Just how lazy is the Senate? If you need just one metric to measure this, consider the following: The Senate has had just one amendment vote this entire year.
Many outside observers chalk the Senate’s glacial pace and lack of debate up to polarization and gridlock. But a closer observation reveals that gridlock has little to do with it. Rather, laziness does.
I’ve spent the better part of the last year writing about ways in which the Republican Senate wastes time: working 2.5 days a week, engaging in endless quorum calls, and allowing the Democrats to run roughshod over the Trump agenda with little consequence.
Yet, the Senate insists on keeping to its soporific playbook: working from Monday night to Thursday afternoon, banning all debate and amendments (and excoriating those who seek them), and taking as few votes as possible.
The president’s agenda is suffering for it. About 40 percent of Trump’s nominees remain unconfirmed, far more than piled up during parallel points in the terms of Trump’s last four predecessors. The Senate has killed any chances of Obamacare repeal, actively blocked funding for President Trump’s wall, and hasn’t even managed to pass a budget (despite lambasting Democrats for not doing so for years).
It’s true that Senate Democrats are partially responsible for this sluggish pace. But despite the “historic obstruction” decried by Republican leadership, the truth is that Republicans are allowing Democrats to get away with it.
By simply showing up to work a little harder, the Senate majority could use existing rules to beat back obstruction. Rather than giving in to Democrat demands for extra debate time, and then fuming as the Senate floor sits empty, Republicans should be making Democrats talk. If they don’t show up to do so, Republicans can move to vote — collapsing that 30 hours of debate time to 10 hours, or even two hours.
As Democrats have no doubt learned, it’s easy to obstruct everything when there are no consequences for doing so. But if the Republican majority made it just a little more painful, they’d likely be shocked how much they’re able to accomplish.
But this self-enforced legislative stupor has more than just policy consequences. In an election year where Senate Republicans hold a record-breaking electoral advantage, the Senate’s lethargic schedule allows Democrats to have up to four extra days on the campaign trail each week. This is particularly egregious when 10 of the 26 Democrats running for re-election are in red states that Trump won. Giving these vulnerable Democrats extra time to make their case to voters is tantamount to an in-kind political donation, courtesy of the Senate GOP.
Even when the Senate is in town, however, Republicans aren’t challenging Democrats with election-year votes designed to put vulnerable Democrats in a tough spot. Defunding Planned Parenthood? Punitive measures against sanctuary cities? Reforming the healthcare system? Of course not. What do you think this is, a voting body designed to do something?
Contrast this with the ongoing efforts of Democrats to strike a political advantage. Despite being the minority party in the Senate, Democrats have taken advantage of Sen. John McCain’s, R-Ariz., absence (and Sen. Susan Collins’, R-Maine, complicity) to force a vote to repeal net neutrality. Once it passes, they’ll use the issue to browbeat Sen. Dean Heller, R-Nev., Republicans’ most vulnerable incumbent. Democrats in the House are doing the same with a discharge petition designed to force votes on amnesty.
This is the attitude that conservatives want to see from their Senate — a little less complaining, a little more fight; a little less laziness, and more of a desire to show up and do the work necessary to get their party’s agenda across the finish line.
To that end, more than 100 conservatives have signed a memo urging the Senate to stay in session, pass their funding bills, and confirm Trump’s nominees — or skip their month-long August break. Sixteen senators have echoed the message, sending a letter to Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., asking him to keep the Senate in session until the funding bills are passed.
Even President Trump is getting impatient with the Senate, tweeting “The Senate should get funding done before the August break, or NOT GO HOME. Wall and Border Security should be included. Also waiting for approval of almost 300 nominations, worst in history. Democrats are doing everything possible to obstruct, all they know how to do. STAY!”
The Senate’s laziness is imperiling the Republican majority and threatening the success of the president’s agenda. Conservatives are rightly asking for a little elbow-grease in the Upper Chamber. With only two months left until the Senate’s scheduled August vacation, there is little time to waste.
Rachel Bovard (@rachelbovard) is policy director of the Conservative Partnership Institute.
