Senate Saturday Night Follies
And all the links from a busy week.
As I write this, the Senate just voted to begin work on the megabill – some seven hours after the vote was originally scheduled, and after leaving the vote open for over three hours while various Senators struck deals. Except they can’t get started, because Democrats are making them read the entire thing out loud.
Hey, if there’s one thing we know Senators hate, it’s hanging around the chamber on the weekend without actually doing anything. Good times.
Several other quick notes:
I saw a lot of people refer to the Republican holdouts “folding” as they eventually decided to back the bill. I think that’s the wrong way to think about it. Most Republicans like what’s in the bill; they were holding out for more because they had the leverage to do so, and they exercised that leverage.
Remember that two key provisions of the bill - increasing the debt limit and extending tax cuts – are essentially must pass. (When is something really must-pass? When Congressional majorities think it’s must pass). So it’s not like the ACA repeal situation, where total failure was a viable option.
As, as far the ugliness of the vote: There’s a reason why there are cliches about how ugly legislating tends to be. But it’s not always quite as open as this, and doesn’t end (for now) in what can fairly be described as a secret midnight deal behind closed doors between Majority Leader John Thune and a few radical holdouts.
Democrats will naturally exploit all of this. General rule of thumb about that: The bill polls very badly, and has key provisions that are likely to be very unpopular if implemented, and so the more attention the bill gets, the worse that is for the Republicans and the better for Democrats. On top of that legislative maneuvering is almost always per se unpopular.
Eventually, something will pass. But the details matter - a lot – even more substantively than for effects on public opinion and elections. In other words? It’s a big huge deal that (for example) the big sale of public lands initiative appears to be out of the bill. Whether it affects the polls or the midterms or not.
And as I write this there’s zero reporting on what the last holdouts received, and therefore no idea which GOP votes it might put in jeopardy as the process continues. We’ll see!
On to the links….
1. A must-read roundtable on Iran, the US, and Israel at Blue Blaze with Jennifer Lind, Dan Byman, Nicholas Miller, and several others
2. Nicole Grajewski on the US attacks on Iran.
3. Andrew Rudalevige at Good Authority on war powers.
4. Natalie Jackson on public opinion on the Iran bombing.
5. Adam Bonica on the Supreme Court and the other courts
6. Seth Masket on going to Yavin.
7. Matt Grossmann talks with Mia Costa about partisan polarization.
8. Isabelle DeSisto at Good Authority on international students in the US.
9. And Ryan D. Enos and Steven Levitsky on Harvard and Trump.