Congressional Democrats are running out of opportunities for legislative victories as the window to pass some of their remaining policy goals closes ahead of the midterm elections.
A president’s party historically loses seats in a midterm election, leaving Democrats just a few months, and even fewer legislative days, to pass the remaining parts of their agenda while they have majorities.
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With key aspects of President Joe Biden and congressional Democrats’ agenda still unapproved, the Senate remains in scheduled recess until July 11 and shortly after will go on its standing August recess for most of the month until after Labor Day in September. Multiple state work periods are also scheduled for October. The House is on a slightly differing schedule, further shrinking legislative windows.
Upon its return in July, Democrats may also be short of a crucial vote, at least temporarily: Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT), who will retire at the end of his term, suffered a fall in his Virginia home this week and underwent hip replacement surgery. It was not immediately clear when he would return to the Capitol for votes, but his recovery could take several weeks. Leahy, first elected to the Senate in 1974, is president pro tempore and third in the line of presidential succession, behind Vice President Kamala Harris and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.
As Democrats celebrated the passage of a bipartisan bill to combat gun violence with modest new restrictions and mental health resources last week, their victory was overshadowed by one of the biggest Supreme Court decisions in half a century, when the high court struck down Roe v. Wade in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, sending the legality of abortion back to states to legislate.
Amid reports that Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV) revived negotiations on a compromise to pass parts of Biden’s Build Back Better agenda, which Manchin tanked last year when he objected to a price tag he saw as too high, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) sought to end those discussions in a tweet, threatening to end a bipartisan economic competitiveness bill if they unilaterally pass Build Back Better.
“Let me be perfectly clear: there will be no bipartisan USICA as long as Democrats are pursuing a partisan reconciliation bill,” he wrote on Twitter.
A spokesperson for Schumer told Politico that McConnell “is holding American jobs in key U.S. industries hostage to help China and protect his friends in big pharma allowing them to keep screwing over Americans with outrageously high Rx drug prices.”
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Other items, including COVID-19 funding, also remain unpassed.
