Republicans return to Capitol Hill this week with a full plate. But they should only have one thing on their mind: running through the tape.
After two years of unified government and little to show for it, Republicans have from now until the end of the December to maximize their House and Senate majorities, with President Trump in the White House.
Unfortunately, they don’t seem to have much in the way of a plan. Speaker of the House Paul Ryan has made vague reference to a “big fight” on the president’s border wall. Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has been less committal on that point, and relatively silent about any actions the Senate will take.
But what they should be doing is clear. They owe it to the voters who sent them to Washington in 2016 to finish out their terms and their majority by pushing for the policies they promised the voters.
On this, they could take a cue from the Democrats’ playbook in 2010. Like present-day Republicans, House Democrats were then about to lose their majority. Republicans, like now, were expanding their majority in the Senate. But in the face of waning power, Democrats did not fold. They fought.
They went after three key priorities: repealing “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” ratifying the NEW START nuclear arms treaty, and passing the DREAM Act. These weren’t middling, noncontroversial priorities. Rather, Democrats intentionally chose to aggressively move forward on controversial legislation on which they had previously punted — likely driven by the fact that they were not sure when they’d again control both houses of Congress and the White House.
And, to a great extent, it worked. Democrats in the 2010 lame duck repealed “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.” They ratified NEW START. And while they failed to get the DREAM Act through the Senate, their base was energized by the fight.
But not only that.
The 2010 lame duck also passed a compromise on tax cuts and unemployment insurance, a food safety bill and a Sept. 11 responders bill. In fact, more pieces of legislation passed that December than had since March. Historically speaking, the 2010 lame duck was “the most productive of the 15 held since WWII.”
The “how” they did all of this was clear. “They were prepared to pull out all the stops,” said William Galston, a former adviser to President Bill Clinton. “They were willing to do everything within reason to get it done. The president may have learned a lesson that if he is prepared to sound a certain trumpet, not an uncertain one, he can get things done.”
Republicans, take note. Two years of inaction on Obamacare, border security, and key promises like defunding Planned Parenthood contributed to the loss of the House Republican majority. These policies now represent priorities to tackle in the lame duck, before the advantage of unified government slips away in January.
In the last two years, we’ve seen the Republican majority go to the mat just once — and that was in the Senate, over the confirmation of Justice Brett Kavanaugh. Their effort arguably saved the Senate’s Republican majority by electrifying a voter base that was, for lack of a better term, bored. Imagine how Republican voters would respond if they saw their party exert the same urgency and intensity to build the wall, reform the healthcare system, or defund Planned Parenthood?
GOP voters, many of whom associate more with President Trump than the Republican party, wouldn’t know what hit them.
Voters sent Republicans to Washington for a term that doesn’t end until Jan. 3. Will the Republicans run through the tape with a bang? Or will they limp toward the finish with a whimper?
Rachel Bovard (@rachelbovard) is policy director of the Conservative Partnership Institute.
