Even though Democrats maintained control of the US Senate for at least another two years in the midterm elections, the House of Representatives falling into Republican hands is a massive setback for any hope of good legislation passing until at least January of 2025.
A Republican-controlled House doesn’t just mean bills coming out of the Senate will be hopelessly gridlocked. Republicans will likely use their newfound subpoena power to flood the airwaves with footage of public committee hearings attacking Democratic officials and entertaining far-right conspiracy theories, as they did with Benghazi and the Clinton Foundation. Some potential hearings in 2023 may focus on Hunter Biden, infectious disease expert Dr. Anthony Fauci, and the potential impeachment of President Joe Biden or some of his most senior cabinet officials.
What’s even more worrisome is that whoever ends up with the Speaker’s gavel will almost certainly reinstate the most odious House Republicans back onto committees. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Georgia), who has trafficked in anti-Semitic and racist conspiracy theories (including the QAnon conspiracy theory which alleges that the Trump administration was secretly fighting a cabal of pedophiles and cannibals), and who famously harassed Parkland school shooting survivor David Hogg in Washington, would be given a national platform to spew hatred if reinstated to House committees. Additionally, Rep. Paul Gosar, who lost his committee assignments after posting a video depicting himself killing Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-New York) with a sword, would also be back on his respective committees.
Assigning blame for the blunder
House Democratic leadership shouldn’t be blamed for the Republicans’ victory. For several years, House Democrats have passed approximately 400 bills on issues that consistently prove popular with voters, like expanding voting rights, lowering prescription drug prices, and regulating gasoline price gouging, only for those bills to die in the Senate due to arcane procedures like the filibuster. The incredibly slim House majority can actually be ascribed to two factors: Racial gerrymandering (which part two of this series will explore in-depth) and former New York Governor Andrew Cuomo (D).
Cuomo’s legacy won’t just be for resigning in disgrace in the wake of numerous sexual misconduct allegations—it will also be for paving the way for Republicans to eventually win enough Congressional seats in New York in order to win a razor-thin House majority. Gov. Cuomo leaned conservative, and was friendly with the Republicans who once controlled the New York state senate due to his actions on property taxes and slowing government spending. His appointees to the New York Court of Appeals were also largely tough-on-crime conservative prosecutors, prompting calls for the New York senate to reject two of his appointees in 2021 following the George Floyd uprising (they did not).
The 2020 Census and subsequent redistricting process is typically favorable to the party that controls a specific state’s legislature, and New York was no exception. But in April, Gov. Cuomo’s conservative Court of Appeals judges rejected the redistricting maps drawn by New York’s Democratic majority, siding with Republicans who filed suit challenging the map’s proposed Congressional districts for being too friendly to Democrats. This resulted in new Congressional districts being drawn that eventually displaced then-Rep. Mondaire Jones (D-New York), one of the most progressive Democrats in the House. Much to the chagrin of Democrats who were hoping to secure power in New York with a gerrymandered map, Republicans ended up having a banner night during the November 8 midterm elections.
How New York Republicans delivered the GOP a House majority
The district Mondaire Jones ran for, NY-10, ended up with a competitive Democratic primary between New York Assembly member Yuh-Line Niou and wealthy Levi Strauss heir Daniel Goldman, who has a net worth of up to $253 million. Goldman won the general election for NY-10, but Democrats elsewhere weren’t as fortunate.
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In New York’s 3rd Congressional District, which was vacated after Rep. Tom Suozzi (D-New York) announced his retirement, Republican George Santos emerged as the winner, with over 20,000 more votes than his Democratic opponent, Robert Zimmerman. Santos attended the January 6, 2021 rally-turned-insurrection at the US Capitol, and later bragged about writing “a nice check to a law firm” to bail insurrectionists out of jail.
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In New York’s 4th Congressional District, which was vacated after Rep. Kathleen Rice (D-New York) announced her retirement, Republican Anthony D’Esposito defeated Democrat Laura Gillen by a margin of approximately 10,000 votes.
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In New York’s 19th Congressional District, which became an open seat after Rep. Pat Ryan (D-New York) was redistricted to the 18th Congressional District, Republican Marc Molinaro narrowly defeated Democrat Josh Riley by just 6,000 votes.
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And in New York’s 17th Congressional District, which was formerly held by Rep. Mondaire Jones (D-New York) who lost the Democratic primary in the 10th District, Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney (D-New York), lost a close contest to New York Assembly member Mike Lawler (R) by approximately 2,300 votes. Maloney was chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, the organization that is tasked with preserving the Democratic majority in the House of Representatives.
Republicans having a House majority of less than four seats means that New York Republicans were the deciding factor in Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-California) becoming the next presumptive House Speaker. And these victories wouldn’t have been possible were it not for Gov. Cuomo stacking the Court of Appeals with conservative judges. Credit for what House Republicans do between 2023 and 2024 should go partially to New York’s disgraced former governor.
Carl Gibson is a freelance journalist and columnist whose work has been published in CNN, The Guardian, the Washington Post, the Houston Chronicle, Barron’s, Business Insider, The Independent, and NPR, among others. Follow him on Twitter @crgibs.
