The Washington Report: The Road Ahead

by Craig Piercy

In the 2014 midterm elections, the GOP rode a wave of discontent with President Obama to win big gains at every level of government. Republicans picked up nine seats in the Senate, 12 seats in the House (possibly 13 by the time you read this), three governorships (including two in the traditionally blue states of Maryland and Massachusetts), and control of 11 state legislative chambers.

Now, with the election behind us, it’s time to make some sausage. The new Congress will face some pretty significant challenges from the get-go. Funding for the Department of Homeland Security will expire in March, setting up a highstakes battle with the White House and potentially a mini-shutdown over the president’s actions on immigration. Sometime in May or June, the Department of Treasury will run out of borrowing authority, requiring Congress to enact yet another debt limit increase (or default on its obligations).

Even with the gains achieved in last November’s elections, the GOP will still need Democratic support to do anything meaningful. Yes, House Speaker John Boehner now controls the largest GOP majority since the Harry Truman years. However, there remains a sizable faction of the House GOP conference who are turned off by compromise, and generally disinclined to vote for any legislative product that does not pass the ideological purity test. In the Senate, Majority Leader Mitch McConnell faces the same problem with Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) and his acolytes, albeit to a slightly lesser degree. However, McConnell’s situation is complicated by the Senate’s cloture rule, which will require him to secure at least six Democratic votes to end debate and pass any piece of meaningful legislation.

McConnell has indicated his desire to restore “regular order” in the Senate, which could be helpful. McConnell’s predecessor, Senator Harry Reid, would use a parliamentary trick called “filling the tree” to prevent Republicans from offering amendments to bills under consideration on the Senate floor. His goal was to ensure that vulnerable Democratic senators would not have to cast embarrassing votes that would be used against them in election season advertising. However, Republican senators, denied the opportunity to shape legislation, would vote as a block against cloture and bring the process to a grinding halt. As Majority Leader, McConnell can simply allow senators to offer amendments to legislation under an open process and let the legislative chips fall where they may. With a dose of party unity and some deft negotiation, the Senate GOP could peel off enough Democratic votes to make substantive legislative progress on issues ranging from corporate tax and patent reform to the Highway Bill and the Keystone XL pipeline.

Furthermore, there is a backdoor way around the 60 vote cloture rule called (ironically) the “reconciliation” process. Reconciliation is an arcane procedure designed to allow Congress to make changes to federal tax law and mandatory spending programs. For example, if Congress approves a budget that assumes $100 billion less in spending on Medicare, it will also include instructions for the appropriate congressional committees of jurisdiction to produce legislation that “reconciles” the law with the assumed cut. That “reconciliation legislation” only requires a simple majority of senators to pass.

How the GOP Congress uses reconciliation will be an early indicator of their ultimate success or failure.

If they are smart, Republicans will use reconciliation in a very limited way to put a bill on the president’s desk that has a few, broadly popular provisions he would be hard-pressed to veto. If, however, congressional leaders give in to temptation and use it to forward a broad, controversial package of tax and spending cuts, it will likely result in a very public and embarrassing failure.

Frankly, the Republicans would do well just to pass a budget given the relative inexperience of their members. In a “normal” year, the House and Senate will agree on an overall budget blueprint in springtime, spend the summer working on the 12 appropriations bills, then finalize them in the fall and send them to the President for his signature. This is no easy task. In fact, the last time Congress succeeded was 2005, and since that time, nearly two-thirds of the Senators and Representatives have died, retired or lost their seats.

Yes, the Republicans won big in November. However, the road ahead is full of obstacles. If they try to bite off more than they can chew, the 114th Congress may be remembered for its spectacular failures. However, if the congressional GOP remains unified and disciplined, they could make some substantive progress on policy and set themselves up for a big win in 2016.

Stay tuned.