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    • What is at stake for the Republican Party to retain the House of Representatives for Trump’s second term?
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    What is at stake for the Republican Party to retain the House of Representatives for Trump’s second term?

    Vaseline Posted on

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    WASHINGTON – Republicans appear poised to retain the House of Representatives and cement the Republican Party’s full control of Capitol Hill for the next two years as President-elect Donald Trump returns to Washington.

    It’s still possible for Democrats to flip the 435-seat chamber if they emerge victorious in prime races in districts in California, Arizona and Oregon. But the GOP has the edge.

    Democrats initially did well by catapulting a handful of suburban New York Republicans out of office. However, those gains were offset by the Republican Party flipping seats to Democrats in Michigan and Pennsylvania, as Vice President Kamala Harris saw crucial losses in swing states.

    On Sunday morning, an Associated Press count showed that Democrats had 202 seats, while Republicans claimed 212 seats, meaning the Republican Party only needs to win six more seats to maintain the smallest majority in the House, while Democrats need 16.

    House Democrats have urged patience as results trickle in among these states, while House Republicans have expressed optimism that the final districts will find their way.

    “We must count every vote and wait for the results in Oregon, Arizona and California to be clear,” House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, the likely next speaker if Democrats win, said in a statement on 7 November.

    The lack of a result nearly a week after Election Day is frustrating some Republican lawmakers. They have claimed without evidence that states were “slow walking” results.

    “Every congressional district has about the same number of voters,” Rep. Andy Barr, R-Ky., said on X, formerly Twitter.

    “So there is absolutely no excuse for the slow counting of ballots in Arizona and California over the weeks after the election ended. I knew the outcome of my election a few hours – not weeks – after the polls closed. “

    States follow different procedures for counting ballots after Election Day, with some states relying more on mail-in ballots and other voting options. It is not proof that anything went wrong during races.

    But what would happen if the Democrats narrowly captured the House of Representatives instead of the Republicans? What would it potentially mean for Trump’s second term? Here’s what you need to know.

    From mass deportations to corporate tax cuts, Trump’s agenda is at stake

    Which side prevails will be the difference between a House that advances Trump’s agenda or a House that opposes him at every turn.

    With a majority in the Republican House, Trump, his agenda and the priorities of his conservative allies would have a much easier time in Washington. But if Democrats retake the House, they will likely argue that voters want some control over Republicans.

    The president-elect’s biggest goal is immigration and border security. That includes tough initiatives like a 2024 campaign promise to begin the “largest deportation effort in American history” of undocumented immigrants.

    For example, paying for such a deployment of federal resources — Trump has said the price tag is “not a question” — would have to go through the House of Representatives. Although Democrats have shown their desire for immigration reform, Trump’s signature campaign promise would not pass the House if the left is in power.

    But House Democrats wouldn’t fight Trump just because of his immigration policies. Without a majority in the House of Representatives, Trump would be forced to negotiate with Jeffries and Democrats on must-pass legislation, such as the spending bills that keep the doors of government open and prevent catastrophic shutdowns.

    These are moments that already cause high drama confrontations, even if the Republicans have the majority in the House of Representatives. After all, former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy was impeached by some of his fellow Republicans for his willingness to work with Democrats to avoid a shutdown.

    But the temperature would rise even higher if Democrats controlled one chamber, versus a Republican White House and a Senate.

    For example, Trump’s $1.5 trillion tax cuts passed in 2017 are set to expire next year. Whether these are continued or not, and what national tax policy will look like, will largely be determined by who wins a majority in the House of Representatives. While there was some consensus on initiatives like lowering federal taxes on tips (Trump and Harris both supported this move), the president-elect’s choice to cut corporate taxes would depend on the balance of power in the House of Representatives.

    But any hardline conservative domestic policy idea, such as repealing the Affordable Care Act, codifying further restrictions on abortion access, scrapping climate change regulations or cutting federal funding for schools that use curricula that conservative activists oppose have resisted on issues of race, gender identity and American history, it would be impossible to pass Congress unless Republicans maintain their lead in the race for control of the House of Representatives.

    After a bitter loss at the presidential level, Democrats may be Trump’s only hurdle, and they would have little incentive to work with him on substantive legislation as far as their progressive base is concerned.

    Investigations and accusations

    Another area where Trump, who has already been impeached twice, would prefer to avoid a Democratic House is the various investigative powers it has.

    In addition to deciding which bills actually get voted on, the majority party in Congress also controls the committees that can investigate opposing presidents and their allies. In Parliament, this often concerns investigations that cause headaches for the current government, even if they do not lead to substantive changes.

    For example, the House Oversight Committee and the House Judiciary Committee led by Reps. James Comer, R-Ky., and Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, have spent months investigating President Joe Biden looking for evidence of corruption or abuse of power. they ultimately found no evidence of wrongdoing and did not recommend articles of impeachment against the president.

    But would Democrats quickly launch their own investigations after the new Congress takes power in January? For his part, Jeffries told NY1 on Thursday that his party will work to “find bipartisan common ground with the new administration where and when possible, but also be very clear that we will push back on MAGA extremism when necessary.”

    Trump is already the only president in American history to be impeached twice. A phone call between Trump and Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelenskyy in 2019 — in which Trump threatened to withhold U.S. aid to Ukraine if he did not investigate Joe Biden and his son, Hunter Biden — led to Trump’s first impeachment.

    The House also ultimately approved articles of impeachment against Trump shortly before his term ended in the wake of the Capitol riot, although the Senate acquitted him in both cases.

    If Republicans retain the House of Representatives, imagine a continued investigation into the origins of COVID-19, as well as other investigations into the outgoing Biden administration’s past actions, such as the prosecution of rioters involved were involved in the January 6, 2021 attack on the House of Representatives. Capitol.

    During the campaign, Trump was outspoken about pursuing political opponents and calling for their prosecution, which would be much easier if the House of Representatives were in his party’s hands. While Trump and his supporters have also said that any successes in office would ultimately be his revenge, other allies have left the door open to legal consequences.

    “President Trump will not use the DOJ for political purposes, i.e. to go after individuals simply because they are political opponents,” Mark Paoletta, who served as a lawyer in the first Trump administration, said in a Nov. 7 message on X.

    “But just because you are a political opponent,” he added, “does not give you a free pass if you have broken the law.”

    Vaseline
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