Despite all the chaos of their narrow House majority, Republicans have avoided disaster.
This week, Speaker Mike Johnson surrendered a spending battle that Republicans had hardly even fought. The House will vote on legislation today to avert a government shutdown without demanding any significant concessions from Democrats. In a letter to Republican lawmakers on Sunday, Johnson acknowledged that the bill “is not the solution any of us prefer.” But, he wrote, “as history has taught and current polling affirms, shutting the government down less than 40 days from a fateful election would be an act of political malpractice.”