GOP House targets China, abortion, IRS funding in McCarthy’s first week as speaker

WASHINGTON – The brand new Republican House majority used its first full week in office to quickly pass six pieces of laws that showcased the party’s political priorities.

Following Republicans’ historic intraparty battle for the speakership earlier this month, GOP House Speaker Kevin McCarthy’s first week was an exercise in party unity. The Republican caucus overwhelmingly supported all six of the bills, two of which also won over a big bloc of Democrats.

So long as Democrats control the Senate, nonetheless, bills that pass within the House on a celebration line vote have little likelihood of becoming law.

As an alternative, their purpose is essentially to satisfy campaign guarantees that Republican candidates made within the 2022 midterms. Some could also potentially function leverage in negotiations over the federal budget and the debt ceiling, each expected later this yr.

Yet at the same time as Republicans worked efficiently on the House floor, party leaders were beset by questions over the fate of newly sworn-in Rep. George Santos.

The embattled Recent York Republican has admitted to lying about his background, prompting howls of bipartisan criticism and calls for his resignation. But Santos this week vowed to remain in Congress and serve out his full two-year term, a call McCarthy backed.

“Voters have elected George Santos,” McCarthy told reporters Thursday within the Capitol. Quite than move to expel Santos, McCarthy appeared to place his faith in a House Ethics Committee investigation of the lawmaker.

“If anything is found to be fallacious, he will likely be held accountable, exactly as anybody else on this body could be,” said McCarthy.

The furor over Santos forged a shadow over the Republican caucus. It also drew attention away from the week’s accomplishments, amongst them that McCarthy was in a position to pass two bipartisan pieces of laws.

The bipartisan bills each targeted China, they usually underscored the breadth of support in Congress for anything that guarantees to strengthen America’s hand relative to its global competitors.

The primary of the 2 measures created a latest select committee to analyze China’s long-term threat to america. It received more votes than another this week, as every Republican present and 146 Democrats voted for it on Tuesday.

The committee will expose the Chinese Communist Party’s “coordinated whole of society technique to undermine American leadership and American sovereignty,” its latest chairman, Wisconsin GOP Rep. Mike Gallagher, said on the House floor.

The second China-related bill would prohibit oil from the U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve from being sold to China. On Thursday, 115 Democrats joined your complete GOP caucus to back the ban. Nevertheless it was unclear whether it might be taken up by the Democratic-controlled Senate.

Along with China, the brand new Republican majority made abortion a centerpiece of its agenda. This follows a midterm election wherein the Supreme Court decision to overturn the best to an abortion, enshrined in Roe v. Wade, played a outstanding role. It served to galvanize Democratic voters, and because of this the party held the Senate and lost fewer House seats than expected.

On Wednesday, two measures related to abortion were approved on a party-line vote.

The primary was a bill requiring health care providers to try to preserve the lifetime of infants who’re born alive during or after an attempted abortion. Under U.S. law, it’s already considered against the law to deliberately kill a toddler who’s born alive.

The second abortion-related vote was on a resolution to sentence “recent attacks on pro-life facilities, groups and churches.”

While the resolution doesn’t require Senate approval, the opposite bill, called the “Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act” has no likelihood of being taken up by the present Senate or of being signed into law by President Joe Biden.

This is similar fate that awaits one other big Republican priority bill that passed on Monday: A measure that effectively rescinds Democrats’ efforts to bolster the IRS last yr with nearly $80 billion in funding over the following decade.

The IRS bill was the primary one which passed the House after McCarthy won the speaker’s gavel, fulfilling an election yr promise.

“The federal government must be here to provide help to, not go after you,” McCarthy declared on the House floor shortly after he clinched the speakership.

The IRS is considered one of two government agencies that Republicans put of their sights this week. The opposite is the Biden Justice Department.

Along with the select committee on China, Republicans approved the creation of one other latest subcommittee.

The mandate of the Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government is effectively to analyze the agencies that investigated former President Donald Trump during his one term in office.

The brand new panel will likely be chaired by GOP Rep. Jim Jordan of Ohio, a Trump ally who regularly assails the Justice Department over its far-reaching probes of Trump.

Approved on a celebration line vote Tuesday, the subcommittee is officially charged with investigating how executive branch agencies “collect, compile, analyze, use, or disseminate details about residents of america, including any unconstitutional, illegal, or unethical activities committed against residents of america,” in line with the resolution’s language.

Along with investigative subpoena power, the House laws explicitly grants the brand new subcommittee access to highly classified information typically available to members of the House Intelligence Committee.

House Democrats decried the brand new committee as a ploy by Trump allies to demonize people and agencies that probed the previous president and the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the Capitol by Trump’s followers.

Democratic Rep. Jim McGovern of Massachusetts likened the brand new panel to the anti-communist hearings led by the late Sen. Joe McCarthy.

“I call it the McCarthy committee, and I’m not talking about Kevin; I’m talking about Joe,” McGovern said on the House floor Tuesday.