A potentially major shift in power in Washington, DC occurred this afternoon when Senate Majority Leader McConnell (R-KY) decided against putting the Graham-Cassidy Bill seeking to repeal and replace Obamacare up for a vote. After Senator McCain (R-AZ), Senator Collins (R-ME), and Senator Paul (R-KY) became definitive no votes, Graham-Cassidy was officially a dead bill. This is the second time the Senate Republicans have embarrassingly experienced detrimental failure in their mission to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act, a campaign promise widely made by many GOP Senators and President Trump in the 2016 elections. Except this time, their majority leader himself didn’t have enough confidence that he could pressure no votes into yeas.
So, why does this signal a shifting of political power? The recent Republican efforts to pass partisan health care legislation has been possible due to Congress operating under what is called reconciliation instructions, put in place by a budget resolution. Without getting confusingly technical, both houses of Congress via a simple majority pass a budget resolution with these reconciliation instructions to make it far easier to pass legislation, expediting it through the exclusion of normal procedure, and ensuring it won’t be stymied by the use of filibustering in the Senate. Filibustering allows the minority party to maintain the Senate floor indefinitely through the use of numerous tactics until the bill is declared dead or until the majority party can muster 60 votes to invoke cloture, which ends floor debate immediately and brings the bill up for a vote. Under reconciliation rules, the Republicans only need a simple majority of 51 votes, not the usual 60 votes, in order to pass legislation. For a recent example, several major parts of the Affordable Care Act were slammed through the Senate by the Democrats in 2009 when they held a large majority of Senate seats and relied on reconciliation.
These budget resolutions only last until the end of the fiscal year, September 30th, because they only apply to budget related bills (bills affecting revenue, spending, and/or the debt limit). Budget resolutions and reconciliation can also only be used once per fiscal year on a bill that affects both spending and revenues at the same time, such as the Affordable Care Act or the Graham-Cassidy Bill. With this latest failure of the Republicans to garner a simple majority to pass the Graham-Cassidy Bill, the sun has already set on this fiscal year and its budget resolution.
In a quick recap, the Congressional Republicans were already on thin ice due to their first catastrophic failure to pass Trumpcare earlier this year. After their failure, President Trump made a huge deal with the Democratic Minority Leaders Senator Schumer (D-NY) and Representative Pelosi (D-CA) that began shifting power away from the GOP by forcing Senator McConnell and Speaker of the House Ryan (R-WI) to admit defeat, passing a bill providing Harvey aid relief tied to a debt-ceiling vote extension, giving the Democrats a large amount of leverage come December when the next debt ceiling vote is scheduled. Trump was already touting that he had to work with people who would “get things done,” even if it meant reaching across the aisle.
Shortly thereafter, reports began to surface about yet another deal surrounding DACA (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals) between Trump and the two leading Democrats. Trump at first vehemently denied a deal had indeed occurred, but, to the dismay of Congressional Republicans, throughout the day Trump began walking his denials back until it seemed as if there really was a deal on the table. This was another, albeit small, shift in momentum in the Democrats’ favor.
Fast forward to today when the Republicans in the Senate yet again failed to even bring Graham-Cassidy up for a vote, let alone pass the legislation. The majority party has already lost significant footing in the legislative process. There is an immense amount of evidence that the party is deeply fractured, given they can’t rally a simple majority to pass a bill under reconciliation rules. And now, the momentum and power is in the hands of the Democrats.
Graham-Cassidy failed not on the merits, but due to the process. Senators McCain, Murkowski, and Collins are now calling for what is referred to as “regular order” in the Senate, which is why they were either absolute no votes on Graham-Cassidy or leaning no. This fact in itself is huge. Regular order in the Senate means the chamber operates under normal rules, not budget resolutions. Budget-related bills are drafted and, following the process non-budget-related bills do, are submitted to committees, which then add amendments if needed. Once the committees agree on an amended version, they send the bill to the floor for consideration, making it the possible victim of a filibuster or a success story of a passed bill headed to the President’s desk for signature. In theory, regular order forces bipartisanship, but lately that hasn’t been the case, which is why budget resolutions have been the name of the political game in the Senate.
Why does that matter? The next item on the Republican’s docket is tax reform. The current budget resolution will be null and void. They will have entered into the 2018 fiscal year, which means they could conceivably pass yet another budget resolution; this time with wording to allow them to propose their tax reform bill. However, I see a major road block for the Republicans and a new budget resolution. Three of their Senators are calling for regular order. In order for them to have a budget resolution, they must have a simple majority of votes in both the Senate and the House. I have no doubt the House will pass it, but now the Senate looks like it may just have a difficult time even achieving that. Republicans only hold 52 seats in the Senate. They need 51 votes. Take away three votes (Rand Paul wants another budget resolution, despite his outrage at the secretive drafting of the past two health care reform bills allowed under reconciliation) and they won’t have the 51 votes needed. No simple majority in the Senate, no budget resolution for FY2018.
Regular order resumes, the Democrats now have the ability to filibuster after the long and arduous process the legislation would have to go through to make it to the floor for a vote. Unless President Trump again reaches out to work with the Democrats on crafting an acceptable deal for both parties and unless the Senate Republicans again concede to that deal, not a single piece of the Republican agenda will ever see the President’s desk.
2018 midterm elections are quickly approaching. There are already seven Republican House members and now one Senate Republican who have announced their retirement, leaving their seats up for a huge power grab. The Republican Congress has little to show for their recent efforts. The American people have made it abundantly clear they are tired of Washington gridlock. Trump’s approval rating jump following his bipartisan deal to pass the Harvey aid and debt ceiling vote extension also proves Americans are desperately looking to their Congressmen and Congresswomen to reach across the aisle to get things done.
To top everything else off, President Trump is making his anger and frustration in regards to the recent Republican failure known by once again whipping out his favorite “so-called” insult, referring to McCain, Paul and Collins as, “so-called Republicans.” Therein lies yet another reason for them to vote against a budget resolution. Albeit somewhat childish, sabotaging a President’s agenda is a powerful way to get a message across, and not allowing the supposed ease of a budget resolution to pass is a great way to do so.
In sum, we are quite possibly looking at a tyranny of the minority caused by a fractured, infighting-infested Republican majority, whose situation is further aggravated by a Republican President far more interested in retaliation against his own perceived disloyal party than leading it.
Conceivably, we are now looking at a situation where power has been transferred to the minority party due to these several aforementioned events. The call for regular order in the Senate, which leads to the inability of the Republicans to pass a budget resolution to expedite partisan legislation is perhaps the largest obstacle. Without a budget resolution, the incredibly powerful filibuster tactic is back in the Democrat’s repertoire, forcing Trump and the Republicans to belly up to the bar and deal in order to get any legislation through regular order procedure, especially with midterms looming. In sum, we are quite possibly looking at a tyranny of the minority caused by a fractured, infighting-infested Republican majority, whose situation is further aggravated by a Republican President far more interested in retaliation against his own perceived disloyal party than leading it.
Purple Peaks Politics 