Jeff Jackson's Christmas Gift

 

I'm going to miss Jeff Jackson in the U.S. House, but I'm going to celebrate Jeff Jackson as North Carolina's new attorney general. Jackson's dispatches from Washington, explaining in plain language what all the sturm und drang added up to, was an education in itself for a populace that needed educating about the habits in Mugstomp-on-the-Potomac.

His last email message came on December 23rd, as he waited for his last flight out of Reagan National Airport in DeeCee back to NC, a summing up of the furious intervention in the passage of a Continuing Resolution and what lies ahead for Speaker Mike Johnson, who has an even smaller governing majority in the House for 2025. I'm happy to excerpt some of it here:

Looking beyond the details, last week fit the same pattern we’ve seen all year:

1. The right-flank opposes a major bill.

2. This forces the Speaker to go to the minority party for votes, which involves making concessions.

3. The right-flank becomes furious over the concessions, neglecting to mention that their initial opposition to the more conservative bill is what forced the Speaker to go to the minority party in the first place.

4. The Speaker allows himself to get torched on TV by his right-flank, knowing that most of what they want from being in Congress is just to elicit anger from a national audience. He doesn’t hit back; he’s a willing punching bag.

5. The right-flank appreciates that he doesn’t hit back, and everyone moves on.

All of which means:

There’s going to be another Speaker fight when the new Congress convenes in a couple weeks, but no matter who the next Speaker is -- and my bet is it remains Mike Johnson -- the defining legislative feature of the next Congress will be the same as the last one: the right-flank’s willingness to deny their Speaker party-line wins and force him to work with the minority party to get big stuff done.