As this week got underway, the House Republican Conference had 220 members, giving the GOP a narrow majority in the chamber. On Monday, that total dropped to 219, as then-Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia resigned (right after she became eligible for a congressional pension).
One day later, that total fell again when a member died unexpectedly. My MS NOW colleague Mychael Schnell reported:
Republican Rep. Doug LaMalfa of California has died, House Majority Whip Tom Emmer announced Tuesday morning. […]
LaMalfa, who represented California’s 1st Congressional District, was a fourth-generation rice farmer and a native Northern Californian, according to his congressional bio. He served in the California state Assembly and state Senate before being elected to the U.S. House in 2012.
LaMalfa’s death leaves House Speaker Mike Johnson with a 218-member conference — in a chamber where 218 is the bare minimum for a majority.
Complicating matters further, Republican Rep. Jim Baird recently suffered serious injuries in a car accident, and while the Indiana congressman is expected to recover and to return to his duties, he will not be available for votes in the near future.
In practical terms, on party-line votes, Republicans now have a two-vote margin — and that’s with full attendance, which isn’t altogether common in an election year. With Baird sidelined, that shrinks the party’s margin to one. With Republican Rep. Thomas Massie of Kentucky routinely voting against his party’s proposals, GOP leaders have effectively no margin at all. What’s more, conditions for the majority party are likely to get worse before they get better. While Greene and LaMalfa are likely to be replaced by Republicans, the special elections to fill their vacancies are still months away. On the other hand, later this month, voters will replace the late Democratic Rep. Sylvester Turner in one of Texas’ bluest districts, increasing the Democratic conference to 214 members and narrowing the House GOP’s advantage even more. Hanging overhead, meanwhile, is recent scuttlebutt that other current House Republicans, including New York’s Elise Stefanik and South Carolina’s Nancy Mace, are weighing possible resignations before their terms end. By any fair measure, 2025 was exceedingly difficult for Johnson and his fellow House GOP leaders. There are fresh reasons to believe 2026 will be worse.
Steve Benen is a producer for "The Rachel Maddow Show," the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He's also the bestselling author of "Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans' War on the Recent Past."
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