Republicans secure majority of U.S. House seats and expected to control U.S. Senate

WASHINGTON (OSV News) — Republicans secured a majority of the U.S. House of Representatives, according to a Nov. 12 projection by data provider Decision Desk HQ, giving President-elect Donald Trump GOP majorities in both chambers of Congress as he begins his second term in January.

Although more than a dozen House races remained without a projection by The Associated Press and final election results are still being tallied, Republicans will control the U.S. Senate according to multiple forecasts. Catholic analysts who spoke with OSV News pointed to areas of both potential concern and opportunity on issues related to Catholic social teaching.

At a Nov. 12 press conference, House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., said that while “we’re completing the work of this Congress, we’re shifting gears and preparing for the next Congress.”

“We’re also still in campaign mode, in some sense, and awaiting the final outcome” of several still uncalled races in Alaska, Arizona, California, Maine, Ohio and Oregon, he added.

Johnson said congressional Republicans “will be ready to take the ball and run full speed in the 119th Congress that begins in January.”

“When President Donald Trump won the presidency in 2016 we all look back and recognize that the Republican Party was not fully prepared for that moment, and precious time was wasted in the beginning of that Congress,” he said.

In a possible sign that Republicans will avoid a contentious and drawn-out speaker race that twice plagued them during the current Congress, National Republican Congressional Committee Chair Richard Hudson of North Carolina told Johnson at the press conference, “You’ve earned the gavel, Mr. Speaker, with your long days on the road, little sleep and relentless optimism.”

Catholic analysts who spoke with OSV News expressed concern about the GOP platform on issues such as immigration, but they expressed optimism about other areas, such as the potential for an expanded child tax credit.

“Republicans are going to be faced with some real choices when they take control of the White House and Congress next January,” Patrick Brown, a fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center’s Life and Family Initiative, told OSV News.

“The party is evolving in a direction that prioritizes working-class Americans, which could open up exciting new possibilities on support for parents, pro-family tax policies and protecting kids from gender ideology,” he said.

Brown also said that while there might be “opportunities to unwind some of the aggressive pro-abortion executive actions taken by the Biden administration,” it is not likely that there would be “anything resembling a national abortion ban” considered in the next Congress.

Joan F. Neal, deputy executive director and chief equity officer at Network, a Catholic social justice lobby, expressed concern about the potential for cuts to social service programs such as the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children, known as WIC.

Asked about the potential for opportunities on an area of concern to Catholics, Neal told OSV News, “I would hope that the child tax credit would be an opportunity for a positive policy agenda item,” noting that the policy, when previously in place, “lifted millions of children out of poverty” in the U.S., according to data from Columbia University.

On immigration, Neal argued a mass deportation effort like the one Trump campaigned on would place those impacted in danger and would separate families.

“These are our neighbors, our co-workers and our fellow parishioners at church,” she said.

J. Kevin Appleby, senior fellow for policy at the Center for Migration Studies of New York and the former director of migration policy for the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, told OSV News, “It could be difficult to stop an enforcement-only immigration bill that fails to protect human rights, as has been proposed in the past.”

“Immigration advocates will have to play strong defense in both chambers of Congress,” Appleby said. “The filibuster in the Senate and a slim Republican majority in the House, however, can be used to stem some of these harmful proposals.”

“The problem with one party controlling all the levers of the government, including the Congress,” he argued, “is that the party in power will often overreach and reject any type of compromise, which can be a recipe for division and lead to bad policy. And often the party that overreaches finds itself out of power in the next election cycle.”

Meghan J. Clark, a professor of moral theology at St. John’s University in the Queens borough of New York and the author of “The Vision of Catholic Social Thought: The Virtue of Solidarity and the Praxis of Human Rights,” also expressed concern about immigration policy, arguing that although all people should be treated with human dignity, asylum-seekers who came to the U.S. legally might also be targeted by mass deportation efforts.

“Catholics are called to firmly stand against all dehumanization of our neighbors,” she said.

Catholics should also strive to ensure climate policy is a priority, she added.

“In the spirit of ‘Laudato Si’,’ Catholics are called to insist that the new administration address poverty and the planet,” she said. “We must resist all attempts to present protecting the planet or addressing it as ‘too expensive.’ For Catholic social teaching, poverty and the climate crisis can and must be addressed together.”

Clark also pointed to the potential for an expanded child tax credit as a potential area of opportunity, as well as “progress made on the ability of Medicare to negotiate drug prices on Insulin and other common medications.”

“In both cases, the opportunity depends upon focusing our attention to make sure that policies are examined from the perspective of the poor and not treating those living in poverty with suspicion,” she said.

Although Republicans are projected to control the House, their majority will likely be narrow, and further slimmed by Trump himself, who chose several House Republicans to fill roles in his incoming administration, whose seats will be temporarily vacant.

Trump selected Reps. Elise Stefanik, R-N.Y., as U.S. ambassador to the United Nations and Mike Waltz, R-Fla., as national security adviser.

At the press conference, Johnson said Trump “fully understands and appreciates the math here, and it’s just a numbers game.”

“We believe we’re going to have a larger majority than we had last time,” Johnson said, adding, “But every single vote will count, because if someone gets ill or has a car accident or a late flight on their plane, that it affects the votes on the floor.”

Republicans were projected to win control of the U.S. Senate, after Ohio Republican candidate Bernie Moreno defeated the state’s Democratic incumbent Sen. Sherrod Brown, and West Virginia’s Republican Gov. Jim Justice was elected to the seat soon to be vacated by Sen. Joe Manchin, a Catholic and the Senate’s last pro-life Democrat.

Republican David McCormick, the former CEO of the world’s largest hedge fund, defeated three-term Democratic Sen. Bob Casey Jr. in a key-swing state contest in Pennsylvania, according to a projection by the AP, although Casey had not conceded the race as of Nov. 12, arguing the race is tight and remaining votes should be counted. In Arizona, Democratic Rep. Ruben Gallego defeated Republican and former news anchor Kari Lake, who also had not yet conceded.

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