House Democrats are openly salivating over the possibility that Rep. Neal Dunn, R-Fla., may resign his seat in the coming days — a move that would leave Republicans clinging to a single-vote majority as a partial government shutdown looms over a deadlocked DHS funding fight.
Questions continue to circulate on Capitol Hill about Dunn's plans, though no official statement has come from the Florida Republican, who has wrestled with health concerns in the past. What is clear: Democrats already have their playbook ready.
Rep. Pramila Jayapal, D-Wash., didn't bother with subtlety Wednesday evening:
"Look, yeah, the less of a majority they have, the better it is for us to actually get real stuff done that benefits the country."
"Real stuff" that "benefits the country." From the party whose leadership just issued a list of demands designed to gut immigration enforcement. The framing tells you everything.
As Fox News reported, Rep. Rosa DeLauro, D-Conn., distilled the Democrat calculus into five words:
"This place runs on numbers."
She's not wrong. If Dunn steps aside, Republicans hold a one-seat majority — a margin so razor-thin that a single defection on any vote hands Democrats veto power over the legislative agenda. And with Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., a persistent independent streak in the Republican conference, that defection isn't hypothetical. It's a recurring feature of this Congress.
The math gets worse before it gets better. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene resigned from Congress in January, and her Georgia seat — one she won by nearly 29 points — won't be filled until a March 10 special election. Every empty Republican chair is leverage Democrats didn't earn at the ballot box but intend to spend anyway.
DeLauro framed the Democratic posture as pragmatic rather than opportunistic:
"I think what I'll do is take the circumstance and, for me, we need to be bold, transformational but do what is attainable."
"Bold" and "transformational" are doing a lot of work in that sentence. What she means is that Democrats smell blood.
The immediate crisis is a DHS funding deadline that hits Friday with no compromise in sight. The gridlock looks poised to force a partial government shutdown — and the dispute centers on a set of demands that reveal exactly what Democrats mean when they talk about "getting real stuff done."
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer have assembled a list of 10 demands for ICE reform. Among the items made public:
Read that list again. In the middle of a border crisis that has flooded American communities with illegal immigrants, fentanyl, and cartel violence, the Democrat leadership's priority is making it harder for ICE to do its job. Not reforming the asylum system. Not securing the border. Handcuffing the agents tasked with interior enforcement.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune reportedly doesn't believe Schumer or Jeffries would be honest brokers in DHS negotiations. It's hard to argue with that assessment when the opening bid is a wish list designed to dismantle enforcement from the inside out.
Rep. Johnny Olszewski, D-Md., offered the softer version of the Democrats' pitch — the velvet glove over the iron fist:
"It doesn't have to be that way. Since I've been sworn in, I've been pleading to Speaker Johnson and the Republican majority to strike a more bipartisan tone."
He pointed to the amendment process as a potential avenue for cooperation, claiming Democrats have been shut out under the "closed" rule process by which only preapproved amendments reach the floor:
"I have, in good faith, tried to offer amendments to make bills better and potentially able to support. I know that many of my colleagues have done that. And, so, I guess, you know, if we're serious about coming together and finding solutions — especially on the cost of living crisis that's crushing America — maybe we'll see that."
The appeal sounds reasonable in isolation. But zoom out. Democrats aren't offering to meet Republicans halfway on border security or spending restraint. They're conditioning any cooperation on ICE reforms that would effectively neuter the agency — then asking why Republicans won't play nice.
That's not bipartisanship. That's hostage negotiation with a smile.
Jayapal also tipped the Democrats' procedural hand, referencing the discharge petition — a mechanism that allows members to force a floor vote over the objection of chamber leadership:
"I mean, you've seen the success with discharge petitions."
She's right that the tool has found unusual traction this Congress. Sixteen discharge petitions have been filed, and four have reached the 218 signatures needed to advance — including the effort that forced the release of the Epstein files. In a House where the majority can't afford a single defection, the discharge petition transforms from a rarely used procedural curiosity into a genuine weapon.
For Democrats, every Republican willing to break ranks on any issue becomes a potential co-signer. The narrower the majority, the fewer rebels needed to override leadership entirely.
The situation facing Speaker Johnson and Republican leadership is genuinely difficult — not because their agenda is wrong, but because the mechanics of a near-zero margin punish ambition. Every vote becomes a high-wire act. Every bill requires near-total unity from a conference that includes members with genuinely different priorities.
Democrats understand this. They don't need to win elections to win leverage. They just need to wait for vacancies, cultivate defections, and make demands they know will be hard to refuse when the alternative is a shutdown headline.
The Georgia special election on March 10 will eventually restore one seat. But between now and then — and for as long as Dunn's future remains unresolved — Republicans are governing with no margin for error in a town where error is the default setting.
Democrats aren't offering solutions. They're offering terms. And the price of those terms is an immigration enforcement regime that exists on paper but not in practice.
That's not governance. That's a shakedown dressed up as statesmanship.
