Just days into the new Congress, Washington’s partisanship is on full display again after President Obama issued two veto threats to the Republicans’ opening legislative salvos.
Many liberal-leaning Democrats are applauding the president’s warnings, but the early clashes have erased any notion that Obama is turning over a new conciliatory leaf or that Washington gridlock is a thing of the past.
“I kind of like the direction he has signaled he is going in,” Rep. Lacy Clay, a senior member of the Congressional Black Caucus, told the Washington Examiner. “He knows he has nothing to lose. He doesn’t have to stand for election anymore, and he’s certainly showing that by some of the bold actions he’s taken,” said the Missouri Democrat.
Other more centrist Democrats concurred.
“If there’s good policy to be had, let’s work together and have good policy, and if there’s not, let’s veto it,” said Rep. Adam Smith of Washington, the top Democrat on the generally more bipartisan House Armed Services Committee.
Since the sweeping Democratic midterm defeats in November, Obama has talked up compromise on areas of common ground with Republicans while pledging to oppose the the party on issues he really cares about.
The president extolled the value of bipartisanship into December even after issuing a sweeping executive action on immigration and taking unilateral steps to normalize relations with Cuba.
But the mixed signals ended this week when Obama threatened vetoes on a Republican bill to approve the Keystone XL oil pipeline and another to redefine the Obamacare work week from 30 hours to 40.
“An early veto sends a signal that he’s going to dig in his heels,” veteran GOP strategist Karl Rove told Fox News Wednesday night.
Such early intransigence, Rove argued, can be dangerous.
“The worst is to be overridden,” he said. “If any of these bills that come along is vetoed by the president and then overridden, he’s going to regret having thrown this down so early, so quickly.”
Democrats in turn said Republicans set the wrong tone by opening the new congressional session with partisan stage-setting bills and forced Obama to issue the veto warnings.
“I’m highly skeptical that the House and Senate Republicans are going to produce anything that’s reasonable based on the first week’s agenda,” Smith said. “It seems they are hell-bent to be as partisan as possible and put out issues that the president will not support and he’s going to veto.”
Republicans, several Democrats argued, need to realize they too have a lot at stake this year and cannot afford to oppose Obama on everything.
“It’s too early to tell which Republican majority we have,” Rep. Mike Capuano, D-Mass., said in a brief interview. “If I have a Republican majority that kowtows to the extreme right wing or if I have one that we can work with and get something done.”
Senate Republicans have 24 of their seats up for re-election in 2016 compared with 10 Democratic seats, and they must demonstrate that they can govern effectively to win over a cynical public disenchanted with Washington, Democrats argue.
Keenly aware of the dynamic, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., challenged Republicans to an unusual goal this week: not to do anything “crazy.” He also has pledged to work with Obama and Democrats to avoid a government shutdown and return to regular order in considering minority amendments.
After the first week it may seem like Washington is back to partisan business as usual, but Democrats said the Senate re-election map will play a powerful role in just how much the GOP is willing to compromise with Obama.
Clay said he’s encouraged by McConnell’s more measured approach.
“That tells me that part of the challenge for the Republican leadership is to corral enough of their members to have an adult conversation and to be reasonable and think about actually governing,” he said.
“If they are able to do that then I guess we can get back to the new normalcy, which is not total function but is not total dysfunction.”
