Rep. Andy Biggs: House Republicans must prepare to battle new Democratic majority

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Congress finalizes new leadership

Mitch McConnell expected to remain Senate majority leader as Nancy Pelosi eyes House Speaker role; Mike Emanuel reports from Capitol Hill.

With Democrats set to become the majority party in the U.S. House of Representatives in January, I call on my Republican colleagues in the chamber to gear up for the inevitable Democratic attacks on everything we’ve worked to accomplish in the past two years in partnership with President Trump.

We need Republican leaders who are prepared for the fight against the Democrats and who recognize that our political opponents don’t consider legislating a process. They consider it a war. We need to alter the House rules, procedures and processes to slow down their inevitable weaponizing by the Democrats.

We will continue to find many points of comity with our friends across the aisle, but it would be folly to believe that we will not have to take the fight to them and take our message to the American people. Republicans in the House will have a tough slog for the next two years, but surrender is not an option.

Democrats and Republicans spent the last year 18 months telling Americans that the midterm elections held last week were pivotal in determining the direction of our country – and even the survivability of this great nation. It is not too much now to fight, even from the minority position, to prevent a gigantic move to the left.

Our leaders must courageously take on Democrats, who will seek to impose an ever-increasing number of socialist policies on our nation. We must have leaders who are articulate and knowledgeable about issues and about the rules and procedures that will allow even the minority to function effectively. The entire Republican leadership team must have a foundation of core conservative principles to rely on as they push back on the Democratic onslaught coming in the House.

Trust me, the Democrats have no policy prescriptions. Since the 2016 elections they have made every issue solely about President Trump. They have filed three different resolutions to impeach the president. They are promising to continue their ephemeral dream of ending President Trump’s presidency prematurely. We must pop their balloon with the appropriate pointed object regularly.

Not only must we be prepared to aggressively defend the progress we have made on the Republican agenda we promised in the 2016 campaign; we must use the lame duck session in the final weeks of our control of the House to further Republican objectives.

We can take another run at solving the health-care issue by voting on a bill that cleanly repeals ObamaCare, and additional bills that resolve issues related to lowering health-care costs. Republicans can also pass a bill that will actually fund construction of a border wall. And we can pass the heartbeat bill that applies a scientific standard to protect the unborn.

These bills can pass the House, but skeptics will say that they will never pass the Senate. That may be true, but members of the House can only govern and vote on legislation in the body in which we serve. We do not and cannot control the Senate. We can and should do our work in the House regardless of potential Senate inaction.

If that means we work through the holidays, then so be it. Republicans in the House should not accept subservience in the minority. We must begin reasserting our agenda in the lame duck session and then through strategic aggressive action in the coming legislative session.

The campaign for the 2020 elections starts now, with the leadership team we put in place. I urge my colleagues to recognize that our leaders will reflect whether we are going to fight for our values of faith, family and freedom. We must work with the Democrats where we can, but we must have the courage to stand up and fight in the face of the onslaught coming.