The Government Reopens... Kind of

There are always several steps

Six senators who caucus with the Democrats (“to caucus” means joining one group or another for the purpose of determining who has the majority in a legislative chamber; you don’t have to be a member of the party; several Independent senators caucus with the Democrats at the moment) have joined the two who have been voting to end the filibuster. That means debate (perhaps “debate”) in the Senate ended and they were able to vote on the continuing resolution.

The House of Representatives will vote later this week to (we assume) approve the document and the government will reopen. Reports say a deal between Republican leadership in the Senate and the six Democratic senators was made to get their votes. Depending on the details of the deal, some Republicans in the House might not vote for it. We just don’t know.

Constitutional Rules

Let’s do a little review. The House and the Senate represent very different constituencies. Each district for the House covers about 600,000 people, and each seat is up for election every two years. Every state gets two senators no matter the population, and they are elected for six-year terms but not both of them in the same year.

There are 435 representatives and 100 senators. The smallest state by population, Wyoming, has a population smaller than the average House district. So Wyoming has two senators and one representative. California has a population of almost 40 million so it has 52 representatives but only two senators.

The differences between the House and Senate were intentional. Each is supposed to represent a different type of majority or consensus. Each representative is supposed to represent a small, local community while each senator represents a whole state, not just a part of it.

It is unusual, given the variances between states and the way the two houses are elected, that the Senate and House would be controlled by one party (currently the Republicans) by such small majorities in each. This is one reason for the contention between them. A small mistake or a smart move could flip one chamber or the other.

Lastly, our fixation with the Executive branch leads us to often forget the power of the Legislative branch. In the current context it is good to quote Article I, section 9 of the Constitution:

No Money shall be drawn from the Treasury, but in Consequence of Appropriations made by Law.

The president has no access to the National Treasury except what is given by Congress. That’s why we have been waiting on the Senate and are now waiting on the House.

The Politics of It All

A lot of people are very happy to have this end, especially those who have to travel and are worried about their flights. It also opens up funds for food assistance to the poor, which is no small matter.

However, many on the Left are upset because they wanted to get more concessions from the Republicans. Details of the deal are still coming out, but it doesn’t seem like they got much. Sen. Schumer (D, NY) is Senate minority leader and did not vote to end the filibuster or for the CR. Does this mean he lost control of his caucus? Did they defy him? Or is this all for show to make it look like he is tough?

The reason this is interesting is because there seems to be a large part of the Democratic party that believes or believed that continuing the shutdown was a very good idea. A recent poll showed Schumer as the least popular Senate minority leader in history. 69% of Democrats think he is not doing enough to fight Pres. Trump. That is a lot of people.

Republican leadership in the House and Senate should be pleased with themselves. They held their coalitions together and more or less got everything they wanted. This is an impressive example of legislative skill. But it also means they just won by not giving in negotiation to open the government.

So, large parts of both parties have taken the lesson from this episode that not compromising or negotiating, even if it means keeping the government closed, is in their political interest. What does this mean?

The problem for everyone is that all that was achieved was another temporary fix. There is no new budget, just another Continuing Resolution that will last to the end of January. We will have to go through this whole exercise all over again in the new year, with the added excitement (if you can call it that) of midterm elections in November.

With each party looking at a very narrow path to control of either or both houses of Congress, both will be looking for any advantage. They will also not want to disappoint their bases. Midterm elections tend to how low turnout. Whichever party gets its loyalists motivated to vote will probably win. But both seem to think their base wants them to never compromise. And both are right.

Next year is going to be very interesting.