About a month ago, the Inside Washington bulletin (Subscribe here) named Sen. Mitt Romney the most useful Republican senator for his willingness to make deals to ease Covid-19 as he weighed whether to vote to confirm Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson to the Supreme Court. . A friend on the newsletter suggested that we make Washington’s Most Useful and Useless Person a regular feature, and we decided to continue with it.
Both titles will be awarded on a bipartisan basis – and for our first week we handed out the “most useless” title to two MPs.
On the Democratic side is Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer. Earlier this week, the Democrat leader insisted that efforts to pass his party’s legislation to codify Rowe vs. Wadethey are not just a manifestation. But as Rowe now appears dead after an expired court ruling showed the majority was ready to repeal it, Democrats’ failed attempt to pass the Women’s Health Act felt sterile and unnecessary.
That was before Senator Joe Manchin, the dead West Virginia Democrat who likes to bet on the heart of his party’s plans, announced that he would vote no. It could be argued that Mr Manchin is to blame for the bill’s failure to get a simple majority in the upper house – but as the leader of the majority, it is Mr Schumer’s job to know how all its members will vote before introducing the bill. on the floor.
Instead, he either knew it was going to fail and still let it happen, or he went on without knowing how Mr. Manchin would vote.
What is really desperate is that Mr Schumer knew this was going to happen, because it had happened before. Still, he protracted the affair – and instead of just enrolling Republicans, he managed to demonstrate that he could not line up all his senators, proving that the Democratic Party simply did not have the votes to break a filibuster or even change the rules.
At the end of the vote, Vice President Kamala Harris said the vote “shows that the priority for all those interested in this issue should be to elect Democrats who support the election.” But it also became clear how catastrophic it was that in 2020 Democrats failed in two important Senate races: North Carolina (the Democrat leader sadly said his ideal candidate would be someone who raises money in a basement without windows) and Maine.
Speaking of which, our second dubious honor goes to Republican Sen. Susan Collins of Maine.
When the draft opinion expired last week, Ms Collinslamentment said that “it would be completely incompatible with what Judge Gorsuch and Judge Cavanaugh said in their hearings and in our meetings in my office” – as if Donald Trump or any Republican president will nominate a Supreme Judicial Court that was not fully committed to overturning the decision.
Ms. Collins’ pretentious naivete was surpassed only by her apology for not voting for Democrat legislation. Although Democrats might have made progress if they had voted on the alternative abortion legislation she proposed with Republican colleague Lisa Murkowski, or even allowed Ms. Collins to amend, the fact that she outright announced its opposition, even after the change of circumstances, shows that it has already decided how to act.
Similarly, if she knew Democrats would reject her legislation, she would have to contact them last week to make some adjustments. Instead, she told PBS NewsHour’s Lisa DesJardine that she was trying to come up with new compromise legislation in collaboration with Democrat Sen. Tim Kane of Virginia.
Mr Kane – who in another world could be next to President Hillary Clinton when she nominated three judges – seemed optimistic when he spoke to your dispatcher earlier this week. “I think she really wants to codify Rowe and Casey,” he told his colleague, suggesting they could find a way forward, although “she doesn’t like some aspects of WHPA that I like.”
Unfortunately, Mr Kane seems to have more faith in the process than Mrs Collins. Speaking to your dispatcher on Tuesday, she tried to lower expectations: “Obviously, I think it will be difficult to reach a consensus.”
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