Impeach Biden? Defund his cabinet? Republicans test limits of House majority

WASHINGTON – After half a year in control of the House of Representatives, Republicans are divided over how they should wield the powers that come with the majority.

For the first two years of President Joe Biden’s tenure, Democrats controlled both the House and Senate, leaving the locus of GOP power in the upper chamber, where Republican senators could filibuster most legislation pushed by the White House. Now, the House majority gives them the authority to cut federal spending, investigate the Biden administration, impeach the president – and perhaps even expunge the impeachments of former President Donald Trump.

“This is what our founders envisioned, that there would be this balance of power and a check and balance in place, and that’s part of our constitutional role,” Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers said in a July 11 interview. “It’s the power of the purse and oversight. And that’s how we ensure that the government is accountable to the people and to Congress.”

As chair of the Energy and Commerce Committee, the Spokane Republican has embraced her oversight role, leading an investigation into the origins of the COVID-19 pandemic and summoning administration officials and the CEO of TikTok to be grilled by her panel.

Other GOP committee leaders have been more aggressive, with Judiciary Committee Chair Jim Jordan of Ohio and Oversight Committee Chair James Comer of Kentucky issuing subpoenas to demand documents and testimony from the FBI, Biden family associates and the Departments of Justice, Education and Homeland Security.

But that power has its limitations, as Jordan – who defied subpoenas himself during the previous Congress – knows well. Rep. Russ Fulcher, who represents North Idaho, said the House’s oversight authority is “woefully inadequate” because the majority has limited leverage to force the target of a subpoena to testify or hand over documents.

“Congress doesn’t have the teeth to actually perform all the oversight duties,” said Fulcher, a member of the right-wing Freedom Caucus co-founded by Jordan. “What I mean by that is we can subpoena, we can hold in contempt, but we can’t enforce – unless it’s through appropriations.”

As part of the agreement House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., struck with Republican hardliners in January, the House reinstated the “Holman rule,” a 19th-century tool that lets lawmakers amend the annual appropriations legislation that funds the government to eliminate funding for officials or whole positions. Some on the GOP’s restive right flank have proposed cutting the salaries of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, Attorney General Merrick Garland, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and other officials over objections to administration policy.

“Obviously, it’s got to be selective and we’ve got to look at those case by case,” Fulcher said of the Holman rule. “That’s kind of a last-resort deal, but sometimes money is the only hammer we have.

McMorris Rodgers declined to say whether she would vote to defund any official’s salary, although she suggested she was open to such a move.

“I think that when an agency secretary is not being responsive to Congress,” she said, “Congress must exercise the power of the purse, and that’s one tool.”

Rep. Mike Simpson, a Republican from Idaho Falls who has spent two decades on the Appropriations Committee, left no ambiguity when asked about using the Holman rule.

“I don’t think you can defund a cabinet secretary’s salary,” he said, adding that it is possible but not appropriate. “That, to me, is beyond the pale.”

Frustrated by the administration’s stonewalling, and seeking revenge after the House twice impeached Trump when it was under Democratic control, some Republicans favor impeaching Biden or members of his cabinet.

On June 22, the House voted along party lines to refer articles of impeachment against the president to the House Judiciary and Homeland Security Committees, thus avoiding a potentially embarrassing vote on the floor. Those articles, introduced by Rep. Lauren Boebert, R-Colo., focus on Biden’s asylum policy for migrants at the U.S.-Mexico border.

Rep. Dan Newhouse, R-Sunnyside, has sharply criticized the administration’s border policy but said that doesn’t necessarily warrant impeaching the president. Newhouse was one of 10 House Republicans who voted for Trump’s second impeachment, and the only one of them who survived a Trump-endorsed primary challenge.

“You can’t impeach somebody just because you disagree with them,” Newhouse said, and McMorris Rodgers noted that the Constitution reserves impeachment as punishment for “high crimes and misdemeanors.”

Some Republicans have also proposed impeaching Mayorkas over those same policy complaints, but Simpson suggested they’re putting the cart before the horse.

“I think Mayorkas has been one of the worst secretaries I’ve ever seen in my life,” Simpson said. “But to impeach him, I’ve got to have a reason, not just that he’s a bad secretary.”

Neither impeachment nor withholding pay from top officials stands a chance of surviving the Democratic-majority Senate. But the influence of the most strident House Republicans could make compromise on annual spending bills – a necessity in divided government – far harder this year. That raises the risk of a government shutdown, which would occur if the House and Senate can’t both pass at least a stopgap spending bill by the start of the new fiscal year Oct. 1.

Soon after McCarthy struck a deal with Biden to raise the nation’s debt limit, House Republicans announced they would mark up their appropriations bills at a lower level than what their leader had agreed to.

“I really don’t think a government shutdown is something anybody wants,” said Newhouse, an Appropriations Committee member, while adding that the gap between House Republicans and the Senate Appropriations Committee – led by Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash. – “makes it more likely that the House bills will be at levels that are unacceptable to Democrats.”

Rep. Derek Kilmer, a Democratic appropriator from Gig Harbor, said the culture in the Appropriations Committee has changed since he joined the panel.

“We are wasting time by voting on things that aren’t going anywhere,” Kilmer said. “That increases the likelihood of a government shutdown.”

Simpson said that while there are better working relationships between Democrats and Republicans on the individual Appropriations subcommittees, “the debate in the full committee is getting a little more partisan than it has in the past.” Still, he said he’s confident most Republicans want to fund the government.

“It doesn’t matter whether it’s our fault or not, we’re gonna be the ones who get blamed for it,” he said. “And I’ve always said it’s never good policy and it’s never good politics to have a government shutdown.”

The 2024 presidential race – in which Trump is the GOP front-runner, despite facing multiple indictments – looms large.

On Thursday, Politico reported that McCarthy privately promised the former president that the House would vote by the end of July to expunge both of Trump’s impeachments – in 2019 for pressuring Ukraine’s president to investigate Biden, who was then running against Trump, and in 2021 for inciting the Jan. 6 riot at the Capitol.

Such a vote, if it happens, would force Republicans to face another litmus test based on their loyalty to Trump.