Author John Lawrence reports: “Sixty years ago, Casey Stengel, the legendary manager of the New York Mets, was understandably distraught. The new team, cobbled together from hobbling veteran players, could neither field nor hit. (Eventually, the 1962 Mets would post a truly impressive 40-120-1 won-loss record for the season.) So it was with considerable justification that Stengel, in one of his more printable laments, asked, “Can anybody play this game?”
Editor’s Note: This Opinion was written before the debt ceiling negotiation concluded, but Mr. Lawrence’s viewpoint is still timely because of how certain conservatives in the House are still refusing to back down — holding government hostage while still demanding cuts in Social Security and Medicare, pushing for the abandonment of other key commitments of the federal government, and at the same time, refusing to consider balancing the budget by holding the richest people in this country to pay their fair share in taxes.
“Six decades later, one could easily forgive an observer of the 118th Congress for asking the same question. Things hardly began on a note of optimism, with House Republicans taking a modern record of 15 ballots just to select their Speaker, and then only after Kevin McCarthy agreed to eviscerate the powers he would need to keep his conference together and marginally functioning. (As was the case with John Boehner’s GOP majority a dozen years ago, McCarthy requires a substantial number of Democratic votes to send any legislation to the president’s desk because of the obdurate opposition of dozens of his own members.) It took over a week to overcome internal conference bickering and approve the unnecessary “Gas Stove Protection and Freedom Act,” which is heading right into what our pre-plumbing ancestors called “the necessity.” Now they are planning to demand even deeper domestic cuts than they just agreed to in the debt ceiling package and plan to vote soon on a new tax giveaway that will create a trillion dollars in new debt.
“As pathetic and clumsy as House Republicans are – stumbling over message bills, embracing debt ceiling default, squabbling amongst their own leadership – the legislative blockage impacting the Senate is even more preposterous because, like so many dysfunctional aspects of “The World’s Greatest Deliberative Body,” the failures are self-imposed. In fact, the Senate can barely rouse itself to deliberate about much of anything.
“Senate rules – as opposed to the Constitution or a statute – accord any senator the ability to object to consideration of any bill or nomination. Senators routinely employ filibuster threats and holds, which require supermajorities that rarely impose cloture and allow consideration of the matter. In a closely divided Senate, which seems likely to remain an enduring feature in our era of hyper-partisanship, the chances of securing the votes needed for cloture are slim to none.
“What this means, of course, is that any senator holds the power of life and death over any legislation or nomination, no matter how dubious or nongermane his or her objection might be. Yes, in theory, members of the obstructionist’s party could help the majority invoke cloture, but that is a time-consuming process and besides, virtually every senator loves the power the filibuster and hold accord. That leverage – over the House, over presidents, even over their own colleagues – is (which is why former Sen. Byron Dorgan (D-ND) once described the Senate as being composed of “100% human brake pads.” Indeed, the last significant reform of the hold was in 2007, requiring that after six days of anonymity, the identity of the person employing a hold can no longer be concealed.
“For several months, Tommy “I call them [white nationalists] ‘Americans'” Tuberville (R-AL) has singlehandedly prevented the routine promotion of hundreds of active duty military officers because he demands the Biden administration rescind rules granting members of the military paid leave and reimbursing travel expenses if needed to access abortion services where they still remain legal. Tuberville, who spares few opportunities to proclaim his support for the military, is unperturbed by criticism his actions are undermining morale and preparedness. Yet the Senate does nothing.
“Freshman senator J.D. Vance (R-OH) has declared he will “grind [the Justice Department] to a halt” because the Attorney General is “harass[ing] Joe Biden’s political opponents,” that is, Donald Trump. So much for the independent judiciary (which some Republicans are vowing to defund, along with the FBI). It is preposterous, but Vance possesses this outsized power only because senators care more about protecting the power they possess due to their internal rules than they do national security and law enforcement.
“Republicans are not alone in using holds. The paper-thin margin in the Senate means that majority Democrats willing to undermine their own party’s claims to governing expertise can similarly frustrate the functioning of the Senate. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) recently declared he would prevent action on President Biden’s nominee for director of the National Institutes of Health until the administration unveils a “comprehensive” plan for lowering prescription drug prices, a responsibility of Congress not the president.
“Then there is Joe Manchin (D-WV), who vows to oppose all of Biden appointees for the Environmental Protection Agency until the president tempers his “radical climate agenda.” If there is any state in the Union whose pollution-wracked residents are in need of the EPA’s diligent enforcement power, it is mining-contaminated West Virginia; but Manchin, like every other senator, has the power of the hold, and he will use it to obstruct because he lacks the votes to legislate policies that reflect his beliefs.
“Senators like to bemoan their incapacitation by blaming the institutions rules that they have created and defend. Majority Leader Chuck Schumer could use a parliamentary maneuver perfected by predecessors Harry Reid (in 2013) and Mitch McConnell (in 2017) and alter the Senate’s obstructionist rules, but he knows that however much his colleagues criticize the use of holds and filibusters by their opponents, the practices are sacrosanct because they empower each senator on legislation and appointees.
“Even under Democratic majorities, hundreds of bills, including many addressing consensus-backed issues such as gun policy, abortion access, and climate change, would pass the House only to languish in McConnell’s “legislative graveyard.” Congress’ inability to address these popular issues generates well-deserved public disdain, just as the Mets did in 1992. No wonder the admonition of Casey Stengel comes to mind.
“As we move into the crucial week of eyeball-to-eyeball negotiations over the debt ceiling, the prospects for agreement are actually pretty good. Unquestionably, there is a considerable number of Republicans (more so in the House than in the Senate) who embrace Donald Trump’s daffy preference for default unless President Biden agrees to spending cuts more than three times the size of the debt ceiling increase. But that extremist element, as well as the “no compromise” Democrats, won’t be anywhere near the room where the final deal is cut.
“The probability of a debt ceiling agreement is not because a party of right-wing nihilists will transform into responsible lawmakers. Rather, the likeliness of a bargain reflects the axiom of the late Rep. Phillip Burton (D-CA). “Once you show them the depths of hell,” Burton would inveigh about his reluctant House colleagues, “the alternatives don’t look so bad.” Defaulting on the debt would plunge the economy into the depths of hell; so it is unlikely to happen. That’s why the debt ceiling was raised three times, and with little controversy, during Trump’s administration.
“A far less optimistic scenario is being foisted on the public by the breathless cable commentators who, anytime now, will superimpose a little “debt ceiling countdown clock” ticking down on their screen. They will recollect Speaker John Boehner’s reluctant capitulation to the Tea Party in 2013, after two years of pushing back, to shut down the government during a continuing resolution fight rather than submit to President Obama. But a debt default is far worse than a brief government shutdown, and the ramifications more lasting. A closed government can reopen in a day or a week with relatively little residual damage (other than wasting several billion dollars); but the effects of breaching the debt ceiling could last for many years, as has been the case with the downgrading of U.S. bonds following the real danger of default a dozen years ago.
“So how will the looming “crisis” be resolved? Of course, the exact parameters of the agreement are impossible to predict, although they doubtless will involve a Democratic capitulation on spending cuts, perhaps in return for a Republican agreement to a two-year increase in the debt ceiling to avert a replay during the 2024 primary season. The current negotiations between the Biden White House and Speaker Kevin McCarthy will outline some key details, but the final design will be shaped by Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer and minority leader Mitch McConnell who have allowed McCarthy to take the lead not because they respect his dealmaking skills but because they know that, in the end, they will dictate what is included in the final package. …”
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“As I detail in my book, Arc of Power, many crucial negotiations are resolved in just this manner, to the consternation of House members of both parties. The Senate leaders, neither of whom wants a default, will remind McCarthy and Biden (who doubtless needs little reminding) that whatever deal is cooked up in the current discussion must be fine-tuned to secure the 60 votes needed to pass the Senate. McConnell holds the key in this scenario; he will calculate what he wants to secure the Republican votes to offset a few Democratic losses who object to cuts or work requirements, and that will pretty much sew up the deal. Then they will announce to McCarthy that this is as good as it gets, unless he wants House Republicans to bear full responsibility for crashing the international economy.
“Of course, the Republican hardliners will be apoplectic (as will some Democrats) at the prospects of capitulating yet again to the Senate. But House resentment over what former House majority leader Steny Hoyer anguishingly calls the “my way or the highway” approach of the upper chamber, doesn’t change the reality. Experienced House members are familiar with the ultimatum the Senate gets to impose because of its rules: Schumer and McConnell need 60 votes. This is the deal that gets them. Change it and you get nothing but default and blame.
“Still, there is the problem of how such a distasteful package can pass the House. One mechanism involves the novel parliamentary maneuver devised by Speaker Nancy Pelosi to key defense spending bills that included funding for the Iraq war that most of her Democrats refused to support. At the same time, Republicans refused to vote for a bill without the war funding. Pelosi created a unique floor rule that allowed separate votes on the Iraq money and on the remainder of the defense spending. Once Republicans voted for the Iraq money and Democrats approved the other spending, the rule deemed the two provisions immaculately joined together into a single bill that did not require a final vote.
“The same strategy could be advanced in the current debt ceiling debate. The bill could be divided in the House, with Democrats voting for a clean raising of the debt ceiling, as they had demanded, while Republicans alone pass whatever combination of cuts are agreed to by the Senate and Biden. It worked for Iraq funding, and it probably would work in the current debt ceiling fight as well. Many of the novice Republican members may not remember the Iraq maneuver but the leaders, and their staffs, certainly do.
“Kevin McCarthy will potentially face retribution within the GOP conference for bringing such a rule and package to the floor, and thanks to the rules changes to which he acquiesced in January, he could face a no-confidence vote at the hand of any single disgruntled House member. And he well might. But it is also likely that he will remind his conference that like John Boehner and his successor Paul Ryan, after peering over the edge at the “depths of hell,” the wise leader steps back from the brink and lives to fight another day. If five of his members reject that rationale, the McCarthy speakership is over. But if anyone has a better plan for averting cataclysmic default, now is the time to put the idea on the table.
“President Biden has Republicans in a full-blown panic over his accusations that the GOP yearns to make serious changes to Medicare and Social Security. Altering benefits to these sacrosanct programs, which are venerated by Americans regardless of ideology (in part because they pay into them to secure the benefits) has long been considered the proverbial “third rail” of American politics: you touch it, you die.
You don’t have to have worked very long on Capitol Hill to appreciate that there are few things more unpleasant for a member than to return to the district for a town hall meeting and have to explain any proposal to alter, modify, cut, reform or update Social Security and Medicare.
So, it isn’t very surprising that Biden, who has been to a few rodeos before, seized on the ill-considered proposals of several Republicans to fiddle around with the old folks’ income security and health care. Viewers of the president’s speech were treated to vituperative responses to his solemn pledge to veto any Republican plan. Of course, Biden knows the chance of such cuts reaching his desk is close to zero, but the president has learned a thing or two about making political opponents squirm … .”
ABOUT JOHN LAWRENCE, author of DOMEocracy: For the first time in 38 years, I am not an employee of the United States House of Representatives. In February, I concluded nearly eight years serving as chief of staff to Speaker (and Democratic Leader) Nancy Pelosi; for 30 preceding years, my employer was Congressman George Miller (D-CA), with whom I served as chief of staff, and as staff director of the two House Committees he led — the Committee on Natural Resources and the Committee on Education and Labor. Mr. Lawrence’ regular column can be viewed at DOMEocracy.
His books are also available: “Sherlock Holmes and the Affair at Mayerling Lodge,” can be ordered here. Also, “Arc of Power: Inside Nancy Pelosi’s Speakership 2005-2010” can be ordered here.