Tag Archives: US Senate

political news, State news

Rep. Castro gets Dems’ hearts to flutter

Castro_in_IA_3_jpg_800x1000_q100

That pitter-patter you might be hearing belongs to the hearts of Texas Democrats who might seem to be excited at the prospect of an actual serious challenger to run against U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz.

The cause of the racing heartbeat is U.S. Rep. Joaquin Castro of San Antonio, who has let it be known that he might run in 2018 against the man I’ve enjoyed referring to as the Cruz Missile.

Cruz is a Republican lawmaker who was the last man standing in the fight to deny Donald J. Trump the GOP presidential nomination. He made a heck of splash at last week’s Republican national convention by declining to endorse the man who beat him to the finish line.

He got booed off the Cleveland stage.

Will this damage him in Texas? My gut tells me he might face a stronger challenge from within his own party than he might face from a Democrat, even one as attractive, articulate and polished as Joaquin Castro.

https://www.texastribune.org/2016/07/26/joaquin-castro-considers-texas-senate-run-cruz/

I remain fervent in my belief that Texas is better served with a vibrant two-party system. We do not have a Democratic Party that is yet able to challenge Republicans at the statewide level. Republicans win big — every time. They’ve held every statewide office in Texas since 1998. I don’t see any sign of weakness in the GOP vise grip.

Will it present itself in 2018 when Ted Cruz runs for re-election to the U.S. Senate. Rep. Castro seems to think it might.

I hope he’s correct. Cruz simply is not my kind of senator.

However, I’m not yet ready to presume that the Cruz Missile will fizzle out.

national news

Filibuster ends; now, let’s go on the record on guns

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Chris Murphy has declared a form of victory in his effort to enact gun-control legislation.

The junior U.S. senator from Connecticut, though, likely won’t be able to win the proverbial “war” against his colleagues who oppose him.

He spoke for 15 hours on the floor of the Senate, ending his filibuster at 2 a.m. As he yielded the floor to Republicans, he said he received assurance that the Senate will vote on whether to approve expanded background checks and to ban gun sales to suspected terrorists.

I will concede that the background check idea is a bit problematical for the Democratic senator. Opponents of expanding those checks contend that those who buy guns already are subjected to them.

It’s the other one, the terrorist element, that puzzles me.

http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/dem-senator-wages-filibuster-claims-progress-on-gun-control/ar-AAh6MfJ?li=BBnb7Kz

Congressional Republicans so far have opposed the ban on gun sales to individuals on federal no-fly lists. That’s right. Someone who isn’t allowed to board a commercial airliner because of suspected terrorist affiliation can purchase a gun. Wow, man.

Murphy was moved, obviously, by the slaughter in Orlando, Fla., this past weekend — and by the massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School four years ago in his home state of Connecticut.

I own two weapons. I understand what the Second Amendment says — I think. I hesitate only because, in my view, the Founders wrote it badly.

Sen. Murphy’s filibuster is supposed to lead now to a Senate vote on these two critical issues: background checks and no-fly list bans.

He isn’t likely to win the day on these votes, given that the Senate is controlled by Republicans who, in turn, appear to be controlled by the gun lobby.

President Barack Obama acknowledged the other day that these measures won’t stop all future acts of gun violence. They might prevent some of them. Isn’t there some value in that?

Let’s put all senators on the record. Do you favor these measures that, in my view, retain the Second Amendment right to gun ownership, or do you oppose them?

military news, national news, political news

Tell us what you really think, Sen. Cotton

458415986-rep-tom-cotton-and-republican-u-s-senate-elect-in.jpg.CROP.cq5dam_web_1280_1280_jpeg

I will tell you up front I’m not fond of the tone of Sen. Tom Cotton’s critique of Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid’s leadership.

But the freshman Arkansas Republican does make a tremendous point about the hypocrisy that abounds in the U.S. Senate in general and of the hypocrisy he said that Reid has demonstrated.

Cotton made a speech this week in which he condemned Reid’s “cancerous leadership” and wondered out loud how Reid could suggest that a defense bill was being shoved down the throats of senators after he had helped push through the Affordable Care Act — also in the middle of the night.

Check out the video of Cotton’s floor speech. It’s a stem winder.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2016/05/25/sen-tom-cotton-really-really-really-doesnt-like-harry-reid/

According to Cotton, Reid has said senators haven’t had time to read the bill. Cotton also noted that many senators didn’t read the ACA, either, before approving it on a “party-line vote.”

“I’m forced to listen to the bitter, vulgar, incoherent ramblings of the minority leader,” Cotton said. “Normally, like every other American, I ignore them. I can’t ignore them today. . . . When was the last time the minority leader read a bill? It was probably an electricity bill.”

I have to agree with Cotton’s assessment of Reid’s effort to resist the defense bill.

Reid, who’s retiring from the Senate at the end of the year, at times has not distinguished himself while leading the Senate’s Democratic caucus. Although the junior senator from Arkansas’s tone was overly harsh — in my humble view — he does hit the bulls-eye in calling out the hypocrisy he finds in the minority leader’s leadership.

Sen. Cotton surely won’t aim his fire with nearly the precision he needs at those within his own caucus. I’m also quite certain his opponents on the other side of the Senate chamber will provide adequate response.

 

legal news, national news, political news

GOP lawmaker: Wrong to block Garland

garlandmerrick_031716hj3

Dan Donovan’s opinion on a critical judicial appointment might matter if he actually were to play a tangible role in determining its outcome.

It’s too bad the thoughts of a back-bench Republican member of the U.S. House of Representatives will be relegated to the back of the closet.

Donovan is a New York member of Congress who said it is wrong for the Republican Senate leadership to block the appointment of Merrick Garland to the U.S. Supreme Court. If Donovan were king of Capitol Hill, he’d let Garland have a hearing and a vote.

He’s right, of course. President Obama appointed Garland to the high court after the shocking death of conservative icon Justice Antonin Scalia earlier this year.

Within hours of Scalia’s death, though, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell declared that the president’s nominee wouldn’t get a hearing. The president’s pick would be tossed aside. Why? Barack Obama is a lame duck, said McConnell, and the appointment should come from the next president of the United States.

It’s an absolute crock of crap.

http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/281000-gop-lawmaker-republicans-were-wrong-to-block-garland

“I’ve never thought that was a good idea,” Donovan told reporters in Staten Island. “I’ve always thought that the Republicans were wrong, that they should see who the nominee was — actually, the president nominated Judge Garland — and judge him on his abilities, his jurisprudence.”

Gosh. Do you think?

The irony of McConnell’s refusal is too rich to dismiss. He accuses the president of playing politics by seeking to force the Senate to hold hearings and then a vote. The ironic part is that McConnell’s obstruction of this appointment is the classic example of “playing politics” with a key provision in the constitutional authority of the legislative and executive branches of government.

The only reason McConnell is blocking this appointment process from going ahead is because the appointment might change the balance of power on the court, which was a narrowly conservative panel with Scalia. Garland is more of a mainstream moderate judge who, I should note, won overwhelming Senate approval to the D.C. Circuit Court.

Who’s playing politics, Mr. Majority Leader?

One of McConnell’s fellow GOP lawmakers is making some sense. It’s a shame his voice won’t be heard at the other end of the Capitol Building.

 

local news, national news, political news, State news

Now, Sen. Cruz, get to work on behalf of Texas

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I’m not sad to see U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz bow out of the Republican Party presidential primary contest.

He got shellacked Tuesday in Indiana, which would have been his last chance at derailing Donald J. Trump’s march to the GOP nomination.

As New York Times columnist Frank Bruni notes, the Cruz Missile likely will make another run for the presidency down the road. He’ll now “rest in peevishness,” Bruni writes.

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/04/opinion/ted-cruzs-bitter-end.html?action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=opinion-c-col-right-region&region=opinion-c-col-right-region&WT.nav=opinion-c-col-right-region&_r=0

Here’s a thought for Cruz to consider, though, as he licks his wounds and ponders the future.

He ought to simply go back to work in the U.S. Senate and start governing on behalf of those who sent him to Washington in the first place.

Cruz might not be wired to actually legislate. He ran against the institution in which he has served since January 2013. He has burned a bridge or three among his colleagues. He called himself an “outsider” despite working from the “inside” the legislative branch of government.

The state has some issues that need federal attention. Cruz pulls down 175 grand annually to represent the state. Taxpayers aren’t paying his salary to grandstand and promote his next search for higher political office.

The coastline needs protection against hurricanes. We need to invest in alternative energy sources, such as wind and solar; surely, Sen. Cruz is aware of the abundant quantities of both of those commodities out here on the High Plains of his state. Our highway infrastructure needs attention. Oh, yes, we need to shore up our border against illegal immigrants.

This is going to require Sen. Cruz to try a new tactic. He’s going to have to learn how to legislate and actually govern.

Cruz has had his shot at stardom. He fell short.

However, he’s got a pretty good, well-paying day job awaiting him on Capitol Hill.

Get back to work, Sen. Cruz.

***

PS: Here’s an interesting Texas Tribune analysis on how Cruz might seek to resume his actual job.

https://www.texastribune.org/2016/05/03/how-does-ted-cruz-return-senate/

 

national news, political news

Cruz turns insult into a compliment

ted

Didn’t you just know that Ted Cruz was going to turn the former speaker of the House’s comments about him into a compliment?

Sure you did.

The junior U.S. senator from Texas is “Lucifer in the flesh,” according to former Speaker John Boehner, who also called Cruz the “most miserable son of a b****” he’s ever worked with.

http://www.politico.com/story/2016/05/cruz-boehner-trump-lucifer-222677

Cruz’s reaction. It just proves he’s a real “outsider.”

The Republican presidential candidate is proud of running as an outsider, even though he’s worked on the inside for all of three-plus years. He was elected to the Senate in 2012 in his first race for elective office ever.

He has taken pride in his ability to get under people’s skin. He’s called the Senate majority leader a liar; he’s questioned the commitment to the military of genuine war heroes; he sought to shut down the government in a failed attempt to overturn the Affordable Care Act.

What a guy.

Boehner quit the House because he had grown fed up with legislators like Cruz.

Hey, it’s a badge of honor, according to the Cruz Missile.

Let’s try to set this into some perspective.

The federal government is a complicated piece of machinery. It requires knowledge, skill, nuance, diplomacy, tact and, oh yes, the ability to compromise on occasion.

Cruz keeps harping along the GOP primary campaign trail that he isn’t going to compromise on anything. He sounds for all the world like one of those lawmakers who sees the folks on the other side of the aisle as enemies, not just adversaries.

Sure, the other side has its share of haters. Florida U.S. Rep. Alan Grayson, a Democrat, comes to mind immediately. He’s got about as much actual experience in the federal government as Cruz, but he manages to shoot off his mouth whenever the cameras are rolling.

He’s the clown who said he’d file suit against Cruz to challenge whether the Canadian-born senator is constitutionally qualified to run for president.

Memo to Grayson: He’s qualified.

Back to Cruz.

He’s a self-proclaimed hotshot with little legislative accomplishment to show for all his fiery rhetoric.

He can proclaim his outsider street cred all he wants. However, if he intends to work with the very people he condemns — namely his colleagues in the legislative branch of government — then he’s got to build some relationships that so far simply do not exist.

legal news, national news, political news

GOP erects fortress of obstruction

garland

Merrick Garland should be confirmed by the U.S. Senate to take a seat on the Supreme Court.

Why? He’s qualified in the extreme. He is a model of judicial restraint. Garland is held in high regard by his peers and even by politicians of both parties.

So, what’s the trouble?

He happens to have been nominated by a Democratic president in his final full year in office. Senate Republicans, the folks in charge of the body who must confirm these nominees, say that Barack Obama doesn’t deserve to name the next justice.

And why is that? Well, it’s because the next nominee is going to succeed a conservative judicial titan on the court. Antonin Scalia went hunting in West Texas and then died suddenly earlier this year.

The Supreme Court’s balance has been narrowly conservative. Scalia’s death occurring during the presidency of a progressive politician means that the politician — Barack Obama — should get to select the next person to serve on the nation’s highest court.

But, no-o-o-o-o, say Republicans. He can’t do that.

The nomination must wait for the election to occur and for the next president to take office, say Republicans. Their hope, as if it’s not clear, is that one of the Republicans running for the White House will win the election.

Garland has launched what some are calling a “charm offensive” against some targeted Republican senators.

It hasn’t worked. The GOP lawmakers thought to be vulnerable to Garland’s judicial brilliance aren’t budging. They’re standing by their own man, Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, who has said — laughingly, in my view — that “the people deserve to have a voice” in choosing the next Supreme Court justice.

It’s a crock of horse manure. The people’s voice was heard in November 2012 when voters re-elected Barack Obama as president.

Oh, but wait! Didn’t the people speak in 2014 when they voted to hand control of the Senate over to the GOP? Sure they did.

However, as one who believes in presidential prerogative, I also am of a mind to place greater value on the votes collected by the one individual who is elected head of government and head of state than on the votes earned collectively by the legislative branch of government.

Garland’s charm offensive likely won’t — by itself — change enough minds to earn him a confirmation hearing before Barack Obama leaves office.

However, it very well could awaken the people once again this election, who in turn might seek to have their “voices heard” when they toss aside the Senate Republican majority while electing a Democrat to assume the presidency.

Obstruction can be difficult to disguise.

 

national news, political news, State news

Cruz and Cornyn: an uneasy Senate team?

cornyn and cruz

Every state is represented in the U.S. Senate by two individuals who, under an unwritten rule of good government, would seek to work in close political partnership.

The Texas Tribune has published an interesting analysis of the relationship of Texas’s two Republican senators, one of whom is running for president of the United States.

Ted Cruz and John Cornyn, according to the Tribune, aren’t exactly close. They aren’t joined at the hip. You don’t see them singing each other’s praises.

Is it a metaphor for what we’ve heard about Cruz?

It’s been stated repeatedly during this Republican primary campaign that Cruz hasn’t made many “friends” in the Senate. He doesn’t “play well with others,” the saying goes. He called the Senate majority leader, Mitch McConnell, a “liar” in a Senate floor speech and then just this past week said he had no intention to take back what he said.

It might be a big deal — in a normal election cycle. This one isn’t normal. As the Tribune reports: “In any other circumstance, it would be curious that a viable presidential candidate did not have the support of his fellow state Republican. But each man in this case represents the visceral divide raging in the party: Cornyn is the consummate establishment team player, while Cruz is the TEA Party insurgent.”

Cruz has been a senator for slightly more than three years. Cornyn was elected in 2002. What’s more, the Senate is Cruz’s first elected office; Cornyn, on the other hand, served as Texas attorney general and, before that, as a member of the Texas Supreme Court.

Cornyn knows how to play the political game in Texas. He’s good at it. Is he exactly my kind of senator? Hardly, but I do respect the man’s political skill.

Cruz brings another element to this game. I would consider it his amazing degree of hubris and utter fearlessness.

It’s long been said that the U.S. Senate is a 100-member club that requires a bit of time for members to feel comfortable. It took young Ted Cruz no time at all to grab a microphone on the Senate floor and begin blasting away at his rivals.

It’s only a hunch on my part but it might be that the Texas rookie’s rush to the center of the stage could have been a bit off-putting to the more senior legislator.

It used to be said that the “most dangerous place in Washington” was the space between Sen. Phil Gramm and a microphone. Gramm left the Senate some years ago. Ted Cruz has taken up that new — apparently with great gusto.

Is he a team player? Are Texas’s two senators — Cornyn and Cruz — on the same page all the time? Consider this from the Tribune:

“There are no whispered tales in Senate circles about heated arguments between the two men or icy glares on the Senate floor. Instead, the most frequently used word observers use to describe the relationship is ‘disconnected.’”

 

 

legal news, national news, political news

Imagine this breakfast chit-chat

grassley

U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley is going to have breakfast next Tuesday with Merrick Garland.

Yep, he’s going to break bread with the Supreme Court nominee whose nomination he intends to block.

I’m trying to imagine how this conversation will proceed. Here’s what I have come up with:

Grassley: Welcome, Judge. I’m glad you could find time to meet me for breakfast.

Garland: Thank you, Mr. Chair …

Grassley: Oh, call me Chuck.

Garland: Sure thing … Chuck. (laughter)

Grassley: Let’s get down to brass tacks. I don’t think the committee I chair should consider your nomination. In fact, I’m on board as saying that the next president should make the nomination. The current president is a lame duck, you know. This election could change everything.

Garland: I get that. But why are we meeting? I’ve read the papers. I know what you’ve said.

Grassley: I just wanted to get together so I could explain in detail …

Garland: Detail? What detail? You don’t support President Obama. You’ve never supported him. Look, he sought to pick someone who wouldn’t rock the court. He looked for a moderate judge. He found one. Me. My time on the D.C. Circuit Court has been the model of moderation.

Grassley: But the Supreme Court balance is, well, in the balance. Antonin Scalia was a stalwart conservative justice. We need to maintain that balance on the court.

Garland: Why the need? Didn’t a majority of voters re-elect Obama three years ago? Didn’t they do so knowing full well what kind of judge he’d appoint if given the chance. I mourn Scalia’s death, too. He was a brilliant jurist. He had a seriously rigid point of view. But I’m no slouch, either. I just don’t lean nearly as far to the left as Scalia did to the right. He could have picked a flaming lefty activist. I’m neither a lefty or an activist.

Grassley: I get that, Judge. You do understand that we on the committee are politicians, correct? We’ve got political interests. I happen to like my job as a senator from Iowa. I’ve been doing it for some time. I’d like to keep doing it. We’ve got this faction within our party that won’t tolerate compromise. It won’t tolerate me or any other of my Republican ilk from compromising with those Democrats.

Garland: So, you’re not going to allow the president, who has another nine months in office, to fulfill his duty because you’re getting pressure from constituent groups and political action organizations?

Grassley: I wouldn’t put it quite that way.

Garland: But that’s what it sounds like to me. You know what? I just lost my appetite. Thanks for the invitation, Chuck.

Grassley: Uh, judge? On second thought, you now may call me “Mr. Chairman.”

 

 

legal news, national news, political news

Sen. Moran reneges on call for Garland hearing

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jerrymoran

I hereby take back all the nice things I said about U.S. Sen. Jerry Moran, R-Kan.

Moran had earned my praise after he said that Supreme Court justice nominee Merrick Garland deserves a hearing and a confirmation vote by the U.S. Senate.

Then what does the senator do? He reneges on his earlier call, which I thought when he said it illustrated great courage from the conservative Republican lawmaker.

I hate that I have to retract those things I wrote. I always enjoy watching politicians go against the tide, buck the trend, go with their gut.

Now it turns out that Moran — who’s in zero danger of losing his Senate seat this fall — has joined with other Senate Republicans in resisting Garland’s nomination. Moran said Garland is too weak on Second Amendment issues.

My question is this: Didn’t he know that when he expressed his desire for the Senate to proceed with confirmation hearings and then an up-down vote?

Here is what I wrote the first time about Sen. Moran:

https://highplainsblogger.com/2016/03/sen-moran-stands-up-for-integrity/

I’m taking it all back.