“The Fate Of The GOP Majority Is On The Line”: Even The Wall Street Journal Says Republican Congress Is Failing
This WSJ editorial is definitely NOT good news for Majority Leader Mitch McConnell or Speaker John Boehner:
Republicans in Congress are off to a less than flying start after a month in power, dividing their own conference more than Democrats. Take the response to President Obama ’s immigration order, which seems headed for failure if not a more spectacular crack-up…
If Homeland Security funding lapses on Feb. 27, the agency will be pushed into a partial shutdown even as the terrorist threat is at the forefront of public attention with the Charlie Hebdo and Islamic State murders. Imagine if the Transportation Security Administration, a unit of DHS, fails to intercept an Islamic State agent en route to Detroit.
So Republicans are facing what is likely to be another embarrassing political retreat and more intra-party recriminations. The GOP’s restrictionist wing will blame the leadership for a failure they share responsibility for, and the rest of America will wonder anew about the gang that couldn’t shoot straight…
It’s not too soon to say that the fate of the GOP majority is on the line…This is no way to run a Congressional majority, and the only winners of GOP dysfunction will be Mr. Obama, Nancy Pelosi and Hillary Clinton.
Ouch! That one left a mark. When Republican leadership loses the Wall Street Journal editorial page, you can rest assured that they’re in big trouble.
And yet today Speaker Boehner told Chris Wallace that the House has already done it’s business and that he is prepared to let DHS funding expire at the end of the month.
Notice that Sen. McConnell didn’t appear on any of the Sunday news shows. But here’s how he explained his position earlier this week.
“I think it’d be pretty safe to say we’re stuck, because of Democratic obstruction on the Senate side,” Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) told reporters Tuesday. “I think it’s clear we can’t go forward in the Senate. And so the next move, obviously, is up to the House.”
If the WSJ is right and the fate of the GOP majority is on the line, it’s past time for these two Congressional leaders to face up to yet another embarrassing political defeat and get something done.
By: Nancy LeTourneau, Political Animal, The Washington Monthly, February 15, 2015
“McConnell Is Blowing It…Big Time”: McConnell Has Forgotten What Is At The Heart Of The Strategy He Invented
My take on Sen. Mitch McConnell has always been that he is not so interested in issues/policies as he is in the power game of politics. That approach was never on display more clearly than when he said that his number one goal was to ensure that Obama was a one-term president – in the midst of the worst recession since the Great Depression.
Given that, I will credit McConnell with being a good strategist. No matter how bad his total obstructionist tactics were for the country, they were a fairly effective power play. That’s why it’s been so fascinating to watch him fail so miserably lately.
As I wrote at the beginning of this Republican-controlled Congress, McConnell’s initial strategy was to paint President Obama as the new obstructionist by forcing him to veto legislation that would otherwise undo his agenda. But that is getting all gummed up by either the Democrats in the Senate standing strong or the lunatic caucus in his party making compromise impossible. The Majority Leader finds himself between a rock and a hard place and can’t seem to get much of anything to the President’s desk.
So instead of being able to label President Obama as the obstructionist, McConnell is now having to resort to using that one on the Democrats in Congress.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) accused Democrats Wednesday of knee-jerk obstructionist tactics, flipping a script that Democrats used many times in recent years.
McConnell criticized Democrats for filibustering a motion to debate a House-passed bill funding the Department of Homeland Security that contained language blocking President Obama’s executive actions on immigration.
Aside from the irony of that coming from the great wielder of obstructionism, it seems that McConnell has forgotten what is at the heart of the strategy he invented. Here’s former Republican Congressional staffer Mike Lofgren’s explanation.
A couple of years ago, a Republican committee staff director told me candidly (and proudly) what the method was to all this obstruction and disruption. Should Republicans succeed in obstructing the Senate from doing its job, it would further lower Congress’s generic favorability rating among the American people…
There are tens of millions of low-information voters who hardly know which party controls which branch of government, let alone which party is pursuing a particular legislative tactic. These voters’ confusion over who did what allows them to form the conclusion that “they are all crooks,” and that “government is no good,” further leading them to think, “a plague on both your houses” and “the parties are like two kids in a school yard.”
Those “low-information voters” don’t tend to know which party is pursuing which legislative tactic, but they sure do know which party holds the presidency. And they’ve likely heard about the “shellacking” the President’s party took in the 2014 midterms that gave control of Congress to the opposing party.
So the spectacle voters are witnessing right now is a Democratic President who is busy getting things done while Congress is gridlocked and McConnell whines that Democrats in the Senate won’t let him get anything done.
In other words, you’re blowing it McConnell…big time!
By: Nancy LeTourneau, Political Animal Blog, The Washington Monthly, February 14, 2015
“The Republican Congress Is A Mess”: Boehner; Senate Democrats Need To ‘Get Off Their …’
GOP House leaders emerged from a Republican Conference meeting Wednesday with a persistent refrain on Department of Homeland Security funding: The House has done its job; it’s time for the Senate to act.
During their weekly Republican leadership press conference, Speaker John Boehner repeatedly called on the Senate to take up the House-passed DHS funding bill, which Senate Democrats have repeatedly blocked the chamber from considering.
“You know, in the gift shop out here, they’ve got these little booklets on how a bill becomes a law,” a fired-up Boehner said, as camera shutters clicked away. “The House has done its job! Why don’t you go ask the Senate Democrats when they’re going to get off their ass and do something?!”
When Boehner was asked if this standoff with the Senate was how he planned for the DHS bill to play out — Senate Republicans now insist it’s on House Republicans to send over a new bill — Boehner said the process was working “exactly” the way he envisioned it.
“The House did its job,” Boehner said. “We won the fight to fund the Department of Homeland Security, and to stop the president’s unconstitutional actions. Now it’s time for the Senate to do their work.”
But if they don’t, does Boehner ever intend on throwing the Senate a lifeline?
“The House has done its job,” Boehner said. “It’s time for the Senate to do theirs.”
Time and again, Republican members trickling out of the Wednesday morning conference meeting stubbornly repeated some variation of Boehner’s new favorite line: The House did its job, now it’s the Senate’s turn.
During conference Wednesday, members heard from two of their former House colleagues now in the Senate: Cory Gardner of Colorado and Shelley Moore Capito of West Virginia.
But instead of Gardner and Moore Capito quelling the House insistence that the Senate act, the two freshmen senators got an earful that they weren’t doing enough.
According to Rep. Ron DeSantis of Florida, one member in the conference meeting told the senators they shouldn’t be letting the Senate go home on the weekend.
DeSantis said there were ways Republicans could pressure Senate Democrats — simultaneously noting he’s “not an expert on kind of how the Senate’s run” — and he said the sense among the public was that Senate Republicans weren’t doing enough.
In a mocking tone, DeSantis said the Senate’s attitude was, “‘OK, have a vote, OK, you don’t have 60, OK, we got to move on to something else now.’”
House members simply aren’t satisfied with the Senate’s effort on the House-passed DHS bill, which would block President Barack Obama’s executive action on immigration. And House Republicans aren’t moving off their position that the Senate take up their bill. That insistence was typified Wednesday in one particularly iron-willed exchange between Budget Chairman Tom Price and a reporter.
“The speaker’s position, and our position, is that the House has already acted; it’s time for the Senate to act,” the Georgia Republican said Wednesday morning.
Asked if the more likely option then was for a continuing resolution or for a shutdown, Price said the option was for the Senate to act.
Presented with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s comments Tuesday that it was “obviously” up to the House to send over a new bill, Price was emphatic. “The House has acted,” he said, content to leave it at that.
But Rebecca Shabad, a reporter for The Hill, was not content to leave it at that. She asked if Price thought the House might have to act again. “It’s up to the Senate to act,” Price replied.
Asked again if a CR was more likely, given the short amount of time before a DHS shutdown on Feb. 28, Price resorted to a similar line. “The House has acted. It’s up to the Senate to act,” he said.
And that’s the official position from House Republicans: They’re not budging.
A similarly obstinate back-and-forth is playing out between Boehner and McConnell in the press. Boehner continues to insist the DHS funding bill is up to the Senate, while McConnell points to three failed votes to proceed to the legislation.
When Boehner was asked about the constantly evolving McConnell-Boehner relationship Wednesday, he didn’t say much.
“I love Mitch,” Boehner said. “He has a tough job to do, and so do I.”
And that was that.
Adam Jentleson, spokesman for Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) later issued the following statement on Boehner’s comments:
“We know Speaker Boehner is frustrated but cursing is not going to resolve the squabbling among Republicans that led to this impasse. Democrats have been clear from day one about the way out of this mess: take up the clean Homeland Security funding bill which Republicans signed off on in December – and which is ready to come to the Senate floor – pass it, and move on. If Republicans want to debate immigration policy next, Democrats are happy to have that debate.
“Neither Speaker Boehner nor Senator McConnell appears willing to do the right thing and stand up to the extremists in their caucus like Senator Ted Cruz who have led us here. As we speak, Senator McConnell is on the verge of wasting three entire weeks that could have been used to pass a clean Homeland Security bill simply because he is unwilling to stand up to Senator Cruz.
“The Republican Congress is a mess, pure and simple. Democrats are happy to help our Republican colleagues resolve their problems but the first step is for Republican leaders to do the right thing and pass a clean bill to fund Homeland Security.”
By: Matt Fuller, The National Memo, February 11, 2015
“McConnell Decries ‘Obstructionism’, Irony Dies”: How Perspectives Can Change When One Moves From The Minority To The Majority
On literally the first day of the new Congress, Politico asked Don Stewart, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s (R-Ky.) spokesperson, what McConnell sees as his biggest challenge. “Democrat obstruction,” Stewart replied.
Putting aside the fact that he probably meant “Democratic obstruction,” the response was striking in its irony. McConnell, arguably more than any senator in the nation’s history, mastered the art of obstructionism, taking it to levels with no precedent in the American experiment. For his office to suddenly decry McConnell’s own practices was a reminder of just how much perspectives can change when one moves from the minority to the majority.
A month later, the posturing is almost amusing.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) accused Democrats Wednesday of knee-jerk obstructionist tactics, flipping a script that Democrats used many times in recent years.
McConnell criticized Democrats for filibustering a motion to debate a House-passed bill funding the Department of Homeland Security that contained language blocking President Obama’s executive actions on immigration.
“And now Americans are wondering: What could possibly lead Democrats to filibuster Homeland Security funding?” he said on the Senate floor.
I suspect Americans aren’t really wondering that at all – the question is actually pretty easy to answer, as the Majority Leader probably realizes – but it’s the broader context that’s truly amazing.
If we were to create some kind of electronic mechanism to measure hypocrisy on a dial, and we had the machine analyze Team McConnell’s whining, the box would have very likely caught on fire yesterday.
To be sure, when it comes to filibuster hypocrisy, there’s plenty of bipartisan chiding to go around. When a party is in the majority, its members discover the remarkable value of majority rule, a sacrosanct principle that senators ignore at the nation’s peril. When that same party is in the minority, its members magically conclude that tyranny of the majority is a scourge that must be tempered with overuse of “cooling saucer” metaphors.
It’s therefore quite easy to dig up quotes from Democrats and Republicans contradicting themselves quite brazenly as they transition between minority, majority, and back.
But McConnell is nevertheless a special case. In recent years, specifically after President Obama took office, the Kentucky Republican turned obstructionism into an art form. He abused institutional norms and rules in ways his predecessors never even considered, filibustering everything he could, as often as he could. McConnell operated with a simple principle: If a bill can be blocked, it must be blocked.
Following his lead, Senate Republicans not only spent six years refusing to compromise or accept any concessions on any issue, it also imposed filibusters on every key piece of legislation to reach the floor. Before the so-called “nuclear option,” the GOP minority even routinely filibustered nominees they actually supported.
It was all part of a deliberate (and occasionally successful) strategy in which McConnell would obstruct everything he could, making Democratic governance as impossible as he could make it, without regard for the consequences.
Some reflexive complaining from McConnell and his allies is to be expected – their own medicine apparently has a bitter taste – but self-awareness is an under-appreciated quality. If the Majority Leader wants to be taken at all seriously, he can either avoid complaints about “obstructionism” or he can hope for mass amnesia to sweep the political world.
I’d recommend the former over the latter.
By: Steve Benen, The Madow Blog, February 6, 2015
“A Walk Down Memory Lane On Republican Obstruction”: A Consciously Thought-Out Strategy To Create Dysfunction
For some of us its pretty galling to hear Sen. Majority Leader Mitch McConnell suggest that the way to end dysfunction in Washington is for President Obama to move to the “middle,” or to have to listen to a Republican presidential candidate opine about the lack of “adult conversations” in D.C.
For the record, here’s a little walk down memory lane of Republicans talking publicly about their strategy for obstruction:
1993 – Bill Kristol writes a memo outlining a strategy for Republicans on President Clinton’s health care reform proposal.
Faced with forceful objections in the past, the [Clinton] Administration has generally preferred to bargain and compromise with Congress so as to achieve any victory it can. But health care is not, in fact, just another Clinton domestic policy. And the conventional political strategies Republicans have used in the past are inadequate to the task of defeating the Clinton plan outright. That must be our goal…
Simple, green-eyeshades criticism of the plan…is fine so far as it goes. But in the current climate, such opposition only wins concessions, not surrender…
Any Republican urge to negotiate a “least bad” compromise with the Democrats, and thereby gain momentary public credit for helping the president “do something” about health care, should also be resisted.
2003 – Governor Deval Patrick recalls Grover Norquist’s comments on plans for a “permanent Republican majority.”
At our 25th college reunion in 2003, Grover Norquist — the brain and able spokesman for the radical right — and I, along with other classmates who had been in public or political life, participated in a lively panel discussion about politics. During his presentation, Norquist explained why he believed that there would be a permanent Republican majority in America.
One person interrupted, as I recall, and said, “C’mon, Grover, surely one day a Democrat will win the White House.”
Norquist immediately replied: “We will make it so that a Democrat cannot govern as a Democrat.”
2009 – As Michael Grunwald reported, these two ideas coalesced into a Republican plan on how to respond to the election of President Barack Obama.
…the Republican plot to obstruct President Obama before he even took office, including secret meetings led by House GOP whip Eric Cantor (in December 2008) and Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell (in early January 2009) in which they laid out their daring (though cynical and political) no-honeymoon strategy of all-out resistance to a popular President-elect during an economic emergency. “If he was for it,” former Ohio Senator George Voinovich explained, “we had to be against it.”
2010 – Having implemented that plan in response to President Obama’s proposal to reform health care, former speech-writer for President George W. Bush – David Frum – is ejected from the party for writing this:
At the beginning of this process we made a strategic decision: unlike, say, Democrats in 2001 when President Bush proposed his first tax cut, we would make no deal with the administration. No negotiations, no compromise, nothing. We were going for all the marbles. This would be Obama’s Waterloo – just as healthcare was Clinton’s in 1994…
Could a deal have been reached? Who knows? But we do know that the gap between this plan and traditional Republican ideas is not very big. The Obama plan has a broad family resemblance to Mitt Romney’s Massachusetts plan. It builds on ideas developed at the Heritage Foundation in the early 1990s that formed the basis for Republican counter-proposals to Clintoncare in 1993-1994.
Barack Obama badly wanted Republican votes for his plan…Too late now. They are all the law.
2011 – Former Republican Congressional staffer Mike Lofgren explains the strategy.
A couple of years ago, a Republican committee staff director told me candidly (and proudly) what the method was to all this obstruction and disruption. Should Republicans succeed in obstructing the Senate from doing its job, it would further lower Congress’s generic favorability rating among the American people. By sabotaging the reputation of an institution of government, the party that is programmatically against government would come out the relative winner.
So let’s be clear…this was a consciously thought-out strategy by Republicans to create dysfunction in Congress that never fit the “both sides do it” meme embraced by much of the media.
As I’ve pointed out before, President Obama has engaged a lot of different strategies to deal with this obstruction that have each had various amounts of success at different times. But as we head into the next presidential election, we’re likely to hear a lot about how Washington doesn’t work.
That will be the big challenge for the Democratic nominee in 2016. I only wish it was possible for them to take Paul Waldman’s advice.
So imagine if a candidate in the general election, or a president in his inaugural speech, said, “This is my program. I realize that the folks in the other party don’t like it. There may be a few places where we can compromise, and if so, that would be terrific. But I’m going to treat the voters like adults and tell them that I’m not expecting a whole lot of cooperation. I’m going to fight for what I promised to do when I ran, and if you don’t like the results, you can turn me out in four years.”
That would at least be honest, and nobody would be disappointed when the result is partisan fighting.
Of course he’s right when he says that would be honest. The question is…are American voters ready for honesty?
By: Nancy LeTourneau, Political Animal Blog, The Washington Monthly, February 1, 2015
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