Tag Archives: US Senate

national news, political news

Utah’s loss is nation’s gain

Bye, bye, Sen. Orrin Hatch.

The Utah Republican has announced his plans to retire from the U.S. Senate at the end of this year. He won’t seek re-election to his umpteenth term.

It doesn’t sadden me to see Hatch retire. He’s had his time … and then some, in the Senate. When he was first elected in 1976 he campaigned partly on the notion that senators need not stay too long in the World’s Greatest Deliberative Body. I believe 42 years could be construed as “too long.”

I don’t favor term limits, mind you. It’s just that Sen. Hatch has grown old and stale.

Hatch resisted intense pressure from Donald Trump to stay on. He has become one of the president’s staunchest Senate allies.

Now comes the fun part.

Mitt Romney, the guy who called Trump a “phony” and a “fraud” is likely to run for the seat Hatch will vacate. I look forward to how Sen. Romney — presuming his election this year — will deal with the “phony and fraudulent” president’s agenda.

Romney — the GOP’s 2012 presidential nominee — made sort of nice with Trump when the president-elect was looking for a secretary of state. Romney didn’t get that gig, and has been critical of the president from time to time. Trump’s closest aides don’t trust Romney. Too bad … not!

Romney figures to be the prohibitive favorite to succeed Hatch. I welcome Mitt’s return to public life, notably because he’ll be a bur under Trump’s saddle.

national news

Alabama cedes national attention to … Utah!

Many Americans, including me, were fascinated by the election of a U.S. senator from Alabama.

The election turned out the correct way. It was a big surprise. Democratic nominee Doug Jones won and is now the senator-elect from one of the nation’s strongest Republican-leaning states.

Now we have another state. It’s out west. It’s Utah. Orrin Hatch is the U.S. Senate’s longest-serving Republican … in the history of the Senate! He is considering whether to run for an eighth six-year term. Sen. Hatch, though, does not have the backing of Utah’s largest newspaper, the Salt Lake Tribune, which named him “Utahn of the Year,” but said he earned the “honor” by demonstrating a new level of crass political ambition. The Tribune wants voters to choose someone else if Hatch decides to run again; the paper, obviously, wants him to retire.

If Hatch does call it quits, it opens the door for Mitt Romney, the GOP’s 2012 presidential nominee and a man considered the odds-on favorite to be elected to the Senate in 2018.

Utah drama shaping up

Why is this so fascinating? I’ll tell you. Hatch is a Donald Trump ally; Mitt Romney is, um, not an ally of the president. Sen. Hatch gave Trump his backing on repealing and replacing the Affordable Care Act; he stood behind the president on the GOP-authored tax cut.

Mitt Romney, the former Massachusetts governor, calls Trump a “fraud” and a “phony.” He despises the way Trump has lied; he detests the president’s disparaging of individuals and groups.

Would a Sen. Romney be as closely tied to Trump as Sen. Hatch. I would hope not.

I have developed a significant respect for Romney since the 2012 presidential election. He was courageous enough to deliver a blistering speech during the 2016 campaign in which he hung the fraud and phony label on Trump.

Sure, Trump pondered whether to appoint Romney as secretary of state. The men shook hands. They seemed to bury the hatchet.

But my hope would be that Romney would travel down a more independent path than Hatch has trod.

My request of Sen. Hatch? Listen to what the Tribune said about you. Call it a career. As the Tribune noted, Hatch told Utah voters in 1976 — the year he was elected for crying out loud — that senators shouldn’t stay too long.

national news

Mitch is striking ‘bipartisan’ tone for new year

Can it be true? Is the Senate majority leader finding some form of “religion” on how to govern?

Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., is talking about a more “bipartisan” approach to legislating in the coming year. Well now. Imagine that.

The New York Times is reporting that McConnell is going to shy away from highly partisan measures and concentrate more on issues that have broader bipartisan support. He’s going to look for more Democratic support to go along with the Republican majority that controls the flow of legislation in the U.S. Senate.

Dodd-Frank, which governs the financial industry, has bipartisan support for overhauling the law enacted in the wake of the 2008 banking crisis. McConnell said he virtually certain to push that overhaul forward.

Mitch is going bipartisan

As Politico reports, McConnell and other Republicans failed in their effort to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act this year. “I wish them well,” he said of efforts to continue to repeal the ACA and replace it with … something!

As an American who favors a bipartisan approach to legislating in Congress, I welcome the majority leader’s stated intention to seek another way to govern.

Now … if only Sen. McConnell can persuade the guy in the Oval Office that cooperation works far more effectively than confrontation.

national news, political news

GOP ‘wins’ while their guy loses

Republicans far and wide are breathing more easily today than they were a week ago.

Last week they were worrying that one of their own, Roy Moore of Alabama, was going to win a special election to a U.S. Senate seat. He didn’t. Moore lost that contest to Doug Jones, a Democratic former federal prosecutor.

I’ll leave it to my old pal Tom Taschinger — who succeeded me more than 20 years ago as editorial page editor of the Beaumont Enterprise — to explain in detail how Republicans won while losing an election.

Read Taschinger’s essay here.

Moore was a damaged candidate even before allegations surfaced from women who accused him of sexual misconduct. He is a religious zealot who doesn’t work well with so-called “establishment” Republicans, many of whom cringed at the idea of him joining the ranks of the U.S. Senate.

Moreover, other GOP candidates would have had to run under the banner of a party that elected someone accused of the hideous acts that Moore is alleged to have committed. That’s if he won.

Since he didn’t, Republicans now have been spared the misery of campaigning under the specter of a “Sen. Roy Moore.”

Does this put the Republicans in the clear? Does it make a forgone conclusion that they’ll hold onto their slim Senate majority after the 2018 midterm election?

Hardly. The fight has just begun.

legal news

Judicial nominee hits the road after embarrassing moment

Matthew Peterson got himself nominated for a lifetime job as a federal judge.

Then he had to go before the Senate Judiciary Committee. Sen. John Kennedy, R-La., had the temerity to ask Peterson a series of questions.

Had he ever tried a criminal case? A civil case? Had he ever argued before an appellate court? Umm. No on all three questions.

The exchange went viral, thanks to Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I., sending out via Twitter. See the video here.

Peterson withdrew his nomination today. He told Donald Trump he didn’t want to be a “distraction.”

I baffled on where to begin with this one.

I’m glad Peterson pulled out. He doesn’t belong on the U.S. Court of Appeals in the District of Columbia. The young man needs some experience, um, trying cases in an actual courtroom. 

The most stunning aspect of this nomination is how in the world the president of the United States could put someone so wholly unqualified up for examination by the Senate judiciary panel. Did the president’s “fine-tuned machine” get all gummed up? It clearly failed to vet this fellow.

Good grief, man! I would think one of the questions one could ask a judicial nominee would be: Have you ever tried a case — in a courtroom? In front of a judge and a jury?

If the answer is “no,” then you move on to the next name on your list. Wouldn’t that work?

national news

Capitol Hill gripped by fear of harassment

It’s come down to this.

Members of Congress — senators and House members — are being harassed and hassled themselves by bogus complaints alleging sexual harassment.

What has become of this scandal? Has it grown to something no one recognizes?

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer has had to fend off a fake complaint, as has Sen. Richard Blumenthal.

Yes, this issue is real. It has reached scandalous proportions as scores of women have levied credible, legitimate complaints against powerful men in government. Three of them have been forced to resign; others are declaring their intention to bow out after the 2018 midterm election.

Some of these accusations involve some truly hideous conduct.

But there now appears to be some evidence of bogus allegations surfacing.

Let’s be careful — shall we? — as we continue to grapple with this matter.

We have complaints being lodged against none other than the president of the United States. Many of those complaints seem quite credible, in my humble view. The president has called them liars and said their accusations are part of a “fake news” effort to undermine him.

Then we have comments from the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, Nikki Haley, saying that all complaints “need to be heard.” I agree with her.

Be careful of fear

Then again, let us be take care that we don’t push the sexual harassment panic button at every single complaint. Human beings are quite capable of tricking the rest of us.

As Sen. Lindsey Graham said, “You want to have a welcome environment to report abuse — you don’t want to deter victims. But you’ve got to have enough due process and scrutiny to make sure it’s accurate.”

“I think this environment is pretty crazy right now,” Graham added, and “what happened to Sen. Schumer is a concern to a lot of us.”

political news

Mitch McConnell: partisan powerhouse

Oh, how I wanted to give U.S. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell the benefit of the doubt.

I didn’t like the way he stonewalled Barack Obama’s choice for the Supreme Court after Antonin Scalia died in 2016. Then he turned around and said all the right things about Roy Moore, the religious zealot — who also has been accused of sexually abusing girls; McConnell said Moore is unfit to serve in the Senate and he wanted him to end his candidacy.

Now the Republican from Kentucky is showing who he really is: a partisan powerhouse hack.

He doesn’t want to wait for Alabama U.S. Sen.-elect Doug Jones — the Democrat who beat Moore this week in that special election — to take his seat before voting on the GOP-authored tax cut bill. Moore is a certain “no” vote on the bill.

But wait! Seven years ago, a Republican was elected to the Senate from Massachusetts and McConnell insisted that the Senate wait for Scott Brown to take his seat before voting on whether to repeal the Affordable Care Act.

Which is it, Mr. Majority Leader? Is it right for one party to gum up the works, but not for the other party?

I refer to McConnell’s successful obstruction of President Obama’s nomination of Merrick Garland to the high court for a reason as well. McConnell wanted to hold off on confirming a Supreme Court pick until after the 2016 election. He was hoping Donald Trump would defeat Hillary Clinton, even though almost no one thought he would. His gamble paid off.

However, while obstructing the president, he accused Democrats of “playing politics” with the nomination by insisting that Judge Garland get a hearing and a vote. I trust you see the irony in that statement, as McConnell was “playing politics” like the master politician he has proven to be.

Now the Senate Republican majority is poised to foist a tax cut that will explode the federal budget deficit on Americans; analyses suggest it will benefit the wealthiest Americans while burdening the rest of us. But that’s OK, says Mitch. Bring it on!

Don’t wait for a duly elected Democrat to take his seat. We gotta get this bill to the president’s desk because we’re desperate for a win.

Oh, and never mind what he said before about Sen.-elect Brown. Hey, if Americans can ignore what the president says about his political foes, surely they’ll give McConnell a pass on his brazen duplicity.

legal news

How about ‘extreme vetting’ of judicial nominees?

Donald John Trump wants to employ “extreme vetting” of immigrants seeking entry into the United States of America.

Fine, but how about vetting nominees to the federal bench, Mr. President? I mean, at least a cursory vetting might enable the president to nominate men and women who know certain basics about the law.

Matthew Peterson sat before the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee this week and managed to utterly fluff simple questions about how he would apply certain legal tenets. He has been nominated to a spot on the U.S. Circuit Court in the District of Columbia.

He, um, didn’t do well at his hearing.

Check it out here.

Peterson has never tried a case. Senators asked him about his criminal law trial experience. None. His civil trial experience. None.

The video of Peterson stumbling and bumbling his way through the excruciating committee interview has gone viral, which is a rarity in itself, given that judicial nominee hearings usually aren’t the stuff of social media tittering.

The president has boasted of his administration running like a “fine-tuned machine.” Mr. President, a fine-tuned machine wouldn’t present judicial candidates who cannot answer basic questions from the men and women who must approve these nominations.

national news

One fear is coming true

I expressed some concern that the loser of the Alabama U.S. Senate race wouldn’t concede gracefully to the winner. The fight got seriously nasty, you know?

Sadly, it’s proving to be the case.

Roy Moore lost to Doug Jones by about 1.5 percent, which is outside Alabama’s mandated recount margin of .5 percent. Moore, the Republican nominee, was supposed to beat the Democrat Jones.

He didn’t.

Moore said Tuesday night he would “sleep on it.” I hope he got a night’s 40 winks. Except he awoke today and still hasn’t done what he ought to do: Place a call to Jones, tell him congratulations and pledge to “work with” as he transitions to the U.S. Senate.

At least, the president of the United States — who had endorsed Moore — managed to fire of a congratulatory tweet late last night.

But … this is what we can expect I suppose from the guy accused by several women of sexual misconduct.

Here’s the good news, though: Doug Jones won. The senator-elect will take office with or without a concession from the guy who lost.

political news

The sun shines a bit more brightly today … in Alabama

I awoke this morning. The sun came out and is shining quite brightly here on the Texas High Plains.

This is an unproven notion, but my sense is that it likely is shining a bit more brightly today over yonder in Alabama, where voters did something few of us thought possible. They rejected a deeply flawed Republican candidate for the U.S. Senate and elected a moderate, mainstream Democrat.

Who knew, yes?

Sen.-elect Doug Jones is likely beginning his preparation to join the Club of 100 on Capitol Hill. He will be the first Democrat to represent Alabama in the Senate in 25 years. This was supposed to be GOP nominee Roy Moore’s election to lose and by golly he found a way to do it.

He campaigned badly, particularly in the final days when he disappeared from the campaign trail. He left the field wide open for Jones, who took full advantage down the stretch.

But … that’s side-show stuff. The real flaws in Moore’s candidacy stemmed from his outrageous notion that only evangelical Christians were fit to serve in public office and, oh yes, those allegations about sexual misconduct.

The stunning aspect of Jones’s victory is being felt in the White House, where Donald Trump staked a great deal of his political capital on a Moore victory. Some analysts are calling this defeat the worst of Trump’s tenure as president. Jones cuts the Senate GOP’s already thin margin by a single seat. It now opens the door to a possible Democratic takeover of the Senate in 2018, not to mention possibly puts control of the House of Representatives in play.

And all this happened in Dixie, in a state Trump won by nearly 30 percentage points in 2016.

It’s been said that a week, a month — let alone a year — can be a “lifetime in politics.” The stunning result that occurred in Alabama last night drives the point home.

Boy, howdy!

Let the sun shine brightly.