House Republicans’ majority shrinks even further after GOP rep announces surprise resignation

House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-Louisiana)'s already tenuous Republican majority is down one more member after a surprise retirement announcement by Rep. Bill Johnson (R-Ohio).

MSNBC producer Kyle Griffin tweeted Tuesday that Johnson would be resigning from Congress effective January 21, leaving Republicans with just 219 members to Democrats' 213, with three seats still vacant. Assuming full attendance, Johnson can now only afford two defections from his caucus in order to pass legislation.

According to The Hill, Johnson's sudden resignation came after the congressman accepted a job offer to become president of Youngstown State University in March. The January 21 resignation date is two days after the first laddered government funding deadline as part of the agreement Johnson brokered to keep the government funded in late 2023, but comes before the second funding deadline in early February. The timing of Johnson's exit from congress makes it even more likely that Johnson may need to court additional Democratic votes in order to avoid a potential government shutdown next month.

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2024 marked an even slimmer House majority, as former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy's (R-California) resignation from the House of Representatives became fully official. Republicans also lost a reliable vote after the expulsion of former Rep. George Santos (R-New York) in December.

Even with both of those Republicans still in office, Johnson was barely able to cobble together a government funding agreement in November, and ended up getting more Democratic votes than Republican votes. The new speaker was unable to corral support for a so-called "clean CR" (short for "continuing resolution"), which would have kept the government funded at current levels until Congress agreed on new budgets for federal agencies, and opted instead for a "laddered CR."

According to ABC News, the laddered CR funds the Departments of Veterans Affairs, Transportation, Housing and Urban Development and Energy, and pays for military construction projects until January 19. Other federal funding expires on February 2nd. And because the US Senate is under Democratic control, it's unlikely that any of the far-right funding priorities House Republicans want will make it into a final government funding package — particularly since any deal Congress passes will ultimately need to be signed into law by President Joe Biden.

2023 marked an unprecedented year for congressional retirements. Axios reported in November that the number of representatives and senators not seeking reelection in 2024 is at its highest point in more than a decade. The wave of retirements comes amid Congress' least productive session in modern history, with only 27 bills passed throughout all of last year. Roughly one month of work in the House was lost as House Republicans nominated and subsequently rejected three candidates for speaker — House Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-Louisiana), House Majority Whip Tom Emmer (R-Minnesota) and House Judiciary Committee chairman Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) — before finally coalescing around Johnson in late October.

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