Senator Mitch McConnell’s decision to move ahead and permit Senator Schumer to proceed with organizing the Senate for the 117th Congress might be a harbinger of the return of the Senate to its traditional mode of governance; regular orders. There is no reason to come to any conclusion that the Senate will return to the days of LBJ--because McConnell has successfully obstructed much of the activity on the floor of the Senate since he because the Republican leader in 2007. On the other hand, McConnell needs to determine if switching to traditional operating norms is in the best interest of his leadership position and the GOP’s prospects for 2022 or not. The question is whether McConnell’s permitting the Democrats to advance with organizing the Senate is a signal to President Biden as well as to Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, that maybe McConnell wants to resurrect the collegial relationship he enjoyed with Biden when they served together in the Senate for 24 years.
President Trump and his team of enablers spent the last four years disestablishing the Obama years and as well as much of the traditional Washington decision-making apparatus. It was a destructive and scorched earth campaign that left much of the federal bureaucracy in tatters. It went so far as Trump giving the White House staff off on Inauguration Day afternoon and leaving the front door of the White House shut!
No one ought to assume that McConnell will necessarily roll over for President Biden. McConnell did spend the Obama years as Republican Senate Leader—both in the majority and the minority—trying to obstruct the Democratic administration. Republicans fought tooth and nail to defeat Obamacare and having failed to do so, spent their time from 2011 on, trying to dilute the ACA. McConnell led the Congress by not changing, improving, or modifying the ACA, but trying to repeal it. This is not the way the legislative process traditionally works. Once a law is passed, Congress works out the kinks in the subsequent years so that the law is more effective; even while overriding political priorities.
During the next two weeks, before the Senate is scheduled to begin the second impeachment trial of former President Donald Trump, the Congress will consider President Biden’s $1.8 trillion COVID relief and economic stimulus bill. If a bill can be negotiated in the classic manner of legislative logrolling it would be the best sign that there could be a return to regular orders on Capitol Hill. Many congressional observers even can envision scenarios as to how negotiations might proceed, but it will require Members in both Chambers and in both party caucuses to be willing to negotiate, not to stonewall; to win some and to lose some. If it works, it could go a long way to begin healing the nation from the damage of four years of Trump as well as the challenge to democracy the people experienced on January 6.
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A Biden Footnote
President Biden from the outset has skirted many of the specific issues surrounding President Trump’s impeachment and his final two weeks in office. Aside from his condemnation of the insurrection and the storming of the Capitol, the new president successfully so far has sought to keep his focus on governing. Whether the full-blown trial proceeds or not, Biden is moving full speed ahead on COVID relief and economic recovery, leaving the impeachment in the hands of the Democrats in Congress. Most people recognize that President Trump is unlikely to be convicted by the Senate, therefore, President Biden needs to emerge as unscathed as possible from the Senate impeachment trial.
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