The Senate is on track Friday to give the new Republican-led government its first big victory when it confirms Judge Neil Gorsuch to the Supreme Court.
After spending weeks on an ill-fated effort to pass a long-promised healthcare bill, Congress will at last able to check off a critical promise made during the campaign by Republicans and President Trump: putting a solid conservative on the bench to replace the late Antonin Scalia.
Gorsuch’s confirmation was all but assured on Thursday after the Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., invoked the so-called nuclear option to block Democrats from filibustering the nominee. He then ended debate on Gorsuch, which set up a vote Friday evening at the latest, although senators from both parties agreed to finish up the vote around noontime.
“Today, Senate Republicans took a necessary step today to secure the first big win of Donald Trump’s presidency,” Adam Brandon, president of the conservative advocacy group FreedomWorks, said in a statement provided to the Washington Examiner on Thursday.
Republican senators, who were poised to vote on the doomed House health care proposal last month and were instead left with a near-empty agenda, were happy their chamber scored the first big victory.
“I can’t think of better points on the board than a Supreme Court nomination,” Senate Majority Whip John Cornyn, R-Texas, told the Washington Examiner.
Nearly four months into the start of the new GOP-led government, Republicans and Trump have had little to tout when it comes to making significant progress on big agenda items as they leave town for a two-week recess.
Their promise to pass a bill to repeal and replace Obamacare by April fell apart after House Republicans, despite hours of closed-door talks, could not agree on what to repeal or what to replace when it comes to the troubled health care law.
Tax reform appears to be moving slowly, as opposition to a proposed border adjustment tax provision gains opposition in both chambers. Tax reform legislation is not expected for weeks with the goal of an August passage in doubt according to McConnell.
The Trump administration has also been struggling to win support in Congress for a bill providing money to “build the wall” along the Mexican border, another central element of his campaign platform.
And there is no sign of Trump’s promised infrastructure proposal, which is likely to stir opposition from the legions of Republican fiscal hawks when it does arrive.
Democrats have mocked the GOP over their slow moving agenda.
“Where is the infrastructure bill?” Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., the former speaker, said Thursday. “The president talked about infrastructure during the campaign. Every conversation or any interaction I’ve had with the president has been infrastructure, infrastructure, infrastructure. Where is the bill? Show us the bill.”
Over the past several weeks, the House and has filled floor time passing numerous measures reversing Obama-era regulations using the rarely invoked Congressional Review Act, or CRA. Many of the measures have been passed by the Senate and signed by Trump, reversing EPA, financial and other regulations put in place under the Obama administration.
But those votes are harder to sell as big victories to the conservative base, even though undoing Obama’s regulations were also part of the GOP campaign platform.
“What we have done so far is roll back the regulatory state,” Sen. Tim Scott, R-S.C., told the Washington Examiner. “If you talk to business owners and regular folks, the regulatory state is preventing more success in this country than perhaps any other issue we could tackle this quickly.”
Still, Scott acknowledged CRAs won’t get nearly as much attention as the Gorsuch confirmation.
“It certainly is the one that is the most covered success story by the media,” Scott said. “This will be the most significant appointment that we make, without question.”
House Republican leaders on Thursday insisted the GOP agenda is making progress.
They have passed some smaller bills aimed at improving health insurance competition that would strip the industry of its antitrust exemption. The House also passed a bill allowing small businesses to pool resources for health insurance purchases.
“Each and every day, we’ve moved closer and closer to finding agreement on the best way to repeal and replace Obamacare,” said Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif. “And you can already see some of the results.”
House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., said Republicans are closer to working out a deal on a major bill to repeal and replace Obamacare after pulling a measure from the floor last month, and said insisted the prolonged struggle to pass a bill will not slow down tax reform or other agenda items.
“We have plenty of cushion built into our plans,” Ryan said Thursday. “And we are well within that spectrum of timeline that we envisioned on dealing with the Obamacare legislation.”
