After a chaotic Congress, lawmakers head home to ask voters: How about another term?

The House Republicans led the tumult — painstakingly electing their speaker in a bitter public feud then swiftly booting him from office, something never before seen. “The good thing is Congress didn’t allow much to go through law,” said Rep. Ryan Zinke, a former Trump administration Cabinet secretary who is now running for re-election to his House seat in Montana. “But what it didn’t do, either, is it didn’t reach its potential.” House Republicans blocked not only the Biden-Harris priorities of the Democrats, he said, but “in many ways, we blocked our own agenda.” The situation the lawmakers find themselves in, particularly the House Republicans trying to preserve their slim majority control, is not academic. New House Speaker Mike Johnson remains upbeat that Republicans will not only stay in control but win more seats to bolster their ranks, but it’s been an uphill slog for him during a tight election year. “It’s almost impossible,” said Newt Gingrich, the former House speaker, adding he would have little patience for hearing out the “idiots” he said Johnson has to contend with in leading a slim four-seat majority. “You had a group grow up in the House Republican Party who think that voting no and getting nothing done is a victory,” Gingrich said Friday at the Capitol. It’s not.” Congress has passed fewer substantive bills than is normal, putting this two-year session on track to be among the least productive sessions ever. While Congress succeeded in avoiding a federal shutdown — which Johnson said would have been “malpractice” so close to the November election — it left town mid-week, several days earlier than scheduled, as a hurricane bore down on the Southern Gulf states. “Can anyone in America name a single thing that House Republicans have done on their own to make life better for the American people?” asked Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries, who is in line to become House speaker if his party wins majority control. What to know about the 2024 Election Today’s news: Follow live updates Ground Game: Sign up for AP’s weekly politics newsletter AP’s Role: The Associated Press is the most trusted source of information on election night, with a history of accuracy dating to 1848. “I don’t know if you’re going to judge an individual member on how the body does collectively,” said Bean, a freshman. That is apples to apricots.” Rep. Mike Garcia, R-Calif., said the House has been a “firewall” against spending. “What we’ve been able to stop is very significant,” he said. “We haven’t necessarily gotten everything passed,” he added. “But what we have done is set a template for what needs to be done to fix these problems, whether it’s the border, the economy, national security, investing in our military, cutting taxes, reducing spending.” Republican Rep. Mike Lawler, who is in a competitive race in New York, pointed to work he has done to secure needed infrastructure money for his district as well as his own various bills. “So I have a record to run on that I’m certainly proud of,” he said. “I mean there’s always a focus on the House,” he said. What exactly are they running on?” The Senate, historically a slower-moving body designed that way by the founders, plodded along at an even more leisurely pace this year, staying away from Washington many Mondays and almost all Fridays. Narrowly led by Democrats under Majority Leader Schumer, the Senate has succeeded in confirming a number of Biden’s judicial nominees, particularly women and people of color, to create a judiciary more representative of the nation. In fact, one of the most talked about pieces of legislation in the campaign — the Senate’s bipartisan effort to secure the U.S.-Mexico border and update some immigration laws — collapsed when Trump declined to support it. “This has been a very, very unproductive Congress,” said Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell, mentioning the appropriations bills and a farm bill reauthorization that are stalled. There’s “plenty of blame to go around.” Oddly, as the Capitol emptied out, it briefly refilled Friday for the 30th anniversary of another Republican milestone — the 1994 Contract with America, the campaign promises that brought Gingrich and his party to power after four decades in the minority. Two years ago, McCarthy, who was in line to become speaker, gathered House Republicans at a manufacturing plant along the Monongahela River in Pennsylvania to unveil their own “Commitment to America” agenda that gave a nod to the Gingrich era. McCarthy, Johnson and many others from today’s House GOP were not around for Friday’s ceremony, with its reception in the Capitol basement. Rep. Tim Burchett of Tennessee, who was among the eight Republicans who led the vote to oust McCarthy last year, said this was the House GOP majority’s biggest accomplishment: “Not wrecking the country any further. – This Summarize was created by Neural News AI (V1). Source: https://apnews.com/ef7ef9a498e1c7a04971bf28b59c81f7