 20 years since a rule failed. It’s been 50 years – half a century – since we’ve seen this many rules go down. And Republicans have done it seven times. One or two, three times maybe that’s just incompetence. But seven! Seven is a disaster. Seven is paralysis. It means weeks and weeks of sitting around doing nothing because Republicans can’t get their house in order and do their job.”
This Congress has in fact being one of the most unproductive in the country’s history with about 20 bills passed last year, Axios reported, citing data from analytics firm Quorum.
Legislative business in the House has been brought to a standstill due to Republicans razor-thin majority in the chamber and infighting.
The House was without a Speaker for weeks last year after Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) was removed from the position. McCarthy’s ouster resulted in current Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) being elected to the role. Johnson is now facing his own removal threat from Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.)
The dysfunction in House has caused lawmakers like former Colorado Rep. Ken Buck to leave Congress early narrowing the GOP majority to two votes. The majority will be down to just one vote when Rep. Mike Gallagher (R-Wis.) steps down later this month.
