Something that completely evaded me when I initially read Rep. Mikie Sherrill’s accusation (that some members were giving reconnaissance tours of the Capitol prior to the assault):
The public have not been allowed in the building since March 2020.
“GOP senators are already complaining about the impeachment process wasting time and crowding legislative items off the agenda.” - Expect senators to emphasize this narrative more if House impeaches POTUS. Reality is different. Not doing much before.
Kevin McCarthy is the first Speaker in almost 5 decades to effectively lose control of the House floor.
Other speakers struggled to pass ambitious bills and party priorities. But this leadership's inability to bring popular bills to the floor demonstrates profound weakness.
NEW — House Republican leadership sources tell me they do not believe they can pass the rule to consider the Defense appropriations bill.
Big defeat as the legislation was supposed to come up this week.
The “parliamentarian shouldn’t determine what the Senate does!” crowd is really overlooking the “parliamentarian is serving as political cover for majority party lacking votes to pass a core policy” angle.
Both pieces have major flaws, IMO. Just a few: 1) overestimates staff influence; 2) underestimates party networks; 3) poor understanding of actual staff work.
Thus, their conclusions are really backwards. Undermining staff only worsens this problem.
There's a real simple procedural axiom that the debt limit debate has so far ignored:
When you're political opposition tells you how to process a bill through Congress, don't do that.
I've been meaning to put this in context since I saw it weeks ago.
This statistic is insane. And I don't think people fully grasp how insane it is. So a brief explainer on why it's insane:
Harsh but true. The GOP's Speaker drama has a striking lack of negotiation and compromise. Speakers are compromise candidates, never unanimously chosen. Rather, speakers broker, compromise, and negotiate their way to the gavel.
As a whole, the House GOP is not doing this.
Rather than simply allow members to sign the petition, or vote against a PQ, or other maneuver, Johnson has raised the specter of forming a procedural coalition with Democrats to overrun GOP opposition, potentially the most grievous betrayal of partisan politics in the modern era
Senators cloistered in cloakrooms. Multiple negotiations and dimensions under discussion. Unclear what deal will emerge.
It’s a throwback to how the Senate used to work before filibusters became ubiquitous.
Filibustering a committee replacement prevents the majority from exercising its parliamentary rights. If a majority cannot set the agenda, there's little point in being the majority.
This is as extreme as obstruction can get.
In sum: Pelosi cannot make decisions by fiat for the House of Representatives. She doesn't have the votes, so it is too early. The House needs more information. The House can get it without a formal inquiry. The House decides its constitutional responsibilities.
Time to face it: the Senate is a fading institution. It’s legislative imprint has waned. Genuine debate and amendment has disappeared. Senators’ individual power is in steep decline.
High profile pols don’t want to be senators because the Senate is no longer appealing.
Bullock’s entry into presidential race gives Dems 22 candidates - and at least the third who could have been a competitive candidate for a 2020 Senate seat instead
Two, it's not her call. The House decides impeachment. The Speaker has powers but the House is arbiter. If 218 members of her caucus were behind an impeachment inquiry, it'd be happening. It's not. She's not holding back a silent majority.
If the parties are so ideologically consistent and polarized, why would the Senate Majority Leader use scarce floor time on doomed minority party bills?
The only policy that unites Republicans is opposing Democrats, which is to say they functionally lack a policy platform.
Johnson’s decision to use Rules Committee to advance these foreign aid bills is curious. It is not surprising he doesn’t have the votes in Rules. He hasn’t for weeks. It also makes him uniquely accountable for betraying his right flank in a way a discharge petition doesn’t.
A lot of very smart people have already pointed out lots of problems with this ruling. My problem with it is that the very premise of the ruling is not true.
Physical presence in the chamber has *not* constituted a quorum for all 235 years of congressional history.
👀 Wow: A federal court in Texas has ruled that Congress violated the Quorum Clause of the constitution when it passed bills relying on proxy votes.
Considering SCOTUS declined a related case brought by Kevin McCarthy, this seems unlikely to stand.
As the Chair of the Joint Session, VP Pence has the authority to reinterpret processes when events fall into an ambiguous procedural space.
Pence deserves a ton of credit for reinterpreting procedures in this manner. It just as easily could have been the opposite.
It's 2:55 a.m. and I just figured out how Pence massaged the rules of the Electoral College counting session to avoid introducing the "rival" slates of Trump electors.
These are the instructions VPs have given out at the start in each of the last 5. Note the difference?
It doesn't bode well for the perceived independence or legitimacy of the Supreme Court, even if it has waned in recent years. Imagining any political minority accepting Court decisions prima facie from this conspicuously partisan process is increasingly difficult.
Five. If you think that an entirely symbolic exercise is the "right thing to do," I fear you misunderstand Congress. It almost never does the right thing for principled reasons. It acts on the politically right thing.
Congress lacks innate morality.
Most of the recent Republican retirements are not seats Democrats can realistically win.
It's a different kind of erosion for the Republicans Party as most of these seats will flip from establishment to Trump Republicans.
Six. A totally symbolic impeachment vote with a dozen-plus Democrats opposed that attracts less than one handful of Republican support equates to roughly the weakest symbol the House could send.
A signal this weak would likely elevate the President's political standing.
Pelosi orchestrated the passage of the the largest climate investment in U.S. history ($35b), while Republicans held the Senate and the White House no less.
Inciting a mob to sack the Legislative Branch is literally a dangerous precedent.
Impeaching presidents inciting mobs to sack the Legislative Branch is an excellent and (evidently) necessary precedent.
@realDonaldTrump
Any attempt to impeach President Trump would not only be unsuccessful in the Senate but would be a dangerous precedent for the future of the presidency.
It will take both parties to heal the nation.
Pelosi won't move for a vote on impeachment until the case is so strong all House Democrats (or 99.5%) are unified on impeachment. She likely won't move for an inquiry until 220, 225 strongly support it.
Congressional majorities don’t do this. They do not give their seats at the table to their minority counterparts.
This is stunning, weird, and likely indicative of a president abandoned by his Republican colleagues in Congress.
Seven. If the argument is, "yes, but an inquiry would produce information." Sure. But the current investigations also produce information. And further, committees now hold several powers that previous congresses didn't without initiating an inquiry.
The Rules Committee rebellion under Speaker Johnson is the biggest untold story in American politics.
The House has basically operated through suspension procedures because the Speaker lacks a working majority at Rules. It's turned the House into a supermajority body.
“It is gonna come up,” Johnson said at a Congressional Institute event, per transcript obtained by CNN. “There’s a few subsets of members you have concerns for various reasons, but we’re gonna probably run it on suspension. And I think you’re gonna get a very high vote tally.”
Four. This would produce zero pressure on Senate Republicans. Ignoring it would be extremely easy. Therefore, impeachment be an entirely symbolic exercise.
The hard truth is Democrats lack a procedural majority. Manchin is a functional indy, voting w/ Democrats often enough but thwarting hardball ambitions b/c he represents a 70% Republican state.
Democrats aren't feckless (just look at the House). They don't have enough seats.
Anyone who’s ever been a Republican understands why
@MichaelSteele
is fulminating on
@DeadlineWH
right now, because he’s telling the obvious truth: the Republicans would throw over the filibuster in a second if meant more power for them. The GOP counts on Dems being feckless.
Three. If she currently pushed impeachment, it'd force Democrats to take very uncomfortable political positions. If she forced the vote anyway, at best she'd lose at least a dozen Democrats but likely several more.
There some rumblings of using a discharge procedure to raise the debt ceiling.
Everything about this would be weird. The discharge process is clumsy and slow and it's not structured to accommodate on-the-fly political negotiations typical of a debt limit suspension/increase.
Eight. If we argue for more information through an impeachment inquiry then you tacitly admit that it's too early b/c more info is needed before it can happen. It is also a tacit acceptance that the politics have not come around to impeachment yet.
Not only does Biden now pass Trump in first-year judicial nominations, but his commitment to professional diversity has been outstanding. Of 73 noms: 21 public defenders, 16 civil rights lawyers and 5 labor lawyers.
Never had to look up “catastrophic quorum” in the House before but here we are.
With multiple members testing positive for coronavirus, what happens if too many members get sick? Rule XX, clause 5(c): the House can declare a catastrophic quorum.
McCarthy's opponents have neither identifiable policy preferences nor specific demands. He has to buy them up individually.
That takes (1) time; and (2) more time. and (3) lots of promises.
The other most surprising event yesterday was McCarthy's refusal to negotiate. It's possible Jeffries' terms were too steep, but nothing stopped McCarthy from reaching out to a dozen Democrats individually.
That is exactly how Cannon staved off the 1st coup attempt in 1909.
Voters support deficit reduction, oppose entitlement cuts, support taxing the rich, oppose tax increases, support good GDP growth, oppose inflation, support stimulus checks, and oppose excessive gov't spending.
Now, let's discuss how voters understand the economy.
This is a step further than the sins of John Boehner and Paul Ryan, who were run out of office for using Ds to pass spending bills.
Johnson would work with Dems to snuff out opposition from his GOP colleagues.
This is legitimately insane. These kinds of punishments are normally reserved for gross misconduct or extreme betrayals of party.
Voting for an infrastructure bill is neither of those things.
👀
.
@PunchbowlNews
reports House GOP discussing whether to strip committee assignments from the baker’s dozen who voted for bipartisan infrastructure bill.
If so, House GOP would send a message that members’ votes belong to the caucus not constituents.
If you aren't geeking out about this concurrent war powers resolution, you aren't alive. The House is playing constitutional hardball.
The War Powers Act (WPA) contained a provision stating Congress could remove forces via concurrent resolution...
In either case, it is a latent understanding that impeachment is currently a losing issue (not enough votes) and without further information, is a nonstarter.
Which, returning to the original point, makes the premise of the entire argument pretty weak.
So it's not clear that a formal impeachment inquiry substantially boosts the House's ability to gain information it seeks, at least at this current phase of investigation.
Instead, congressional staff are best understood as information conduits, not information sources. Why? Because it is impossible to be a policy expert in 15-20+ issue areas. Staff simply don't have the time to develop that expertise.*
This is a pretty clear case where Democrats don't know the rules well enough. Grassley's assertion they can only vote in executive session is wrong. Only Blumenthal seems to be pushing back, and its pretty weak. If they knew the rules, they'd go to the mattresses.
Sorry. Senate Rule XXVI, paragraph 5(b) authorizes a vote to go into closed session, contrary to Grassley's assertions that it only applies to executive session.
And nine, if the politics are premature, the impeachment discussion highlights the political vulnerabilities of initiating an inquiry. Currently, impeachment is politically costly and only marginally beneficial to gathering the information the House currently seeks.
It's assumed congressional staff are policy experts. Most often they're not. They know a lot more than the average person. But particularly in personal offices, staff are young, inexperienced, and have a ton to learn.
At this point, bargaining gets very tricky. Promising one member a subcommittee gavel denies another, who now needs to be bought up with something else.
This is where sinning the speakership becomes a whack-a-mole situation: new problems emerge when old problems resolve.
So the Ocasio-Cortez, “ready for Congress,” debate. First, nobody is prepared for Congress. From a policy perspective, it’s literally impossible. Nobody is “expert” or even “informed” on all the issues Congress considers.
The House approved no open rules, OK’d only 35% of offered amendments, and changed bills w/o a vote 18 times. Literally among the least deliberative sessions in US history.
It is the antithesis of free and democratic debate.
First session House Rules Committee--51 str. rules, 59 closed. 2,572 proposed amendments, 889 (~34.56%) allowed on the floor, 18 considered as adopted.
Don't be fooled, empowering McHenry will *not* lead to coalition government. Rs won't give Ds organizational powers, chairs, etc. More committee-centric governing could occur, which could create more ad hoc coalitions to advance bills...
But this is not a West Wing episode.
The fact Joe Manchin votes with Democrats at all is a small miracle in today’s partisan climate. Democrats are lucky to have him.
But it also means catering to his political style. If Democrats don’t, then they don’t have 50 votes.
Democrats are so desperate to win GOP votes - not for any procedural reason, just so they CAN SAY THEY DID - that they've let the GOP control the entire negotiation for months and months, wasting a huge percentage of their time as the majority
Comparing today to 1982 is nuts because in 1982 partisan polarization did not exist.
You would struggle to find a political observer arguing parties were fundamental to elections or governing.
During an interview I was asked what kind of factor the status of Kavanaugh's nomination would have on "the base."
Any voter who is aware a SCOTUS nominee is pending before the Senate is likely already showing up to the polls and already know who they're voting for regardless.
Trump expected *liberal* Democrats, with the greatest incentives to oppose literally anything he says, to defect from Pelosi during the shutdown.
More than 2-years into his presidency and he & advisors still lack even a basic grasp of Congress.
It's a bit late to start this process. Ideally, this is done over the course of months (see: Pelosi, Nov/Dec. 2018). At this point, unless a lot of dominos fall perfectly, it's hard to envision McCarthy appeasing so many disparate holdouts in such a short period of time.
My article on Nancy Pelosi’s speakership was recently published in The Forum. Fortunately, the article is ungated, so you can all read my high-intimidated attempt to summarize one of the most consequential Speakers in American history here:
It's hard to glean what, exactly, is happening behind closed doors but I think a few bits of information are particularly important. They're mostly not good for McCarthy:
Why does that matter? It hinders McCarthy's leverage to win over a large bloc of holdouts. In 1923, the insurgent Republicans represented heavy agricultural districts and interests. They had specific rules demands because they had specific policy preferences.
He’s not just ignoring their opposition. He’s stamping it out. It runs counter to decades of procedural tactics and strategies, and hasn’t really been seen since Speakers have had a say over the Rules Committee’s operation.
That means, paying and providing benefits that encourage staff to stay in public service rather than bolt for a private sector paycheck, where they often become lobbyists/advocates returning to the Hill to shape inexperienced staffers' policy views.
*Committee staff *are* Congress's policy experts. In general, they are older, more experienced, better paid, have better hours and more predictable schedules, and focus on much narrower portfolios.
It also raises some questions. There’s more than one way to move these bills. Johnson chose the most politically treacherous path.
Setting aside for a moment that it could have been a miscalculation, what does he gain from the turmoil?
If you want staff better prepared to vet and analyze the overwhelming amount of policy information shoved in their faces on a day-to-day basis, you need more experienced staff.
We're so primed to think of politics through the lens of partisan conflict that stories describe a bill passing near unanimously as "bitterly partisan," and stylize week+ long negotiations as "stalemate."
Don’t sleep on the not-that-impossible-to-imagine scenario where McHenry remains in the chair as Speaker Pro Tem much longer than anyone intends simply because zero consensus exists among Republicans.
“On the way out [of the chamber], three different Republicans told me three different names of people that they thought might be the next speaker,” says Democratic Rep. Jamie Raskin.
That allowed Gillett and Longworth to break the impasse with a very specific negotiation (which was agreed to take place over the course of the next month).
The parallels between 1923 and today stop at an insurgent faction forcing concessions from a majority of their conference.
The motion to vacate is being treated like a personnel tool majorities use to oust ineffective speakers.
This is a massive misconception. The motion exists for instances when a majority ceases to be a majority. Triggering the MTV
This is why placing the 118th Congress alongside the 97th (1981-1982) is so insane. Today's party unity "win rate" is on par with time when parties did not dictate House operation.
That enables advocacy groups/interests/etc to more easily shape the staff' views and positions.
In turn, this limits members' ability to accurately analyze policy and politics relative to constituent/district opinion.
In other words, in 1982, we were closer to Mayhew's famous 1974 quote - "no theoretical treatment of the United States Congress that posits parties as analytic units will go very far" - than we were to articulating parties' influence on legislative behavior.
Something to keep in mind as Senate power-sharing standoff continues: Time matters a great deal in the credibility of McConnell and Schumer's threats.
McConnell has a temporary advantage that will erode the longer it continues. |1
Very important and not said enough 👇 The Speaker pro tem could stay in the chair. There's not forcing mechanism for a new election, nor are there any overt restrictions on the power the pro tem would wield.
The support of the conference would dictate the durability of this.
At the risk of being repetitive, House Rule I.8.3. A long-term Speaker pro tempore is possible. Assuming Santos is not first on the list, Repubs could easily choose that option over another multi-ballot contest.
Reps.-Elect Matt Gaetz (R-FL) and outgoing Rules Committee Chair Jim McGovern (D-MA) are talking on the floor right now and I've never wanted a hot mic situation more in my entire life.
Democrats lock-step vote to oust McCarthy was one of most surprising part of yesterday’s proceedings.
There has been a norm against interfering with the opposing party’s internal decisions (leaders, assignments, etc). That, like other norms, is fading.
NEWS — HOUSE REPUBLICAN LEADERSHIP has kicked
@RepStenyHoyer
out of his Capitol hideaway.
Republicans — McCarthy — are taking revenge for Democrats voting with
@mattgaetz
to boot
@SpeakerMcCarthy
from the speakership.
Expect more of this, GOP sources tell us.
Me and
Bipartisanship was still the norm. Voting metrics showing slight upticks in partisan voting in the House, which had modestly increased from the mid-1970s. But big increases wouldn't happen until the late-1980s and 1990s.
His behavior ranged from exasperated to partisan to disrespectful. It was not normal behavior for a SCOTUS nominee pending before the Senate. Under the old supermajority rules, it is impossible to imagine his confirmation following that testimony.