Democrats Gird for GOP House Majority (Dreamstime)
By Charlie McCarthy | Monday, 19 September 2022 09:16 AM EDT
Democrats are predicting legislative gridlock if Republicans win control of the House in November.
"If Republicans win control of the House, they will not be able to govern," said Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., a senior member of the Senate Appropriations Committee, The Hill reported.
"It'll be a cascading nightmare of dysfunction and horrible for the country and horrible news for anybody who relies on federal funding."
Another Democrat senator told The Hill that if Republicans capture the House, it will yield "a series of investigations" of the Biden administration.
"Many want to impeach Joe Biden. It would be a recipe for chaos and for gridlock," said the lawmaker, who requested anonymity.
"There will be ways. They're not all crazy. Some of them are," Senate Banking Committee Chairman Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, said of House Republicans.
It was unclear whether such comments were meant more to be campaign rhetoric or about what is seen as occurring with recent polls showing the GOP favored to regain control of the chamber in the midterms.
Democrats currently appear confident they will retain Senate control, meaning President Joe Biden could be working with a divided Congress.
FiveThirtyEight.com gives Republicans a 7 in 10 chance of winning the House majority and Democrats a 7 in 10 chance of keeping control of the Senate.
Besides that, House Minority Leader Rep. Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., in line to become speaker if the GOP wins the chamber, is more allied with former President Donald Trump than Senate Republican leader Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky.
Not a single House Republican voted to raise the debt ceiling in October — Trump called on Republicans to block the legislation — and it fell to McConnell and his leadership team to help Democrats keep the government fulfilling its debt obligations.
Trump blasted McConnell for compromising with Democrats, arguing that Republicans should have sought to cripple Biden's agenda.
House conservatives have signaled they will attempt to block funding for the Internal Revenue Service to hire an estimated 87,000 new employees, which was provided for in Biden's health care and climate legislation signed last month.
Senate Democrats said they hope standoffs and threatened shutdowns will be avoided.
"I think we've learned that shutdowns really are a lose-lose [proposition]," said Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., The Hill reported. "Certainly some House Republicans have learned. Whether all of them or the newly elected ones remains to be seen."