Oct.03

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Dem 51

   

GOP 49

Congressional Drama, Part II: Other Storylines

Matt Gaetz may be the prima donna of the current Congress, but he's not the only donna. There's a lot of other stuff going on in the legislature right now:

• Ukraine Aid: There is majority support for Ukraine aid in the Senate. There is probably majority support for Ukraine aid in the House. However, enthusiasm is not as great as it once was in either chamber. It is also clear that attaching Ukraine aid to the broader budget just makes things more complicated and more difficult to manage. So, the odds are that there will be a Ukraine aid-only bill sometime very soon, and that there will be much effort put into getting it through both chambers before the Budgetary Royal Rumble.
  
  
• Madame Senator?: If everything goes according to plan, VP Kamala Harris will swear Laphonza Butler in today as the replacement for Dianne Feinstein. However, there is an opportunity for Republicans to object to Butler, and they might take it.
  
  The problem here is that the Constitution lays out these qualifications for a Senator:

  No Person shall be a Senator who shall not have attained to the Age of thirty Years, and been nine Years a Citizen of the United States, and who shall not, when elected, be an Inhabitant of that State for which he shall be chosen.

  Meanwhile, the Seventeenth Amendment added this:

  When vacancies happen in the representation of any State in the Senate, the executive authority of such State shall issue writs of election to fill such vacancies: Provided, That the legislature of any State may empower the executive thereof to make temporary appointments until the people fill the vacancies by election as the legislature may direct.

  The basis for objecting to Butler is that she is not currently a resident of California (she currently lives in Maryland). She is also not registered to vote in California, as previously reported, though she plans to change her registration today.
  
  So, there is an argument that the Senator-designate is not actually qualified. That said, California law actually has several different standards for residency, and while we previously noted the most stringent of them (366 days for people who want to pay resident tuition at the state's universities), there are other standards laid out in California state law that are less exacting. Furthermore, James Madison himself (i.e., the primary author of the Constitution) noted that he and the other framers chose "inhabitant" instead of "resident" to leave room for people who may leave their home state "for a considerable time on public or private business." And finally, note that the requirements for a senator laid out in both Article I and the Seventeenth Amendment speak to an elected senator. Butler, of course, is not elected, and the Seventeenth Amendment, in particular, could be read as saying anyone can be appointed until a replacement senator is duly elected.
  
  We doubt that Senate Republicans will actually try to block Butler, since the best-case scenario for them would be to muddy the waters a bit until the Democratic majority voted to approve the Senator-designate anyhow, or until the courts stepped in, or until Gov. Gavin Newsom (D-CA) made a new pick. The real lesson here, as Slate's Mark Joseph Stern points out in the linked article: "The Constitution does not have all the answers. And when we pretend it does, we empower unelected judges to make up the answers and attribute them to the infinite wisdom of long-dead Framers."
  
  
• Look at Me, Part I: Rep. Victoria Spartz (R-IN) issued a statement yesterday that reads:

  I've done many very difficult things being one woman standing many times with many very long hours and personal sacrifices, but there is a limitation to human capacity. If Congress does not pass a debt commission this year to move the needle on the crushing national debt and inflation, at least at the next debt ceiling increase at the end of 2024, I will not continue sacrificing my children for this circus with a complete absence of leadership, vision, and spine. I cannot save this Republic alone.

  That sounds pretty definitive, but: (1) the headline on the statement is "Spartz Will Consider Resigning Congress if No Debt Commission Passed this Year," and (2) in our experience, creating a commission is a pretty empty gesture that rarely leads to anything substantive. So, our guess is that this is just posturing. Alternatively, Spartz may already have a new gig lined up, and may just want to give herself cover when she goes to work for the Indiana Hog Castraters' Association or whomever. Obviously, if she does leave, the Republicans' margin for error gets even more paper-thin.
  
  
• Look at Me, Part II: Spartz is not the only member looking to make a statement right now. Dean Phillips (DFL-MN) yesterday quit his leadership post in protest of the Democrats' support of Joe Biden's reelection bid. "My convictions relative to the 2024 presidential race are incongruent with the majority of my caucus, and I felt it appropriate to step aside from elected leadership," Phillips said in a statement.
  
  Phillips is one of the most centrist Democrats in the House, so this might reflect genuine sentiments on his part. On the other hand, he's teased a presidential bid of his own, so this might be laying the groundwork for that. In any event, his leadership position was pretty low (co-chair of the House Democratic Policy and Communications Committee, which is roughly #9 on the totem pole). And, as you may have noticed, centrists don't get picked to lead the Democratic caucus these days. So, Phillips didn't give up much to make whatever statement he's making.

Congress is in session right now, and is going to have the pedal to the metal leading up to the winter break. Meanwhile, this is the best opportunity to score some headlines before the presidential race drowns most everything else out. Oh, and there's also the small matter of the budget that still needs to be worked out. Add it up, and there should be a lot of news from Capitol Hill in the next several weeks. (Z)