First, there was House Republican Conference Chairwoman Elise Stefanik, R.N.Y.
President-elect Trump named her ambassador to the United Nations.
Then there was Rep. Mike Waltz, R-Fla.
The incoming president asked Waltz to become his national security advisor.
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Trump then selected former Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., for attorney general, and Gaetz quickly resigned.
This places a huge burden on an institution in just a few days.
Anyone else from the House?
“I know he’s already gotten some really talented people out of the House. Hopefully there won’t be any more for a while until the special election,” said House Majority Leader Steve Scalise, R-Los Angeles.
It’s about mathematics.
President-elect Donald Trump and the United States Capitol. (Getty Images)
With Stefanik, Waltz and Gaetz on board, House Republicans will likely win a majority of 221 seats to Democrats’ 214. It’s a margin of seven. But that means the GOP can only lose three votes on any roll call vote and still pass the issue at hand without needing help from the other side.
With Gaetz out and Stefanik and Waltz departing, that majority drops to 218-214. A margin of four votes. But Republicans can now only lose one vote. And there is almost never perfect attendance in the House. Absences are inevitable.
But what if there are more exits?
A senior GOP source told Fox before Gaetz’s departure that the Republican majority could lose no more than two House members to the Trump administration.
“I don’t know if the administration has a figure in its head,” the source said.
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And remember, you cannot appoint a member of the House. You can do it in the Senate. But not the House. Governors must call special elections to fill these seats. So in Stefanik’s case, it could take New York Democratic Gov. Kathy Hochul three to four months to call a special election.
Naturally, that assumes the seat will remain in the Republican Party’s column. These are Republican seats. But there are surprises in the special elections. The usual universe of voters does not always show up.
“I imagine Hochul, given his cynical attempt at politics, will probably try to use the full 90 days,” complained Rep. Mike Lawler, R.N.Y.
Meanwhile, House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-Louisiana, called Florida Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis, hoping to call a special election in just a few weeks for the seat vacated by Gaetz. The hope is that the district will send a Republican successor to Gaetz to Washington just after the new year.
That’s why rumors about whether Ohio Republican Gov. Mike DeWine might name Rep. Max Miller, R-Ohio, to Vice President-elect JD Vance’s Senate seat may be quelled. Under other circumstances, Rep. Byron Donalds, R-Fla., could be in play for an administration position or even to succeed Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., in the Senate if he is confirmed as secretary of state. But that scenario creates another vacancy in the House.
Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., waves onstage at the Republican National Convention at the Fiserv Forum in Milwaukee on July 17. (Leon Neal/Getty Images)
“President Trump fully understands and appreciates the math here. And it’s just a numbers game,” Johnson said. “But every vote will count, because if someone gets sick or has a car accident or a delayed flight on their plane, that affects the votes on the floor. So I think he and the administration are on the same page about that.”
Johnson added: “I don’t expect any more members to leave.”
Then President-elect Trump recruited Gaetz.
House Republicans struggled at times to push their own agenda with a similarly narrow majority in the past two years. They leaned on Democrats to avoid multiple government shutdowns and raise the debt ceiling. They failed in their first attempt to remove Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas. Republicans dithered for a total of 27 days on two separate occasions last year trying to determine who would be House speaker.
Former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., couldn’t become speaker at the start of Congress because the GOP’s numbers were so thin. Then House Republicans fought for more than three weeks last fall to choose a successor to McCarthy for the same reasons.
So, what’s past is prologue.
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A glitch in simple parliamentary algebra could hamper President-elect Trump’s agenda.
“Between the president and (incoming Senate Majority Leader John) Thune, R.S.D., there is a real understanding that we have to maintain these majorities,” said Rep. Marc Molinaro, R.N.Y.
Ironically, if Molinaro had kept his seat against Rep.-elect Josh Riley, D-N.Y., the GOP would enjoy a bigger cushion.
Trump is well aware of the problem in the House.
“I promised Mike I wouldn’t take too many more before we started counting the votes. He said, ‘Please, could you slow down a little bit?’ “I just like the people in Congress, Mike, I’m sorry. But don’t worry, Mike, relax,” the president-elect said.
Republicans are already factoring potential absences and vacancies into their legislative calculations for the new year.
U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson shakes hands with President-elect Trump onstage at a House Republican Conference meeting at the Hyatt Regency on Capitol Hill on November 2024, in Washington, DC. (Andrew Harnik/Getty Images)
“It’s going to be like a chess game of logistics. When we have to take a certain vote, if we actually have a one-seat majority and someone is sick, there will be logistics involved in that,” said Rep. Blake Moore. , R-Utah, vice chairman of the House Republican Conference.
But it’s easier said than done. That assumes that everyone present and accounted for agrees with the topic of the day. Republicans regularly wrestled with that phenomenon over the past two years.
“This is a deeply divided Republican Party, unified now by its victory. But let’s see how long that lasts,” said former House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, D-Md. “We know there are deep philosophical and procedural differences within the Republican Party that we saw repeatedly in the last Congress.”
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., told Republicans not to expect a lifeline from the minority party in the new year.
“If you think this is an overwhelming mandate, then of course the American people will expect you to do the basics in terms of government,” Jeffries said.
The country faces another collision with the debt ceiling. The issue should mature sometime in the first quarter of next year. Jeffries argued that if Republicans are in charge and have voter support, then they should “be able to avoid a catastrophic default on our nation’s debt.”
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But Jeffries added a caveat about last week’s election.
“If you think it’s an overwhelming mandate,” he said.
That’s the challenge facing House Republicans. The people spoke. Now they wait for action. But the equation in the House is difficult to navigate on any given day. And the departures for the next administration don’t affect the math at all.
