House Republicans aren’t doing such a great job passing all the bills they promised they would, but they sure are holding all the hearings they advertised, and then some. So many hearings—and with so little strategic organization. The Daily Beast reports that five different committees have held hearings on immigration, or, as Republicans invariably say, “the border.” That’s five committees’ worth of Republicans gleefully grandstanding against vulnerable migrants.
It doesn’t stop there. Three committees are looking at U.S. aid to Ukraine. Two committees are holding hearings on the origins of COVID-19, and two committees are holding hearings on the “Twitter files,” Elon Musk’s selective release of documents intended to show that Elon Musk’s far-right buddies have been victimized.
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This is all coming out of three Republican realities. One is that they don’t have their act together to pass legislation. A “border security” bill was supposed to be one of their easy early home runs. But they haven't made it happen, along with a list of other bills they pledged to pass quickly and failed on. Hearings are what they can do when they can’t accomplish anything else.
A second and closely related issue is that they’re disorganized and suffering from weak leadership. When Democrats took control of the House in 2019, a lot of committees wanted to investigate Donald Trump. Then-Speaker Nancy Pelosi had enough control over her committee chairs to avoid a lot of overlapping efforts. Four years later, after the 15 votes it took him to become speaker, and all the deals he struck to get those votes, Kevin McCarthy does not have the juice to tell committee chairs like Jim Jordan or James Comer to back down and let someone else have a turn.
And third, there’s that grandstanding factor. This is not a House Republican conference mostly interested in passing legislation. It’s a group of people wanting to elevate their own profiles and get their moment of glory in the right-wing media. Actually governing? That’s lucky to make the top five priorities for a Jordan or Comer, never mind the likes of Marjorie Taylor Greene or Matt Gaetz.
So hearings it is. And photo ops near the U.S.-Mexico border. Did you see footage of Jordan and members of the Judiciary Committee being shuttled around Arizona, hoping desperately to see migrants trying to cross the border, and think, “Wait, wasn’t this last week?” You’re probably thinking of a different group of Republicans on a different trip. If you saw a hearing featuring testimony from a Yuma, Arizona, hospital executive and felt a sense of déjà vu, it’s probably because that same person testified to both the Judiciary and Homeland Security committees. The two committees were able to locate two different Arizona sheriffs to testify, though—everyone give them a polite round of applause.
House Republicans want their headlines. They want their chance for semi-viral glory, to be shown haranguing Twitter executives or screaming about how much fentanyl is seized at the border, missing the significance of the fact that it was seized. That’s the part of their jobs they really care about. The thing is, the Fox News/Newsmax/OAN base may eat it up, happy to get a constant stream of 30-second clips of Republicans ranting about these things. But it’s not going to convince anyone else that Republicans are a good bet for getting things done in government. If you're an independent voter watching this stream of hearings blur into each other, this is not making you think that Republicans are the party that's going to fix, or care about, your problems.
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Expect shouting and lies and shouted lies as the Jim Jordan show gets going for real