Is House Speaker Johnson playing politics with Helene aid? Please don’t. | Opinion

Speaker of the U.S. House Mike Johnson’s time would be better spent reconvening Congress to consider more disaster aid than surveying Hurricane Helene damage in western North Carolina this week. The speaker should not wait until after the election, as he reportedly plans to do.

That’s a mistake. A huge mistake.

Americans suffering from billions of dollars in damage don’t need another politician smiling in their faces. This is not a slight against politicians who show up in the aftermath of natural disasters. Such visits can be reassuring and put a spotlight on vulnerable areas that need the attention. Democrats President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris, Republican former President Donald Trump, and a bevy of other officials have made such trips the past two weeks.

Johnson’s trip would be in line with those, which serve the dual purpose of politicking and serving constituents in need. That’s not the problem. The problem is unnecessarily waiting to recall the nation’s leaders to begin legislation that will fund the next stages of recovery. The urgency has increased as yet another historically-strong storm lurks in the Gulf of Mexico and is forecast to hit Florida — a state also reeling from Helene — sometime this week. Hurricane Milton, which has become one of the strongest hurricanes ever, had scarily-fast 160 miles per hour sustained winds at the time of this writing.

The damage from Helene and Milton will be several billion dollars. Johnson reportedly said Congress can wait until after the election because we don’t yet know the price tag. But we don’t have to know a precise number to understand the need. Every day of delay could lead to more hardship.

The Biden-Harris administration has warned Johnson the Small Business Administration’s disaster relief program may run out of money before Congress returns from recess, which could mean forgoing “longer-term recovery activities in favor of meeting urgent needs.”

House Republicans turned down requests from the administration for disaster relief funding after the Maui fires, the collapsed Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore and tornadoes that hit multiple states. I don’t know why. I’ll assume Johnson and other Republicans had good reason to deny that funding. I don’t want to believe they would play partisan politics with such important decisions.

I’m going to assume Sen. Thom Tillis didn’t attack Harris on X, formerly Twitter, just to get in a political jab instead of remaining focused on what’s best for Tar Heels who remain in harm’s way. I’ll assume Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis has decided not to return Harris’s phone calls for reasons that aren’t political. I’m going to believe it has nothing to do with what happened to Gov. Chris Christie in 2012 when he warmly greeted President Barack Obama after Superstorm Sandy hit New Jersey a week before the 2012 election. His once-promising career as a Republican was effectively ended because of an imaginary “hug” with a Democrat.

In a moment like this, I’m trying to refuse to think the worst of people, including everyday Americans who have spread so much misinformation that it has affected relief efforts, and elected officials who have short- and long-term incentives to politicize a natural disaster that has killed more than 230 people and left an unknown amount of damage in its wake, which could worsen in coming days if Hurricane Milton makes landfall.

I have to refuse to think of the worst of people. To believe otherwise is to think a nation that holds itself as great is so broken, its social fabric so tattered and strained at the seams, it may never be able to repair itself.

We can’t be so far gone that though we are staring in the face death and destruction on a Biblical scale we remain locked in partisan corners even as our brothers and sisters suffer and need our help.

That’s why I won’t assume Johnson is refusing to reconvene Congress early because he doesn’t want to give the Biden-Harris administration a political “win” before the election.

That simply can’t be. It must not be.