The 114th Congress opens Tuesday with 246 Republicans taking the oath of office in the House. That's the most the GOP has sworn in since 1947, when the same number arrived for the 80th Congress intent on challenging Democratic President Harry Truman.
For a time, it had appeared that the new 114th majority would eclipse that of the 80th by one. But then Michael Grimm, R-N.Y., pleaded guilty to tax evasion charges and, after a sit-down with Speaker John Boehner a week ago, agreed to resign.
Given the strong conservative proclivities of Grimm's Staten Island district, another Republican will likely take his place in a few months, making the 114th the most Republican House since the 71st Congress took the oath in 1929.
The Congress with the most Republicans ever was the 67th Congress, elected in 1920, with a whopping 300 in the House and 59 in the Senate. (In earlier eras, when the chambers had fewer seats, GOP majorities were occasionally even larger in percentage terms.)
But how much does the numbers game really matter now? Does it make a difference how wide the margin of majority may be at a given time?
Here are six ways it does:
1. Big Numbers Make Waves
Large majorities are more likely to make history, either by passing new laws that really matter or by frustrating a president who has big plans. Six years ago, Democrats had close to 60 percent of the seats in both chambers and they used them to pass the Affordable Care Act, new banking rules and environmental regulations. In earlier eras, big majorities of Democrats passed Medicare and the Great Society programs, Social Security and pro-union laws.
2. Breathing Room For Boehner
In the House, having nearly 30 votes more than needed for control gives Speaker Boehner the breathing room he has lacked in his four years at the helm. He should have a stronger hand in disciplining his rank and file and in negotiating with the Senate and White House. A year ago, Boehner was so buffeted by the obstreperous members of his caucus that many observers expected him to retire at year's end. Now he has the numbers to prevail despite his rebellious hard-core conservatives, and without going hat in hand to the Democrats for their help. The relatively weak bid to challenge his re-election this week is evidence of this.
3. Candidate Recruiting
In the House, having the extra buffer of a healthy majority makes it easier to recruit candidates for 2016 and beyond. It allows leaders to all but guarantee prospective members they will enjoy majority status, at least into the 2020s. It will probably take a sea change in the South (where the delegations are now 3-1 Republican) and new district maps in the rest of the country as well to bring the Democrats back into contention for House control.
4. Buffer In The Senate
In the Senate (54 Republicans, 44 Democrats and two independents), having a few votes to lose makes a simple majority vote all but a slam dunk for newly minted Majority Leader Mitch McConnell. It means no one senator can withhold his or her vote and deny McConnell the majority. And it makes it a little more practical to imagine reaching the 60-vote threshold needed to cut off debate and control the floor.
5. Tougher Road For The Opposition
In the Senate, the extra margin means Democrats have a far steeper climb back to the majority in 2016 and beyond. That is true even though the electoral map is tougher for Republicans two years hence and the presidential cycle tends to bring out more Democratic voters.
6. Opportunity To Override The Presidential Veto
In both chambers, larger majorities at least raise the prospect of overriding a presidential veto, which requires a two-thirds vote. While overrides are rare, they have happened and they matter when they do. The last Congress to be this Republican, the 80th Congress, passed and enacted the Taft-Hartley Act in 1947 over Truman's veto, and that law has been a landmark in limiting the power of unions ever since. (Truman got his revenge in 1948, though, winning re-election and carrying the Democrats back into the majority in House and Senate).
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Transcript
ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:
Think everything's going to be the same on Capitol Hill this year? Well, think again. A new Congress that takes the oath tomorrow and the elections of last November have produced Republican majorities in both the House and the Senate. We've been hearing a lot about how big these majorities are, especially in the House, which hasn't seen this many Republicans since the presidency of Harry Truman. And joining us to talk about this seismic shift on Capitol Hill is NPR's senior editor and correspondent, Ron Elving. Ron, we keep hearing about the big new majority in the House. Remind us why this year is so remarkable.
RON ELVING, BYLINE: It's a big class. Two-hundred-and-forty-six Republicans are expected to take the oath tomorrow. And that is the most since the Congress elected in 1946. The last time the Republicans had a larger majority sworn-in was in 1929, when they had about 62 percent of the seats.
SIEGEL: So how much difference do a dozen seats make?
ELVING: It gives the speaker more breathing room. The speaker is likely to worry a little less about being hamstrung by, say, a handful of its dissidents. It lets the leadership think big about legislation and really, the biggest majorities in history have tended to make laws that really changed the country. The big Democratic majorities in Lyndon Johnson's era 50 years ago passed the Voting Rights Act and Medicare and the Great Society programs. The big Democratic majority six years ago passed Obamacare.
SIEGEL: Franklin Delano Roosevelt in the 1930s had even bigger majorities on the hill.
ELVING: Yes, more than 330 seats and 77 percent of the House, at his peak. And that majority passed the Wagner Act just 80 years ago this year, giving labor unions economic and political clout. And then when the Republicans came back after World War II and won that big majority I mentioned in 1946, they curtailed the Wagner Act with the Taft-Hartley Act and made it stick over Harry Truman's veto.
SIEGEL: Now, it's not just that there are more Republicans in the House and they have a bigger majority, but the huge change is also that the Senate is now in Republican hands, too - more significant?
ELVING: In a way. It is the first time in the Obama presidency that the Republicans have had both chambers under their control. And they have a few votes to spare in the Senate, having risen all the way to 54 seats there.
SIEGEL: But that doesn't give the GOP the 60 votes that they would need to close off filibusters and really run the show, under the rules of the Senate.
ELVING: That's right, and they're going to have trouble finding six crossover votes in this environment. You know, they beat some of their best prospective crossovers, in the sense of Democrats who might have voted with them on some of these issues. And they would need more than a dozen crossovers if they're going to override a presidential veto. That takes a two-thirds majority. And we may see vetoes and attempts at overrides very soon on issues such as the Keystone pipeline.
SIEGEL: And in the House, are the Republicans secure now for the time being, with such a big majority?
ELVING: It would seem so. We should mention that the last two times Republicans had this many seats in the House, they had disastrous elections at the very next cycle and lost control. But that's far less likely now. The regional base of the Republican Party has shifted. The last time they had this many seats, they had very few in the South. Now that's the bedrock of their majority. And in the rest of the country, Republican seats are largely locked in by the district maps that will be in effect until after 2020.
SIEGEL: OK. Thank you, Ron.
ELVING: Thank you, Robert.
SIEGEL: That's NPR editor and correspondent Ron Elving. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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