Since basically the moment the 118th Congress was sworn in, in January 2023, it was pretty clear that this particular cameral gathering had barely a passing interest in passing laws. That fact was resoundingly clear by the midway point of the session: At the end of 2023, the House had produced just 34 bills that were ultimately signed into law, by far the least productive year of legislation in the modern era. Those stunningly low numbers were even worse upon close examination. The majority of that few dozen were uncontroversial bills that passed with minimal or no opposition, like renaming Veterans Affairs clinics and minting a birthday coin for the Marine Corps.

2024 has carried on this least-productive-Congress-ever trend; the count is up to 62 bills, and they’re pretty much all just naming post offices.

So, it’s very clear what this Congress isn’t: a lawmaking entity. But this week, we finally got a resounding sense of what this Congress is: a high school soap opera.

It’s hard to keep track of all the PG-13, Degrassi-style drama that has beset the House, so let’s go in reverse chron:

The most explosive, highly replayed incident came from recast high school bully Marjorie Taylor Greene during a House Oversight Committee hearing on Friday. Ostensibly, House GOP members convened the gathering to pursue contempt proceedings against Attorney General Merrick Garland for witch-hunting honorable Republicans. (Garland’s Justice Department has indicted more national Democratic elected officials than Republicans, but that is evidently beside the point.)

The whole exchange was so ridiculous and unprovoked it’s hard to pick a snippet, but the headline dust-up was this:

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