The chamber adjusted its statistics following the departure of former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, formally reducing the number of House Republicans to three.
Officially revising the number of seats held by members of Congress, the House convened on Tuesday in a pro forma session.
The pro-forma meeting on Tuesday marked the first gavel since former Speaker of the House McCarthy’s retirement from Congress took effect on December 31, 2023.
The House currently has 433 members after McCarthy’s departure.
There are presently 213 House Democratic seats and 220 House Republican seats in the lower chamber.
With Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., taking over as leader following the departure of Senator McCarthy and the expulsion of embattled former GOP congressman George Santos from the House, House Republicans are treading carefully politically.
When Democrats vote en bloc on a bill, Johnson can only have three defectors in his party because he only has a three-seat majority.
New York Democrat Rep. Brian Higgins resigned in February to take a job at Buffalo, New York’s Shea’s Performing Arts Center, meaning that the makeup of the House will probably alter again shortly.
For the time being at least, this will provide House Republicans some breathing room.
In New York’s Third Congressional District, a special election to replace Santos in Congress is scheduled for February 13, 2024.
The GOP majority would again narrow if the seat flipped to the blue.
Following eight Republicans, led by Representative Matt Gaetz of Florida, and every Democrat in the House ousting McCarthy from the speakership, McCarthy tendered his resignation.
In his final remarks to Gaetz, McCarthy said that history would not remember Gaetz’s decision favorably as he made his way to the exit. McCarthy made these remarks to Fox News’s Brian Kilmeade.
McCarthy declared, “History will judge him.” “And history will judge all of us.”