‘The hits just keep coming’: Congress stumbles
from crisis to crisis
Lawmakers had faced a shutdown, impeachment and
pandemic. Now, they're in a Supreme Court fight with epic ramifications.
U.S.
Capitol
Things have
gotten so bad on Capitol Hill that the House and Senate couldn’t renew a law
designed to help the victims of violent crimes, let alone another badly needed
coronavirus aid bill.
By MELANIE
ZANONA, SARAH FERRIS and JOHN BRESNAHAN
09/23/2020
06:57 PM EDT
https://www.politico.com/news/2020/09/23/the-curse-of-the-116th-congress-420737
Ancient
Egypt had only 10 plagues. The 116th Congress says, “Hold my staff.”
The House
and Senate have spent the past two years staring down some of the most
consequential political events of recent decades: the longest-ever government
shutdown; a presidential impeachment; a deadly global pandemic; a deepening
economic recession that has led to Depression-era levels of unemployment; a
long-overdue national reckoning over race and police brutality; and growing
tension with China and Iran and even Saudi Arabia.
But there’s
more. This includes natural calamities, from fire tornadoes to wildfires to
murder hornets; the death of civil rights icon John Lewis and other influential
figures in politics; QAnon extremists marching toward the halls of Congress;
and a polarizing president who is known for creating his own conflicts.
And now —
41 days before the election and with the Senate majority up for grabs — there’s
a brutal fight over a politically prized Supreme Court seat, with members of
both parties eyeing scorched-earth tactics in ever-more intense partisan
warfare, even if it wreaks permanent damage on the institution as a whole.
“Whether
we’re dealing with a religious apocalypse or not is up to you. But it’s almost
certainly a political apocalypse,” said Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.), a former
constitutional law professor who, fittingly, has been wearing a mask depicting
William Shakespeare, the greatest dramatist of all time.
The
constant stream of disasters and debacles over the past two years has rattled
even the most senior lawmakers, putting everyone on edge about what terrible
catastrophe could possibly happen next.
“It’s
probably the most tumultuous, challenging atmosphere I’ve ever seen up here.
And not just for us — this represents what’s going on in the nation. Unusual.
Unprecedented,” said veteran Sen. Richard Shelby (R-Ala.), who was first
elected to Congress in 1978. “But when a plague comes, it compounds all the
other problems.”
As it
sputters from crisis to crisis, Congress — already the most detested branch of
government — has somehow discovered more ways to disappoint the American
public. Both sides agree on just one thing: The partisan politics are outright
toxic, and getting worse with each earth-shattering development.
“The hits
just keep coming,” said Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas), who said trying to follow
the frenetic news cycles has been like “drinking out of a water hose.”
“Just when
you think you have it figured out, something happens,” added Sen. Kevin Cramer
(R-N.D.), who served in the House for several terms before assuming his current
Senate seat in January 2019.
Even
veteran lawmakers say the period feels unprecedented, comparing the political
upheaval to the Civil Rights era of the late 1960s or World War II, or in more
recent times, the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.
But now,
Republicans and Democrats are wrestling with the overlapping crises of the
economy, social justice, public health and discord of the Trump era, generally.
Lawmakers
have achieved some success, such as a $2.2 trillion coronavirus relief package
that delivered badly needed aid to the most desperate Americans in the early
stages of the pandemic. And House Democrats have passed much of their own
ambitious agenda, from police reform to protecting Dreamers to infrastructure,
only to see it ignored by the GOP-controlled Senate.
Things have
gotten so bad, though, that the House and Senate couldn’t renew a law designed
to help the victims of violent crimes, let alone another badly needed
coronavirus aid bill. The Senate has been unable to pass anti-lynching
legislation. And this week, the Senate couldn't even agree on a nonbinding
resolution honoring Ginsburg amid a heated dispute over filling the Supreme
Court vacancy in an election year.
Lawmakers
on the left and the right are now casually discussing extreme tactics that
could inflict permanent damage on the institution. Democrats are considering
blowing up the filibuster and packing the Supreme Court isn’t off the table if
Republicans do, indeed, confirm a high court pick with just days to go before
the election.
And House
GOP leader Kevin McCarthy threatened to move forward with a long-shot bid to
oust Nancy Pelosi as speaker if Democrats try to impeach Trump officials in
order to slow down the Supreme Court confirmation process — an idea that is not
being seriously considered by senior Democrats on Capitol Hill.
“People in
some ways feel exhausted with all of it. But we remain committed to doing our
jobs here. We know the consequences are so great,” said Rep. Mike Johnson
(R-La.), who served as one of Trump’s impeachment surrogates. “We feel the
weight of history.”
And it
could get worse. With a hypercharged election ahead, some lawmakers fear that a
deadlocked Electoral College could force the House to step in and determine the
fate of the presidency — a scenario that has happened only in 1800 and 1824.
In some
ways, this session of Congress was doomed from the start.
The
two-year stretch — starting last January, when Democrats seized back the House
halfway through Trump’s first term — began with the longest government shutdown
in U.S. history that onlookers described as an “ugly” and “pathetic” milestone.
Then there
was the release of special counsel Robert Mueller’s report, the migrant crisis
at the Southern border, a near-war with Iran and eventually, the third
presidential impeachment in American history, all in 2019.
Many
lawmakers, particularly Democrats, are quick to blame Trump for fueling the
nonstop drip-drip of news. But a mix of compounding factors — such as growing
cultural divides, shifting demographics and the rise of social media and online
misinformation — have also helped fuel the polarization.
“The
impeachment seems as if it were lifetimes ago. It’s like the war of 1812,” said
Raskin.
2020 has,
of course, shattered almost every semblance of normalcy in the U.S., with
200,000 Americans dying of the coronavirus and millions more losing their jobs,
all while the nation suffered from a different epidemic — police killings of
unarmed Black people.
Then there
are the losses of storied national figures, such as Lewis, House Oversight
Chairman Elijah Cummings and now feminist pioneer Ruth Bader Ginsburg.
Freshman
Rep. Dean Phillips (D-Minn.) said he was celebrating his first wedding
anniversary with his wife Friday night when he received the news about
Ginsburg’s passing, which he described as a gut punch — especially on top of
everything else.
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“There are
days where you feel like everything bad that could have happened, has,” the
Minnesota Democrat said. “And there are other days you recognize it always can
get worse.”
“My dad
used to say, ‘You’ve got to turn chicken crap into chicken salad," he
added.
For
freshman lawmakers, including dozens who arrived in Congress after highly
competitive races — this constant state of crisis is all they know as a member.
Their political careers were essentially born into, and molded by, the fire.
Just months
after being sworn in, this year’s freshman class was making the kind of
decisions that would define their political obituary — whether to impeach a
president, whether to add trillions of dollars to the national debt, whether to
back historic policing reforms.
But they
say that has only made them more battle-tested.
“I think
our freshman class has endured some of the most challenging times ever in the
history of the Congress. Certainly in my lifetime,” said Rep. David Cicilline
of Rhode Island, a five-term member of Democratic leadership. “I assure them,
everytime I talk to them, this will be the hardest term you’ll ever have.
“At least I
hope that’s true,” he added. “It can’t get any worse.”
House
Majority Whip Jim Clyburn (D-S.C.), too, acknowledged the historic nature of
the 116th Congress and jokingly suggested there could be even more drama,
referring to the push within the Democratic base to impeach a Trump appointee
in an attempt to slow-walk the Senate GOP’s nomination to replace Ginsburg.
“We might
be coming full circle,” Clyburn said with a chuckle. “Start with an impeachment
and end with an impeachment ... I think this country is living out its true
meaning, a living Constitution.”
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