Tag Archives: U.S. Senate

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Good old days of 'pork' are gone

Remember when members of Congress used to actually boast about all the money they channeled to their states or their congressional districts?

Shoot, you had to be able to talk committee chairmen into approving money for your pet project. There always was something to give back in return, of course. A favor for the chairman’s district, or some help raising money for the other guy’s re-election campaign often was the kind of quid pro quo offered and delivered.

Those days are gone. That’s generally a good thing. I’m not fond of what’s been called “pork-barrel spending.”

A long-time U.S. senator, Republican Thad Cochran of Mississippi, is in trouble now partly because he used to funnel a lot of dough back to the Magnolia State.

It used to be a good thing. No more, folks.

Nope. The guy who’s favored to beat him Tuesday in the GOP runoff in Mississippi is Chris McDaniel, a tea party golden boy who stands poised to knock off another one-time “titan of the Senate.”

It’s not that Cochran is my favorite senator. Far from it. He tilts too far to the right for my taste. McDaniel, though, tilts even farther to the right, which makes the probable outcome in Mississippi a downer as far as I’m concerned. I’m figuring McDaniel would be one of those who’ll proclaim “my way or the highway” on anything that comes from the other side of the aisle.

A question looms in this race for Mississippi Republicans: Is it really and truly a bad thing to spend public money when it pays for public projects that are developed in your very own state? According to the New York Times, the answer for many Mississippians is “yes.”

It didn’t used to be this way.

Oh, the times they certainly are a-changin’.

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Sen. Obama MIA at vets panel meetings

Hell has frozen over.

I am about to agree with something Karl Rove has said, which is that President Obama needs to take care when referencing his work as a U.S. senator on behalf of veterans.

Barack Obama served for three years on the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee. He was critical of the Bush administration’s treatment of veterans. However, according to Rove — aka “Bush’s brain” — Sen. Obama often was a no-show at committee meetings when veterans health care issues came up.

http://www.politico.com/story/2014/05/karl-rove-senator-obama-veterans-affairs-107033.html?hp=r7

Other senators have noted the same thing about Sen. Obama, who reportedly had his eye on a bigger prize almost the moment he won the Senate seat in a landslide over transplanted Republican ultraconservative candidate Alan Keyes.

Veterans health care is in the news, of course. A scandal has erupted over the deaths of about 40 veterans who waited far too long for health care at the Phoenix, Ariz., VA hospital. There’s also the issue of cooked-up records showing patients were getting care in a timely manner. Vets Affairs Secretary Eric Shinseki is on the griddle over it, but so far President Obama is standing behind the embattled Cabinet member.

Back to Rove’s point.

The president is right to make veterans health care a major issue. He is right to be angry; a lot of us out here are angry — and scared — as well. The president is correct to demand answers and corrective measures. Heads ought to roll once the evidence is in and Shinseki should resign if it turns out he was negligent.

President Obama, though, is learning a terrible lesson in how politicians cannot shake their own personal history when issues come in direct conflict with their record.

Rove misfired badly in suggesting Hillary Rodham Clinton may have suffered a “brain injury” when she fell in 2012. He has found the mark, though, in questioning much of the president’s demonstrated commitment to veterans health care issues, given his spotty attendance at Senate hearings.

There. That is likely to be last time I’ll say something supportive about Karl Rove for a long while.

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If Brown wins in N.H., Dems in for a miserable night

One of the interesting things to watch in this year’s mid-term elections in November will be the returns in New Hampshire.

New Hampshire is in the Eastern Time Zone and we’ll know right away whether a U.S. Senate seat flips from Democratic to Republican. If it turns from Blue to Red, I’m quite sure that the Democratic Party is going to be in for a very long, miserable, painful evening of watching election returns.

Why is the New Hampshire race so critical?

For starters, the incumbent is a Democrat seeking her second term, Jean Shaheen, a popular former governor. Additionally, her main Republican challenger is a carpetbagger, a former senator from across the state line in Massachusetts, Scott Brown.

Brown also is a big hitter with some serious star power, owing to his first term in the Senate representing the Bay State. He was elected to the seat held for a zillion years by the late Ted Kennedy, who died in 2009. Brown lost his seat when he ran for re-election in 2012.

He then set his sights up yonder, in New Hampshire. He has formed an exploratory committee, which usually is a formality preceding a declaration of his candidacy. He’ll declare his candidacy soon.

Shaheen’s popularity is being undermined by the unpopularity of the man in the White House, Democratic President Barack Obama. The president’s low poll numbers will provide Brown the best opportunity to exploit Shaheen’s incumbency.

Whether it will be enough for him to win is anyone’s guess at the moment.

If he does win, and the news networks project Brown winning in New Hampshire early in the evening, then I’m thinking the Senate will be destined to turn from Democratic to Republican control when the night is over. The GOP needs to pick up six Senate seats to win control of the place. A Brown victory will serve as a precursor to a long night, indeed, for Democrats.

However, a Shaheen victory might spell a different kind of evening for Democrats and Republicans.

My guess right now is that a Shaheen win could reduce Republican gains to something just short of outright control of the Senate.

Even so, Democrats all across the country at this moment should be afraid … very afraid.

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Cornyn running against … President Obama?

U.S. Sen. John Cornyn has just let Texans know how seriously he views the challenge from his right.

Not very seriously at all, or so it appears.

Cornyn has released a TV spot that talks not about any of the people running against him in the March 4 Republican primary. He blasts President Obama.

http://wordpress.com/read/blog/feed/12395410/

It’s not surprising, perhaps, to see this kind of strategy begin to play out. The more a powerful incumbent says about an opponent, the more publicity the opponent gets. I refer to U.S. Rep. Steve Stockman, R-Friendswood, who’s emerging as the chief primary challenger to Cornyn.

The incumbent isn’t about to give Stockman any mention at all. Why should he? Doing so elevates Stockman’s profile; it gives him attention; it provides him with grist of his own to use against Cornyn.

It doesn’t hurt that Cornyn is holding up the president as a “foe,” given Barack Obama’s unpopularity among most Texans.

The language in the ad is harsh. In my view it’s overly harsh, but that’s just me.

However, it makes for extremely smart politics from John Cornyn.

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New year brings old argument over jobless insurance

Dear U.S. Senators:

Good morning and happy new year. Welcome back to the same ol’ same ol’ fights among yourselves and with the White House. The issue today is unemployment insurance.

First, a question: Will you do the right thing and extend unemployment insurance for long-term unemployed Americans for another three months?

If you do, you will make about 1.3 million Americans quite happy as they continue to find work in an economy that is recovering, but is in a still-fragile state of recovery. If you do not, then you will incur their wrath at the next election.

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2014/01/07/showdown_set_on_unemployment_bill_in_senate_121150.html

And that election, by the way, is coming up this year for about one-third of you. Every single seat in the House of Representatives is up for election, so your friends on the other end of the Capitol Building have their own concerns about this bill.

I hope some of you heard Gene Sperling, one of President Obama’s economic advisers, this weekend on “Meet the Press.” Sperling made a critical point about this extension, which was that during President Bush’s two terms in office immediately preceding Barack Obama’s time there, Congress approved the jobless insurance extension five times without adding “pay for” provisions to them.

The country’s debt load was heavy then as well, in case you don’t recall. Now, however, some of you — chiefly Republicans — say they would approve extending the benefits only if Congress can come up with spending cuts to pay for them. Why now? Why not when President Bush was asking for the extension? This kind of heartlessness reminds me of when, in 2011, some of your House colleagues said the same thing about providing emergency relief for victims of the killer tornado that tore Joplin, Mo., apart.

Let’s not play that game now, ladies and gentlemen. Americans out here are suffering. They need some assistance while they keep looking for work.

Are you on their side or aren’t you?

Get busy. Do the right thing.

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Congress sees ‘spike’ in approval rating

What gives here?

Congress’s approval ratings, which had been languishing in the single digits for months on end, suddenly have taken a “spike” upward. According to the RealClearPolitics.com poll average — the one that takes in all the major polls’ findings and averages them out — shows congressional approval at 12.4 percent, as of Dec. 9.

I think we’re going to see even more improvement in the days and weeks ahead.

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/other/congressional_job_approval-903.html

On what do I base that bold prediction? It’s the budget deal hammered out by Democrats and Republicans, actually working together to avoid a government shutdown that has done the trick.

I’ve noted already that the deal announced by committee chairs Rep. Paul Ryan and Sen. Patty Murray — a Republican and Democrat, respectively — is far from perfect. But the bigger point is that legislation rarely satisfies everyone. Good government almost always is the product of compromise, which by definition means both sides have to give a little to get something done.

If you track congressional approval ratings on the link attached to this blog back to when the government shut down in October, you’ll notice a decided tanking of public approval of Congress. Republicans leaders who run the House of Representatives took it on the chin the hardest from Americans fed up with the obstruction, the posturing and the do-nothing approach taken by the GOP.

It goes without saying — but I’ll say it anyway — that both chambers of Congress are populated by politicians … even those who say they “aren’t politicians.” Therefore, politicians depend on the people’s feelings about the job they’re doing if they want to stay in office.

All 535 members of the House and Senate should take heed at this “spike” in approval ratings. I think Americans are sending them a message: Do something — for a change.

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Two senators: same ideology, different styles

Ross Ramsey’s analysis of Texas’s two Republican U.S. senators reminded me of a political truism authored by none other than the late President Richard Nixon.

Nixon, who essentially wrote the modern political playbook, used to say that candidates run to their extremes during the primary and tack toward the center in the general election. The president’s theory applied to Democrats and Republicans.

http://www.texastribune.org/2013/11/25/senate-matter-style/

That might work in most eras and in most states. Not in Texas. Not now.

Ramsey, the editor of the Texas Tribune, says Sen. John Cornyn has stepped right out of “central casting” to be a U.S. senator. White hair, former judge, former state attorney general, handsome features. “Soft face.” He says Sen. Ted Cruz presents a different image. Black hair. Fiery temperament. He’s a TV camera hustler.

Cornyn is running for re-election this year. He might face a serious challenge from his right, from the tea party — aka the wacko — wing of his party. Why? Mainly because he opposed Cruz’s tactic of tying Affordable Care Act funding with the government shutdown earlier this year.

Cornyn is a virtual shoo-in for re-election. To secure his party’s nomination in the spring, he’ll have to say all the right things. He might even have to harden that soft face of his while saying them. He’ll blast the ACA to smithereens. He’ll say mean things about Democrats in general. He might even accuse the president of being something other than a true-blue American.

In another time, though, Cornyn then would veer toward the middle, saying more reasonable things. He would talk about his desire to reach across the aisle to work his “friends on the other side.” He might even mention that he is pals with a few of those Democrats.

But these days, in Texas, the Nixon Axiom no longer seems to matter. Cornyn likely will stay focused on the far right. He might even get more inflammatory as the campaign progresses into the summer and fall of 2014. That’s because so many Texas votes seem comfortable with their senators tossing bombs.

Look at Cruz’s popularity among Texas Republican at this moment. If you’re a Texas politician, all that seems to matter is whether the GOP faithful will stand with you.

All of this could play out as described here, except for one possible factor: whether Democratic state Sen. Wendy Davis’s campaign for governor gins up enough support among women angry at the GOP’s stance on abortion rights. I’m not predicting that will happen.

However, if it does, then President Nixon’s general election strategy is back in play.

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‘Court-packing scheme’ is specious argument

The National Review Online is supposed to be a respected publication.

The editorial attached to this post, however, suggests that the folks who run the publication fail to understand a key component of the U.S. Constitution. It’s the part that gives the president of the United States the authority to make critical executive and judicial branch appointments.

http://www.nationalreview.com/article/364556/nuclear-fallout-editors

The NRO is upset with Senate Democrats’ decision to invoke the so-called “nuclear option” as it relates to the filibuster. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid took the highly risky step as a way to allow President Obama to have his appointments cleared from a Senate that had obstructed them through the use of the filibuster. It once took 60 votes out of 100 to break a filibuster. It now takes just 51 votes. The rule change involves all appointments except those involving the U.S. Supreme Court.

The Senate has nuked itself.

The NRO, though, says that the filibuster is secondary to what it says is the real reason for the action. “The filibuster is a minor issue; the major issue is that President Obama is engaged in a court-packing scheme to protect his dubious agenda, and Harry Reid’s Senate is conspiring with him to do so,” the NRO writes.

A number of judicial appointments have been blocked by Senate Republicans that have nothing to do with the qualifications of the men and women selected. Obama seeks to fill them because, well, he is the president and the Constitution gives the person in that office the authority to act. Yes, the Constitution also gives the Senate the right to “advise and consent” to the nominations. That role, though, should be on the basis of whether someone is qualified for the job.

I’ve long believed strongly in presidential prerogative. I’ve also believed that presidents who win elections have earned the right to pick whomever they wish to key positions. This might surprise some readers of this blog, but I supported the nomination to the Supreme Court in 1991 of one Clarence Thomas, despite the uproar that arose from his selection when a woman accused him of sexual harassment.

The complaint was never proved. Thomas was qualified to serve on the highest court. Was he the kind of judge I would have picked? No. That job, though, fell to the man who was elected president in 1988, George H.W. Bush. Therefore, the president had earned the right to seat someone of his choosing on the court.

Barack Obama has precisely the same right as any of the men who’ve served before him. The Senate shouldn’t serve as a place where these nominations are stopped because of some trumped-up scheme manufactured by his political opponents.

Court-packing? Give me a break. President Obama’s job involves making appointments. Let him do that job and let the people he selects be examined on the basis of their qualifications.

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Fallout expected from Senate ‘nuclear’ blast

U.S. Senate Democrats went “nuclear” today.

No one was hurt, at least not physically. There might be some political injury as a result. To whom, though, remains an open question.

http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2013/11/21/harry-reid-likely-to-go-nuclear-today/?hpt=hp_bn3

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid carried through with his threat to employ the “nuclear option” regarding filibusters. Before today’s action, ending a filibuster required 60 votes, out of 100 senators. Today, the rules changed. All it takes after today is a simple majority of 51 votes.

The aim is to push through some appointees whose confirmation had been held up by stubborn Republican senators. The appointees in question were picked by President Obama to sit on the D.C. Court of Appeals, the second-most critical federal bench, after the U.S. Supreme Court. Three highly qualified jurists’ appointments were held up by GOP filibusters.

It’s a pattern that the Republican minority has followed since Barack Obama took office in January 2009. The president today endorsed the Senate Democrats’ action — no surprise there — by declaring “enough is enough.” He noted that four of President George W. Bush’s five appointees to that court were approved by the Senate, while his appointees have been blocked.

Republicans objected — again, no surprise — by using high-minded language about the “tyranny of the majority,” declaring that Democrats were exercising “raw power” in seeking to deny the Senate minority a voice.

Two points need to be made.

First is that the Senate needs to function in its “advise and consent” role. Blocking judicial appointments, or any other presidential pick just because they can is not in keeping with the constitutional provision. Presidents, by virtue of their election to the nation’s highest office, deserve the right to select qualified individuals to serve. That’s a perk that goes with winning an election. Democratic Sen. Dick Durbin of Illinois said today that GOP objections to the D.C. court selections had nothing to do with the nominees’ qualifications. To “advise and consent” is supposed to allow senators to determine whether someone is fit for the office to which they’ve been appointed.

The second point is to question whether Senate Republicans are willing to stand by their noble objections should they gain the majority after next year’s election, which is no sure thing. If they believe in the right of the minority party to have a voice in determining the flow of business, would Senate Republicans — if they occupy most of the Senate’s 100 seats in January 2015 — be willing to return to the 60-vote filibuster-busting rule? Would they grant the new Democratic minority the same opportunity to block appointments that the GOP has had since Barack Obama took office?

The Senate has to work for the people. As for the second point, I am not holding my breath on Senate Republicans sticking to their principled objections.

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Cruz doesn’t work for party bosses?

I cannot believe I’m about to write these next five words: I agree with Ted Cruz.

Sen. Cruz told CNN he doesn’t work for “party bosses.” He said he works for Texans who elected him to the U.S. Senate and that he doesn’t care that Senate Republican elders are mad at him for the tactics he used to gum up the government.

http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2013/10/20/cruz-to-cnn-i-dont-work-for-the-party-bosses-in-washington/?hpt=po_c1

The fact that I agree that he shouldn’t care what Senate senior statesmen think of him doesn’t mean I support what he did to keep the government shut down and to prevent the Congress from increasing the nation’s debt limit. I still think he’s a loudmouth and a self-serving showman. His own political future remains his key interest, in my view.

His statement about not working for party bosses reminds me a bit of what another Texas Republican did some years ago to stick it in the eye of his party bosses.

U.S. Rep. Larry Combest was a key member of the House Agriculture Committee. However, he disliked the way House Speaker Newt Gingrich was pushing something called Freedom to Farm, a bill that would have dramatically altered U.S. farm policy that helped subsidize farmers and ranchers who, for reasons relating to forces outside their control — such as Mother Nature — couldn’t bring in crops.

Combest told Gingrich then he couldn’t back Freedom to Farm, saying he worked for the West Texas cattle ranchers and cotton farmers who helped elect him to Congress. Combest’s resistance would cost him temporarily the House Agriculture Committee chairmanship, a post he coveted. He didn’t care. Combest stood firmly on the side of his West Texas congressional district.

Ted Cruz, though, isn’t really listening to all Texans if he insists that he is speaking for them in this battle over the budget. Some of us out here may wish the government would curtail spending, but we do not want to see it paralyzed through political dysfunction, which is what Cruz is espousing.

I agree with Cruz that he doesn’t work for the party bosses. He works for all Texans, even those who prefer to see their elected representatives work constructively to get things done on their behalf.

Keeping the government functioning is one of those things.