The 2020 Election: Where are we going? Where do we stand, what can we do about it? Why does Congress need to take seriously domestic spending reforms?
More than 220 candidates who questioned the 2020 election have won state or federal office, about 30 of them saying that the election was not free and fair.
Even if these reforms pass, they are, like any other law, only words on paper. In order to work, they need to be upheld by those in positions of power, who are committed to acting in the interests of American democracy and the rule of law. Still, both the Senate and House bills are far better than what we have right now, and either one would go a long way to ensuring that the electoral-count law cannot be used as a tool for subverting the election in 2024 or beyond. Congress needs to pass the overhaul now, when it has willing majorities in both houses and well before anyone casts a ballot in 2024.
Democrats think the government spending bill could be their last chance to get Biden’s domestic plans done before the election. The fraught final weeks of 2022 may also be their best opening to bypass the incoming GOP House by honoring Biden’s $37 billion request for new aid for Ukraine, which some conservatives oppose and which could be added to the government spending bill. The omnibus bill is necessary to fund police departments, ease congestion at ports and improve medical care for veterans, among many other priorities, according to Democratic leaders. But Republicans argue domestic non-defense spending has already had a huge boost in Biden’s Covid-19 rescue measures and in his new climate and health care law.
Democrats could avert the immediate danger by raising the debt ceiling high enough to permit necessary federal borrowing until after the next presidential election. There isn’t any reason to maintain the debt ceiling as a problem in the future. The legislation that has been proposed by Senator Michael Bennet of Colorado would eliminate the debt ceiling. There is simply no reason for Congress to vote again on spending that already has been authorized.
Republican brinkmanship in the past few years resulted in an increase in the interest rates the government had to pay, costing taxpayers over a billion dollars. The 2008 financial crisis delayed the recovery from limits on federal spending that were imposed by that standoff.
The Making of the Lame Duck: The Effects of the $Lambda$-Decision on the Democrat-Demendent Senate Budget
With that in mind, Democratic leaders are eager to bring several bills to the floor for votes during the lame duck session – the period after the midterms and before the new Congress begins.
The conflict between good governance and politics may be created when the chances of a deal in the next few weeks are uncertain. The need to pass the National Defense Authorization Act is complicated by the year-end government spending standoff that was a classic example of Congress putting off tough decisions until the last possible moment. The House passed the measure last week, after ending the vaccine mandates in the military in order to get Republican votes.
While the House is able to pass legislation by a simple majority, Democrats in the Senate face an uphill climb given their narrow majority. The Democrats have a 50-50 partisan split in the Senate meaning they don’t have enough support within their party to get rid of the filibuster. Major priorities for liberal voters are expected to remain out of reach in the future as the Supreme Court overturns the Wade decision.
The Democrats who currently hold both houses of congress are back with a reality that they didn’t expect; they don’t know who will control the House. While Republicans still appear likely to win enough seats to control the chamber, it would likely be with a narrower margin than originally anticipated.
CNN projected on Saturday that Democrats will retain their control of the Senate once the news session of Congress starts in January. But with a runoff election set for Georgia’s US Senate seat set for December 6, the final make-up of the chamber won’t be known until at least then.
Chuck Schumer said at a Sunday news conference he would have a busy lame-duck session, but he wouldn’t give specifics, but he promised heavy work and long hours.
Congress might need to approve a short-term measure by Friday to give them enough time to get a spending deal done in time for the holidays.
There is one school of thought that the passage of a long-term funding mechanism might actually give House GOP leaders a break since a short-term deal would raise the possibility that one of the first acts of a new majority would be to trigger a government shutdown – a state of affairs that has often been politically damaging to the reputation of the party saddled with the blame. But House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy is already under fierce pressure from the most radical members of his conference as he struggles to get enough votes to become speaker. He has stepped up pressure on Senate Republicans to prevent Biden from getting another spending package and he said on Fox News that after the Republicans take over the House, they will be stronger in every negotiation.
The defense bill has to be passed by Congress. Consideration of the wide-ranging bill could spark debate and a push for amendments over a variety of topics, including whether to punish Saudi Arabia for its recent decision to cut oil production.
Schumer promised to hold a vote on the bill, but it is still not clear when it will take place. Democrats have pushed for the vote after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, sparking fears that the court could take aim at same-sex or inter-racial marriage in the future.
The group of senators working on the bill said in a statement at the time that they asked for additional time and they appreciated Schumer agreeing to it. The bipartisan support that we will have when our bill comes to the Senate floor for a vote is something we are confident of. The bill would need at least 10 Republican votes to overcome a filibuster.
Legislation that would make it harder to overturn a presidential election is likely to be voted on by voters in response to Donald Trump trying to block the 2020 results. McConnell is a Kentucky Republican. If the bill passes the Senate, it would also need to clear the House, which in September, passed its own version of the legislation.
“The debt ceiling, of course, is something that we have to deal with. Schumer said that they will look at it over the next few weeks. I need to speak with the leadership first. We don’t know where the House is going to be.”
“In Washington, we have a bunch of things on our plate, including getting the defense bill done with Ukraine right before us and the strides that (Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky) is making against Vladimir Putin,” she said. “On our plate is the end-of-the-year budget bill to make sure we get that right, As you know the Electoral Count Act, an effort that I’m leading with (Maine Republican Sen.) Susan Collins and (West Virginia Democratic Sen.) Joe Manchin and others, so we don’t have January 6 happen again. Immediately after we get back we will have all of that.
The government funding standoff gripping Washington ahead of Friday’s shutdown deadline is one of the first indicators of the coming shift in power dynamics that will return the capital to a governing cold war between congressional Republicans and a Democratic White House.
It’s an early glimpse of the paralysis that could result from divided government with neither side having the power to fully deliver on promises they made to voters in last month’s midterm elections, when Republicans won the House and Democrats retained control of the Senate.
There are disagreements over funding of social programs and the need to raise the debt limit next year that could cause the government to be shut down. A return of the government shutdown threats is a tradition during the holiday season under the Obama administration. The government shut down for 35 days in the holiday season because of a dispute over border wall funding, placing critical programs and services on hold.
In a sign of rising political pressure over the spending clash, a group of Republican senators wrote to GOP leader Mitch McConnell last week, laying out their strategy and urging him to block a big spending bill and to agree to a short-term funding package to keep the government open for a few weeks.
Their stance explains why McConnell gave a grim prediction for a deal with Democrats on a funding bill, saying we don’t have agreements to do anything. Is this true? We don’t even have an overall agreement on how much we’re going to spend, and we’re running out of time.”
His comments, while offering a glimpse of how he plans to preside over a confrontation with the White House, also offered insight into how the GOP House could make McConnell’s life more complicated next year as he tries to manage his party in the Senate.
Bounds on a bipartisan spending showdown: Sens. Bernie Sanders, Sen. John Blinken, and U.S. Sen. J. Mark Levinson
Both sides are likely to agree to a CR before the deadline Friday, if they can agree to a broader funding deal in the meantime.
A senior Biden administration official warned last week that even a funding deal that lasted a year would have disastrous consequences for key programs.
And on Sunday, Sen. Bernie Sanders, the Vermont independent who caucuses with Democrats, implied that Republicans were trying to jam Democrats at the end of this year to kickstart their effort in the new GOP House to slash spending on vital social programs.
On CNN, the senator stated that Republicans were going to hold us hostage and get demands they wouldn’t make in normal circumstances.
“Look, they have not been shy about making it clear they want to cut Social Security, they want to cut Medicare, they want to cut Medicaid,” Sanders told Dana Bash.
Biden sent Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin up to Capitol Hill last week to brief senators on the war in Ukraine. But in a sign of the consuming nature of the spending showdown, Republicans emerged from the meeting complaining that the two secretaries spent time lobbying for an omnibus spending bill over a continuing resolution.
“It was a waste of their time. It was a waste of our time,” Louisiana Republican Sen. John Kennedy told reporters. He said that Schumer had asked the two men why it was necessary. I was aware of that when Chuck said it. … this is just a political exercise,” Kennedy said.
South Dakota Sen. John Thune, the second-highest ranking Senate Republican, said last week that they might be singing to each other.
The end of omnibus negotiations, but how long will it last? Rep. Mitch McConnell’s defense secretary says Congress will be unable to negotiate on appropriations
The approaching deadline had members of Congress and their staffers from both parties, as well as Biden administration officials, continuing to slog through negotiations over the weekend to try to get to an agreement on a spending package.
“This is the time of the year when there’s no weekends for folks who work on appropriations,” one administration official closely involved in the talks told CNN.
Congressional aides acknowledged to CNN that the weekend talks went better than days prior, which is why Democrats have announced they will not introduce their own Democratic-only omnibus plan on Monday. Republicans on Capitol Hill had been reading a threat for Democrats to introduce their own bills as a messaging exercise that would only further divide negotiators, and by avoiding that messaging exercise, Republicans see a sign that Democrats are serious about trying to get to yes.
The key question is how long the extension would last. It could be as short as one week and still allow for more time for negotiations. Or it could extend the shutdown deadline into the next Congress, which will convene on January 3, and when Republicans take control of the House.
That change in majority in the House would dramatically alter the dynamic for negotiations and likely make it far harder to reach a broader funding deal. Lawmakers could pass a full-year CR if it looks like a bipartisan funding deal can’t be reached, but leaders in both parties hope to avoid that scenario since it would keep spending flat for the Pentagon as well as domestic priorities.
Senate GOP leader Mitch McConnell laid out the GOP position in remarks on the Senate floor Thursday. The Commander-in-chief and his party have spent huge sums on domestic priorities that have been outside the normal appropriations process without funds for the Defense Department. McConnell said they wouldn’t allow them to hijack the government funding process and take our troops hostage for even more liberal spending.
Referring to Democratic-passed legislation that Republicans have criticized, Leahy said, “Those bills were meant to get us out of the pandemic, get the nation healthy, and get our economy back on track, and I believe they are accomplishing that goal. The American government’s basic functions were not meant to be funded by them.
An omnibus bill of their own will be introduced on Monday, but it would not be expected to have the necessary votes in the Senate, as it would serve as a marker of Democratic priorities.