Sarah Binder
@bindersab
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Political scientist by day (and night), GWU and Brookings, Co-editor
Joined February 2010
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If I were House Speaker, I'd hold onto the articles till McConnell fixed the damn typos 🤓
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Trump's coattails with House GOP seem ... short. Over 90 percent of House GOP outperformed Trump in their district in 2016.
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1/Trump's move to stop CSR payments to insurance companies hits Trump-won (red + most purple) states harder than blue.
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1/ More thoughts on impasse over organizing Senate/committees. McConnell demands Democrats commit that they won't "go nuclear" to ban legislative filibusters. Schumer says no. The organizing resolution can be filibustered, hence McC's potential leverage. So what's going on here?
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6/ McConnell knows that history. Schumer too. McC coming out of the 🐎🐎 gates holding up the organizing resolution (which freezes the committees with their GOP chairs and ratios from the last congress) just affirms to Dems that GOP willingness to obstruct is alive and well.
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“I’m so insulted when people say that lawmaking is like sausage making,” said Stanley A. Feder, president of Simply Sausage, whose plant here turns out 60,000 pounds of links a year.
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It's a small step - but McConnell NOT blocking Senate resolution to demand whistleblower complaint be provided to Hill intel committees is significant. Rare to see both parties stand up for Congress's institutional power.
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Minority parties thrive on dividing the majority. In that sense, McConnell secured what he sought: Manchin and Sinema's commitment to preserving filibuster undermines (for now) the credibility of Democrats' threat to abolish the filibuster should GOP block everything in sight.
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9/ Bottom line...The majority threat to go nuclear (to the extent it is credible) has not tamed the minority party's willingness to obstruct Democrats even over the very basic organizing task for the new Congress (which puts swift action on new president's nominees at risk).
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On the 2019 House vote to update the 1964 Civil Rights act to explicitly protect LGBT individuals, just 4% of House Republicans joined every Democrat in support.
The majority of Republican respondents supported LGBT rights. For the sexual orientation item, the D/R/I support was 90%/74%/84%. For the transgender item, the D/R/I support was 86%/69%/79%. The SC Court's decision today is very much in line with Americans' attitudes. 4/4
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What will Jeff Van Drew get from switching parties? Leaders typically assign switchers to *better* committees, often violating seniority to jump them ahead of more senior members. BUT ... he's joining the House MINORITY party. That's like getting a better seat in the dungeon🧛♂️.
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1/ As people react to McConnell's vow on Fox News to collude with the White House on impeachment rules and outcome, keep in mind that the impeachment context deprives McConnell of his most trusted tools for keeping the Senate in a headlock.
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1/ McConnell wants a handshake agreement for the Democrats not to go nuclear to ban legislative filibusters this Congress. Surely McConnell knows past is prologue though. Reid-McConnell 2011 gentlemen's agreement barely lasted a year.
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Didn't the discharge papers say do not drive, operate heavy machinery, or make legislative decisions for at least 24 hours?
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Isn’t it pretty twisted constitutional logic to opt against invoking the 25th Amendment on the grounds that it would provoke a constitutional crisis?
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2/ Democrats are highly unlikely to make such a commitment, even if McC sees the ploy as a clever way to split the Democrats. Even if Dems *did* agree, both parties know it's not a credible commitment. The last time the party leaders shook hands on such an agreement (2011)...
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3/ the agreement didn't stick. McConnell and the GOP's concerted effort to block judicial and executive nominees encouraged Reid and Democrats to nuke most nomination filibusters in 2013-- in a Congress that was covered by the 2011 agreement. Granted, that agreement was informal
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1/ Quick reminder that Sen Judiciary Comm. rules require a quorum to be "actually" present to conduct business (such as recommending ACB for SCOTUS seat). Related Senate standing rule requires committee quorums to be "physically" present to report measure/matter to full Senate.
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To be clear, that's from the 1999 Clinton impeachment trial rules on which McConnell says he'll model the 2020 Trump impeachment trial rules:
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By killing a stimulus deal, POTUS covers up for his inability to mend GOP divisions over whether/how to provide more relief. Hangs endangered GOP senators out to dry 🧺. Makes it easier for Pelosi & swing district Dems to blame POTUS for failure.
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Reminder that the U.S. Constitution gives the House both the sole power of impeachment AND the power to write its own rules. There's no formal rule requiring that the House vote to authorize an impeachment inquiry. If there were such a rule, a House majority could write a new one
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4/ in the sense that it wasn't written into either the organizing resolution or one of the "standing orders" Senate agreed to in 2011. (Here, I highly recommend
@ProfStevenSmith
The Senate Syndrome. If we weren't in a pandemic, I'd pull out my hard copy to pinpoint the chapters!)
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7/ Will that push Democrats to nuke a version of the organizing resolution w/o McC's demand (i.e. cut off debate by 51, not 60, votes)? I'm a bit doubtful since they don't (yet) have 50 votes to do that-- and it would in effect ban the leg filibuster. And that is problematic....
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5/ Of course, even if agreement had been formalized beyond the 🤝, that wouldn't have stopped the Dems in 2011 (minor nuke of the cloture rule) or 2013 (major 💣of cloture rule) or the GOP in 2017-- once the party felt it could shoulder the political costs of bending the rules.
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1/ Which House GOP are abandoning Trump's ship? Ladies first. Moderates too.
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8/ to the extent that it creates inordinate pressure on Democrats to pursue the full thrust of their legislative agenda on which they surely do *not* have 50 votes for each part.
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Endangered House GOP want the 📧📫 delivered! Marginal GOP in Democratic-leaning districts (lime green) broke with GOP leaders and POTUS to support the USPS.
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Wish me well. I've been appointed Senate** parliamentarian.
**GW Faculty Senate, that is 🤓
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The key is it was a *voice* vote. No need for GOP senators to go on record against Trump.
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1/This week's creation of a temporary filibuster ban--creating a one-time pass for a Senate majority to raise the debt limit by majority vote-- is a good reminder that Senate rules reform can come in numerous flavors, even over the relatively short period of the past decade alone
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Another great myth about the Senate is Senator Byrd's immutable defense of the filibuster. Byrd was also majority leader who took the Democratic Senate "nuclear" more than once to limit rights of debate. True, they were mini 🍄🍄, but Byrd innovated as leader when he could.
Manchin on the filibuster, via
@alaynatreene
: "I'm just in the same place I've always been on the filibuster. That basically, I sit in Robert C. Byrd's seat. There's not a person that defended the Senate more than he did.”
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1/ Senate GOP playing a little kick-the-🛢on trial parameters. Either McConnell lacks 51 GOP votes to nail down details for a streamlined trial, or GOP doesn’t want to tell POTUS he can’t have his sound and lights show trial. Or both.
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GOP tactics to derail Raskin's Fed nomination were pure beanball (not hardball) --> designed to harm/take out opposing player. Boycott (in a 50-50 panel) allowed GOP to take all 5 Fed nominees hostage, bought time to turn Manchin against her, & eliminated any chance of GOP votes
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Food for thought. Senate Judiciary Committee rules allow any senator to delay consideration of a nomination on committee’s agenda for a week. In time crunch to confirm a SCOTUS nominee before Nov 3, that rule could be more consequential than usual—assuming GOP doesn’t bend rule.
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11/ Bottom line: McC has less agenda control during trial compared to managing leg or executive business. Trump is unlikely to be convicted. But path to final votes could be bumpy. And as always, it's the positions lawmakers take - not outcomes that result-- that voters notice.
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2/ First-- McConnell can't block consideration of the articles all together. In other words, he can't pull a Merrick Garland. He can't ignore whatever the House sends over. McConnell has used that influence over the Senate's agenda to his and the GOP's advantage repeatedly.
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1/ Kellyanne Conway claims "overzealousness" of investigations under House Office of Cong. Ethics. Data suggest otherwise.
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Chief Justice questions why so many committees have issued subpoenas of the president. What looks like POTUS harassment to a justice is just an organizationally suboptimal and electorally optimal congressional committee system.
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It only took Congress SEVEN months in 2016 to get GOP to backdown on demands that the Zika aid bill block funds for Planned Parenthood.
A key sticking point in the talks appears to be GOP demands to include Hyde amendment language in the bill to prevent federal funds from being used for abortion
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Peak Binder 🧠fog: Pulled up a CRS report to bone up on something and found a quote from me explaining what I was looking for 😳
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1/ Just burrowing into House GOP Sedition Caucus. 120 GOP voted to reject both AZ & PA votes. No surprise, but electoral forces dominate. Bigger the Trump base back home, GOP more likely to object to both slates. And of course, vice versa: Swingier district GOP broke with Trump.
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Is McConnell's Senate lawmaking excessively secret? Let me count the ways ....
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1/ My Twitter feed tells me it's folly to think that Thursday's second cloture vote (open government with a 2-week CR) will get 60 votes (47 D + 13 R). I'm not so sure. Just because only 10 GOP signed a bipartisan letter doesn't mean that's the full lid on GOP votes.
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4/ In short, Republicans can't ☎️ it in. Gotta show up. (That's a phone for all you young folks wondering :-)
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1/ Senate procedure vocabulary nag 🤓! Senate parliamentarians don't "rule"-- they advise, provide guidance, and interpret & apply the law (here, the Congressional Budget Act) and Senate rules to proposed (or House-passed) legislative provisions. Why does the distinction matter?
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3/ The Senate impeachment rules McConnell inherits all but automates a trial-- and McConnell seems to have written off revamping the rules. He doesn't have the supermajority necessary to suspend or rewrite them. And we can infer that he doesn't have 50 to nuke them.
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Behold: House GOP Putin Caucus (63 GOP who opposed symbolic resolution expressing support for NATO). GOP's NATO opposition seeps broadly thru the party-- although opponents hail from districts slightly more pro-Trump in 2020 than do supporters (62% vs 59% vote for Trump in CD).
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1/ In a world of slim majorities & few persuadable voters, it's not clear that we know how a controversial SCOTUS confirmation battle before November would affect Senate elections and control of the chamber. Keep in mind the parties drew different lessons from Kavanaugh battle.
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What ended the shutdown? Hard to parse effects of particular events. So keep your 👀 on the broader partisan blame game. New
@monkeycageblog
thoughts on what led Trump to cave & what lies ahead (with healthy dose of Schattschneider & Neustadt...of course).
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1/ This is estimated impact of Cassidy-Graham cuts, by state partisanship. Blue states hit harder than red. But plan ravages Louisiana.
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Resolution will (likely) set rest of process: public hearings, release of depositions, president's counsel participation, etc. That's what's significant here: not just legitimizing (already legitimate) inquiry, but voting on public stage of im🍑ment process...& calls GOP bluff...
It's possible that there could be some techical procedural reasons for this? Help us,
@mollyereynolds
@GregoryKoger
@bindersab
@joshHuder
etc (perhaps after we know what's in the actual resolution).
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9/ I suspect at the end of hte day that McConnell manages to corral his 51 for a streamlined trial. But it's not a done deal. And McC appearing on Fox to declare it suggests that he definitely does have those votes yet. It's a call to the swing-state colleagues to get on board.
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1/ Obvious solution (obvious to me, who does not have to wrangle 50 Senate Democratic votes...) to the political hurdles of addressing the debt limit (and extreme consequences of failing to do so) is nuking Rule 22 for measures related to suspending the debt limit. Upsides?
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Filibuster reform almost always requires fusing procedure & policy. Obama calling the filibuster a Jim Crow relic provides a taste of how that might be done. (Woodrow Wilson-- different time/place-- did same by fusing filibuster reform w/ national security in run up to world war.
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4/ That leaves McConnell on uncomfortable ground w/ House Democrats setting the Senate's agenda. That's not the end of the world for McConnell of course. But that's not the position from which he typically starts. Why's that important?
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6/ But there's another angle of impeachment trial rules that puts McConnell on weaker grounds. Chief Justice Roberts is the presiding officer. I don't expect wild curve balls from the chief. But it does increase the uncertainty McC faces in trying to steer the trial.
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1) Nothing unconstitutional about an "elected speaker pro tem." The House has periodically elected SPTs when a majority wants a temporary speaker to have full authority of speakership. True, the House rarely relies on them anymore (just five times since 1985). Why not? Because :
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Weird but I don't think Trump's lawyer is reading Rule XXIII correctly. He says single article can't include multiple pieces. But that's not the point of the rule: "An article of impeachment shall not be divisible for the purpose of voting thereon at any time during the trial."
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Bipartisan tax bills used to be a thing.
Senate voting alignments on major tax bills, now updated through 2017
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5/ McConnell needs 51 to set any additional trial parameters beyond the ones inherited in the impeachmetn rules. And that elevates the influence of the several swing-state GOP up in 2020.
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1/ Some late night thoughts on the institutional/political implications of today's Byrd Rule droppings from the Senate parliamentarian
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Tom Rice (R-SC) voted to reject BOTH the Arizona and Pennsylvania electoral votes, but today voted to impeach ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
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8/ Trial rules allow any senator to offer a motion or order, requiring it only be reduced to writing and then put by the presiding officer. How much does that weaken McConnell's control of the agenda? None, if he keeps 51 on his side. But more, if motion attracts 3 skittish GOP.
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What goes around comes around. GOP during Obama years weaponized House rules to empower committee chairs/majority with subpoena & other investigatory powers. Now GOP decry such concentration of party power. Democrats, no surprise, have little interest in paring back those powers.
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10/ Sometimes partisan pressure seems to work (Exhibit A: Kavanaugh). Other times, McC's fails to command GOP majority on a highly salient issue (Exhibit B: repeal/replace O'care). That time, just enough senators revolted from his attempt to centralize control (Exhibit C:👎).
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Race is central to the history of the filibuster. It’s not the *only* issue targeted by filibusters, but you can’t write that history without it. New
@monkeycageblog
post sums it up....drawing from my book with
@ProfStevenSmith
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7/ And if Roberts prefers NOT to make the ruling-- or is challenged from the chamber floor-- a Senate majority will decide. Again-- McConnell needs 51 to prevail on those votes. And there's another dimension of Senate trial rules that also could upset the 🍎🍏cart for McC....
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1/Time for some ... Schattschneider 🤓! For all the attention to the Jan. 6th hearing, don't lose sight of a core goal of the committee: Expand the scope of conflict! Despite all the leaks, the panel has largely worked behind closed doors. Most Americans aren't paying attention.
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With 8 races yet to be called, House Democrats will likely hold their slimmest majority of the postwar era. Coupled with internal cleavages and a distant GOP opposition, building Democratic majorities will be very dicey in the new Congress.
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Today's Oval Office Show is a good reminder that no matter the differences *within* the new incoming Democratic House majority, they pale in comparison to the differences *between* the two parties. Oh and never underestimate Nancy Pelosi.
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Reminder of how much has changed in 20 yrs since last 50-50 Senate. Chart shows very rough proxy for level of obstruction. In 2000, majority leader filed for cloture abt twice a month; last year, 10x month. You can see why some Dems now support nuking filibusters while GOP do not
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1/ Nothing like an evening🐦🛀 ! Setting aside 🧼🚿, why does the Senate (seemingly) give such power to the parliamentarian? I think discussions of parliamentarian's power often lose sight of a) why senators lean so heavily on her authority, & b) the real limits on her power.
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4/ Pattern of Trump creating political crises for his own party in Congress (DACA, Iran, CSR)-- by bucking issues on which GOP cleaved.
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GOP Trump defections not yet a cascade. Less competitive H districts keep GOP on board while greater % senators jump ship h/t
@Taniel
data
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McConnell's strategy (in holding out for Dem pledge not to nuke the filibuster) seems to be to split the Senate Democrats-- force a wedge between Manchin (and maybe Sinema and others) and the rest of the leadership. So far, it ain't working.
Joe Manchin is NOT calling on Schumer to make a pledge on filibuster in a power deal. "Chuck has the right to do what he's doing. He has the right to use that to leverage in whatever he wants to do. I'm not worried about that at all," he says. "I just haven't changed where I am."
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Senator Merkley's going on 15 hours on the Senate floor and he's pulled out the
@MrNOMINATE
NOMINATE scores!
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House GOP who signed amicus brief in support of Texas’ lawsuit challenging Biden’s election look remarkably like colleagues who didn’t sign on— at least in terms of their electoral security and district partisanship. Surprised only a bare majority signed on with Trump closely 👀
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Nice reminder from Speaker Pelosi tonight that split party control complicates McConnell's ability to control the course of the trial.
8/ And keep in mind that split party control of Congress in 2019 complicates comparisons to GOP control of H and S in 1999. Granted, H and S GOP were not entirely on the same page over witnesses etc in 1999. But McC lacks any ability to coordinate strategy with the House managers
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Reminder: intense Senate partisanship (seen in cloture) growing for years, if not decades. No innocent parties in blocking through cloture.
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6/ But if your own party controls Congress, why try to generate blame that falls on your own party (and likely hurts your base voters)?
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3/ And unlike the House, Senate didn't respond to 🦠 pandemic by allowing Senate floor proxy voting (as did the House) or Zoom-voting (tho neither did the House). Few GOP votes to spare on floor if Collins and Murk vote against cloture on ACB confirmation vote.
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I have it on good authority 😉 that we’re launching [soon] !!
👋🏻👋🏻👋🏻We are Good Authority, a blog that brings insights from political science to a broader audience–from the team that brought you The Monkey Cage (TMC). Our free, independent website will launch in late September. Sign up to be notified:
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1/ Can Trump fire the Fed chair? Many have noted that it's legally ambiguous. I would add that when Congress required Sen confirmation of the Fed chair in 1977 (separate from his/her governor confirmation), I find no discussion in H or S records discussing terms for removal.
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2/ Chart shows % O'care enrollees benefiting from CSR payments to insurance comps (designed to lower deductibles for low income enrollees)
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Explaining the Byrd Rule
Name something that 𝙞𝙨𝙣'𝙩 an Olympic sport, but 𝙛𝙚𝙚𝙡𝙨 like an Olympic sport 🤔
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Joe Manchin conveniently posts the most recent CQ party unity scores on his Senate website. He voted with Republicans *half* the time on “party unity” votes. Krysten Sinema not far behind. Keeping 50 Dems together will not be a walk in the park.
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2/ SJC is 12 GOP-10 Dem. One GOP tested positive for Covid-19. Outside chance that pushes back a committee vote on ACB until SJC at full GOP strength. (SJC rules also require 2 Dem present to make quorum, tho likely easier for GOP to blow thru that particular rule.)
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This hearing’s focus on Trump’s dereliction of duty— even more so than earlier hearings— convinces me the panel’s core goal is political not legal. They want to crack GOP elite support for Trump, make it politically untenable for more GOP to back him again. High hurdle for sure.
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Truman on Ike: “He’ll sit here, and he’ll say, ‘Do this! Do that!’ And nothing will happen. Poor Ike—...He'll find it very frustrating.”
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We're hiring at GW Political Science --> an assistant professor in American Politics, whose teaching and research interests include race and ethnic politics, inequality, and representation. If this is you, please apply!
@POCalsoknow
@womenalsoknow
@W_inLS
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Here's Byrd and Domenici debating how to pronounce "reconciliation" ... "You like tomato and I like tomahto" ....
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My raisin and plain challahs have just voted to go to conference to settle their differences. Gotta get a final challah deal by sundown.
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Sen Manchin's openness to reform (rather than abolition) of the filibuster still leaves the question: Would he vote to impose changes via a majority vote (i.e. nuclear option)? If not, Democrats would need 2/3rds of Senate to stem debate on reform. That seems a tad 🥧 in the sky.
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