Judging by the news reports I’m reading this morning, it seems very likely that the voters of Georgia have spared Joe Biden from being the only Democratic president of recent memory to enter the White House without a majority in the Senate. It appears that Democrats will hold very narrow majorities in both houses of the Congress.
I want to come out against the prevailing wisdom of what’s likely to transpire over the next year. The prevailing wisdom seems to be that the close partisan numbers will put more power in the hands of moderates who will be able to cobble together compromising majorities to pass legislation. I think that almost the opposite will happen.
Rather than looking at the Republicans and Democrats as each having a small number of moderates (and I mean small—about four names in the Senate are mentioned again and again) and a much larger number of more extreme left wingers among the Democrats and extreme right wingers among the Republicans, I think it’s much more practical to think of the parties as consisting of regular or party members of their respective caucuses and dissident members of the caucuses.
The effect of the narrow majorities will be to put much more power in the hands of the dissidents. In the last Senate those dissident would have been Bernie Sanders, Kamala Harris, and Ben Sasse for the Democrats and Joni Ernst, Marsha Blackburn, Susan Collins, and Lisa Murkowski. In the last House the Democrats’ dissidents would have included Ayanna Pressley and other members of “the Squad” and the Republicans’ would have included Mark Meadows, Brian Fitzgerald, and Tom Reed.
I have always thought the “Hastert Rule” was imprudent. To remind you that rule is that nothing gets to the floor without a support of a majority of the House majority. IMO that’s a formula for ensuring that the legislation that actually gets to the floor is more partisan and ideological and less likely to be enacted than might otherwise be the case. What I think is going to happen in this Congress is sort of the opposite of the Hastert Rule. In courting dissidents in their own caucus legislation that Nancy Pelosi allows to come to the floor will be more left wing than might otherwise be the case.
Said another way, fasten your seat belts, we’re in for a bumpy ride. There will be a lot of loud, angry arguing and it will be very, very difficult to get much that passes the House through the Senate.
I don’t think anything big gets done, the margins are too thin the GoP still has the legislative filibuster. With a bare 50+1 majority, I’m not sure the Democrats have the votes to get rid of that, and even if they do the margins could not be tighter for passing legislation. The exception is Covid legislation, I’d guess the $2000 checks could actually happen since many in the GoP supported that and McConnell can’t block it with poison pills.
I think that one of the first moves by the new Senate will be to attempt to get rid of the filibuster or, at least, to narrow its scope. IMO although that might be a tactical success it would be a strategic disaster.
My main point here is that I think that most analysts misunderstand the mechanics of the Congress. It’s less “progressives vs. conservatives” than it is “partisans vs. ideologues”.
Andy, won’t surprised if the House puts in its own poison pills. Seems drama is more important than action.
FWIW, believe the filibuster will go, settling scores and salting wounds is more important.
Well, my prediction that the Democrats had a much higher chance of winning the Georgia races (40%) came true.
There’s plenty Democrats can do with a bare majority; provided it is united.
If the norm of the Senate presiding chair strictly following the Senate parliamentarian’s rulings falls; then an aggressive reinterpretation of what’s in scope for “reconciliation” and cannot be filibustered is on the cards.
For Republicans, the bottom may still be far away. Three points,
(1) The map is stacked against Republicans in the Senate in 2022; they have to defend Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Florida; all blue to purple states and 2 are open races; and the number of Trump-Democratic seats in 2020 was about 8; which is very few “prime” pickups.
(2) The last time a President came in with an evenly divided Senate and a narrow house majority (Bush in 2000); The President’s party won expanded majorities in the Senate and House in the next 2 elections (2002, 2004).
(3) The Republican candidate for President has won the nationwide popular vote once in the last 28 years. That’s worse then the Republicans at the end of the New Deal (once in 20 years), or the Democrats post Civil War (once in 20 years).
Given the commending heights of bureaucracy, culture, academia, finance, industry are generally Democrat leaning; it is going to be hard for Republicans to build a bigger coalition that is prerequisite for a revival of the party.
Curious,
Those are all great points.
“Given the commanding heights of bureaucracy, culture, academia, finance, industry are generally Democrat leaning; it is going to be hard for Republicans to build a bigger coalition that is prerequisite for a revival of the party.”
Honestly, I don’t think either party is interested in building a bigger coalition. The Democrats are happy to have #nevertrumpers and disaffected suburban moderates who traditionally vote GoP, but Democrats don’t seem interested in cementing the loyalty of those groups over the long term. The progressive faction isn’t interested in that kind of compromise.
And from here on out, I only see progressives getting more powerful in the party. Moderates whether in terms of policy or attitude are mostly absent from the younger generation of politicians in both parties. Biden is likely to be the last one and the moderate black voters who got him the nomination are also older and decreasing in number.
And well, the less said about what’s become of the GoP the better. It’s a shit-show.
The future, I think, is going to be all about negative partisanship and lesser-evil and not about coalitions.