A new strategy for Senate Democrats is gathering steam: block all legislation, even that which they agree with, until the Senate votes to reopen the government. If Democrats follow through, Republicans should counter by putting the gas on judicial nominations, which can’t be blocked.
Republicans and Democrats have been locked in a legislative chess match over funding for President Trump’s border wall. The battle has no obvious end in sight.
To recap: Just before they lost control of the House, Republicans passed a measure to keep the government open that included border wall funding, but Democrats blocked it in the Senate. When House Democrats took over last week, they voted to reopen the government without border wall funding. But Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., would not allow the upper chamber to vote on the Democratic House bills.
Now, Sen. Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., is proposing that Democrats respond by blocking all Senate bills, including one countering anti-Israel boycotts, until the impasse over government funding is resolved.
As Greg Sargent notes, the strategy is gathering steam among Democratic senators and has been backed by outside activists including MoveOn and AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka.
If the strategy ends up being adopted, though, McConnell has an obvious counter: simply move on to confirmations once Trump renominates his picks.
Thanks to former Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid having triggered the “nuclear option” in 2013 that ended the filibuster on nominations, Democrats would be powerless to block judicial confirmations, for which Republicans would only require a simple majority.
As I’ve previously written, with Democrats now in control of the House, Republicans are not going to pass any major legislation in the next two years anyway. So they should use their increased Senate majority to focus on confirming as many judicial nominees as possible.
Taking this tactic now would serve two purposes — both in terms of the short-term political maneuvering in the shutdown fight, as well as serving the longer-term strategic goal of reshaping the federal judiciary to one that’s more faithful to the U.S. Constitution.
