Republicans retaking the congressional majority

Republicans retaking the congressional majority hasn't meant smooth sailing for Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and House Speaker John Boehner.

It was going to be their big chance – the opportunity to get things done, prove they could govern and tighten the reins on President Barack Obama. With historic majorities in Congress, Republicans were perfectly poised to rebrand themselves as the sober legislators ahead of the 2016 elections.

“Serious adults are in charge here, and we intend to make progress,” new Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., said in January.

More than two months in, the GOP has been troubled by internal fissures, an emboldened president and what has been roundly decried as bad judgment, at best, in weighing in on sensitive foreign policy matters. The majority agenda has been thwarted in the Senate by Democrats who (after complaining about filibuster abuse when they had control) have largely stuck together in holding up GOP legislation. In the House, where the rules overwhelmingly favor the majority party, leaving the minority to merely make opposing speeches on the floor, the Democrats have exploited GOP divisions to exert astonishing influence.

And behavior by individual members hasn’t helped the storyline: just months after New York Republican Michael Grimm resigned his House seat after pleading guilty to a felony tax violation, the once up-and-coming Rep. Aaron Schock, an Illinois Republican, announced he would resign effective March 31, in the wake of ethics questions about his spending.