THE HILL COULD USE SOME HOLIDAY CHEER There were puppies on Capitol Hill after votes Thursday. Dozens of lawmakers seen petting the pooches on the House steps said it was exactly what they needed. The resignation announcement this week of former Speaker Kevin McCarthy — a man who’s long been known for his puppy-dog good cheer before developing a snarl after his ouster — capped a fall season that’s left House Republicans in a dour holiday mood. Consider, after all, everything the House has dealt with since September: A government funding deadline, the ejection of a speaker, a 22-day fight to select a replacement, and second shutdown deadline, to start. Just in the 10 days since returning from Thanksgiving recess, the House expelled Rep. George Santos (R-N.Y.), passed a divisive resolution on antisemitism and censured Rep. Jamaal Bowman (D-N.Y.) for pulling a fire alarm. Asked to assess the mood on Capitol Hill, Majority Whip Tom Emmer (R-Minn.) waxed meteorological. “You see these clouds start coming. And you go down and start to listen to the radio to see if there's a tornado,” he said. “This might be more like a hurricane.” Hard feelings abound: One big factor is that the bad vibes from the speaker fight have lingered. Look no further than McCarthy and his allies, like Rep. Garret Graves (R-La.), who have lashed out at the Republicans who voted him out. "There were a bunch of morons who thought that by replacing the speaker, you suddenly were gonna have all these new options available,” Graves said in an interview. “They are now coming to the reality that there aren't any new options.” Meanwhile, there’s plenty of work left to do: The House has yet to pass five of the 12 annual appropriations bills ahead of the next government funding deadline in January. A new Farm Bill and Federal Aviation Administration reauthorization are also TBD, to say nothing of the annual Pentagon policy bill and a Biden administration request for aid to Israel and Ukraine. “I think there's just so much gotcha stuff going on,” Rep. Susan Wild (D-Pa.) said. “A lot of it, unfortunately, is because I feel like the other side of the aisle is not actually doing anything.” It’s not just Democrats who feel this way. “It hasn’t been good since October,” Rep. Don Bacon (R-Neb.) said. “Look, we don’t control the Senate. We don’t have the president. … You can’t demand 100%. Folks around here think you need to get 100% or it’s a zero.” The shrinking majority: Things could get even chippier next year as the GOP majority shrinks from painfully small to incomprehensibly small, with McCarthy resigning at the end of the year and Rep. Bill Johnson (R-Ohio) accepting a gig in academia. “Generally, it's gonna be tough to do anything that doesn't have two-thirds support or massive Democrat support,” said Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) while he high-tailed it to his truck to leave Washington Thursday. He’s expecting that almost no legislation will be able to move under a rule, with amendments and a simple majority vote, because Republicans are already having trouble adopting rules for bills that most in their party support. “It is dire when a speaker can't pass rules,” said Massie, who sits on the House Rules Committee, adding that a one- or two-vote majority “makes the [Rules] committee less relevant, I'll say that for sure.” A sign of the times: Wild said for the first time, she’s not traveling abroad to visit troops for the holidays because of how fatigued she is. ”I just need to be home,” she said of the decision. “I just need some time in my district. I need some time in my house. I need some relaxation.” — Daniella Diaz and Katherine Tully-McManus, with assist from Olivia Beavers GOOD EVENING! Welcome to Huddle, the play-by-play guide to all things Capitol Hill, on this Thursday, Dec. 7, where we’d give anything to be as happy as Rep. Derek Kilmer holding a puppy. SENATE SCOTUS INVESTIGATION UPDATE Senate Judiciary Chair Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) could issue subpoenas for conservative judicial activist Leonard Leo and Texas billionaire Harlan Crow at any time. But it won’t be that simple: The two targets and Senate Republicans are all promising they’ll fight him at every turn if he tries to enforce the subpoena for information on the pair’s financial and personal ties to Supreme Court justices. GOP senators are arguing that last week’s vote to authorize the subpoenas of Crow and Leo was invalid due to a Republican walkout, and they’re threatening lawsuits to block Durbin from proceeding. Leo, meanwhile, has said he “will not cooperate with this unlawful campaign of political retribution,” and Crow is calling the subpoena “unenforceable” while maintaining that he is cooperating in good faith — a point that Democrats contest. To actually enforce the subpoenas and force Crow and Leo to produce the records Democrats are seeking, the full Senate would have to vote on it — at a 60-vote threshold. And Judiciary Republicans say GOP senators will vote no, and then some. “You’ll never see this come to the floor,” ranking member Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) told Huddle. “We’ll attack it legally, we’ll vote against it. It’d be a shitshow.” “If for some reason they ever did issue them, any lawyer who knows a law book from an L.L. Bean catalog will get those subpoenas squashed in a matter of days,” said Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.). The Dem view: Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) said this week that simply establishing the authority to issue the subpoenas “may enliven the conversation with individuals and entities who have been contumacious so far.” Whitehouse is one of the leading voices in the ongoing investigation into ethics at the Supreme Court and how undisclosed gifts and personal ties between major activists, donors and justices might have granted access to individuals and groups with business before the court. But that suggestion has angered Republicans who see it as an attempt to undermine the court’s conservative majority. "They knew the subpoenas weren't going anywhere. And that was part of the heart of what was so frustrating about this show, because it was all for show," said Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) — Katherine Tully-McManus with an assist from Ursula Perano
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