Since President Donald Trump's second term began, the Republican majorities in Congress have willingly undermined their own power in order to appease the president.
That's according to Brendan Buck, who was a staffer to former House Speakers John Boehner (R-Ohio) and Paul Ryan (R-Wis.). Buck wrote in a Friday New York Times op-ed that under Trump's presidency, his party has abandoned any sense of independence in the legislative branch and has instead decided to become a rubber stamp for the administration.
"Congress is no longer in the business of thoughtful legislating," Buck wrote. "Its role has been reduced to putting political points on the board for the president."
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Buck lamented that the House of Representatives has gone from a deliberative body whose policy-making power was concentrated among various committees, to a place in which the speaker simply end-runs committees to win over a select number of holdouts with various policy promises. He cited the recent example of H.R. 1 — the "One Big Beautiful Bill Act" — in which House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) simply cajoled enough hardline Republicans in order to get the 218 votes needed to get a bill across the finish line.
The former Republican staffer added that the bill's contents were largely unknown by the bulk of the House Republican Conference even just before the final vote, given that committee members weren't given the opportunity to weigh in on controversial portions and offer amendments. Buck further opined out that many Republicans were content to avoid getting in the weeds of policy details and simply serve Trump's wishes.
"Members of Congress today are not well suited to fill that policy vacuum," he wrote. "Too many see their jobs as playing characters in the Trump melodrama rather than serving as policymakers in a separate and equal legislative branch."
Trump is expected to sign H.R. 1 into law Friday evening, which, according to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office will cut Medicaid by more than $1 trillion and throw roughly 12 million people off of their health insurance. The bill's 10-year extension of tax cuts that primarily benefit the richest Americans is expected to add over $4 trillion to the national debt over the next decade.
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Click here to read Buck's full op-ed in the New York Times (subscription required).