How the 'bad blood' from Jan. 6 has made the House a 'deeply unpleasant place to work'

House of Representatives.
(Image credit: JIM WATSON/AFP via Getty Images)

Following the disaster that was Jan. 6, an already-partisan Congress has grown almost entirely untenable as working Republican and Democratic partnerships — particularly in the House — crumble in the face of the most serious attack on the U.S. Capitol since 1812, The Wall Street Journal reports.

In interviews with more than four dozen lawmakers and congressional staffers, "people of all political stripes say the House has become a deeply unpleasant place to work, with simmering ill feeling and a series of ugly incidents fraying remaining bipartisan ties," writes the Journal.

"It's as bad as I've seen it," House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.), who has served in Congress since 1981, told the paper. "The toxic environment has been building for a long, long time before Jan. 6, but Jan. 6 just blew it up in flames."

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE
https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/flexiimages/jacafc5zvs1692883516.jpg

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up

"It is the tensest it's been," added Rep. William Timmons (R-S.C.), blaming Jan. 6, the resulting magnetometers that scan representatives for weapons as they enter the chamber, and the pandemic for the dysfunction.

The "bad blood" even infiltrated one of the House's "most prominent bipartisan groups," the Problem Solvers Caucus, which recently helped with infrastructure and pandemic negotiations. "Some members were, you know, contemplating getting out," Rep. Tom Reed (R-N.Y.) told the Journal.

And in another example, Democratic Illinois Rep. Brad Schneider halted a legislative relationship with incendiary Arizona Republican Rep. Paul Gosar after Gosar defended Captiol rioters and voted against certifying the 2020 election results. "If you can't recognize the legitimacy of the election, the legitimacy of the new president and you're unwilling to stop trafficking in the lies that led us to Jan. 6, then I'm not going to work with you," Schneider said.

Gosar, for his part, insisted Schneider to be a "toxic individual" engaging in conspiracy theories. Read more at The Wall Street Journal.

Explore More
Brigid Kennedy

Brigid Kennedy worked at The Week from 2021 to 2023 as a staff writer, junior editor and then story editor, with an interest in U.S. politics, the economy and the music industry.