The 114th Congress is starting to look a lot like the 113th, with House Republicans fuming at the Senate about as much as they did when it was in Democratic hands.
“What’s weird is that Harry Reid is running the Senate from the minority,” said Rep. Lynn Westmoreland, a Coweta County Republican.
He has a point. Reid, 75 years old, severely injured in an accident and humbled in the last election, kept his Democrats together to filibuster the House-passed bill to tie a rebuke to President Barack Obama’s immigration actions to Department of Homeland Security funding. So Majority Leader Mitch McConnell caved and the Senate passed a “clean” bill.
Westmoreland said he occasionally chats with some of the six freshman senators who crossed over from the House, urging them to consider nuking the filibuster — an unlikely prospect at this point, but a request illustrative of how little faith the House GOP has in the “other body” right now.
“Either he can lead or he can’t lead,” Westmoreland said of McConnell. “He needs to step up to the plate and change the rules just like Harry Reid did (for Obama’s nominees).”
The sniping between the two bodies escalated as the clock ran down on funding the Department of Homeland Security.
Senate Republicans are trying hard to show that things are indeed different from last year.
“It’s Friday morning and we’re going to vote all morning,” Georgia Republican Sen. Johnny Isakson said. “We put in a full week’s work.”
Under Reid, Friday sessions were almost unheard of. The Senate has voted on more amendments than it did all last year.
“My frustration level is a lot lower than it was last year, believe me,” said Isakson, who was empowered in the takeover to oversee the Veterans Affairs Committee.
But the House has passed piles of bills, while the slow-moving Senate took weeks to deal with the Keystone XL pipeline and DHS funding.
“How high are we gonna stack the stack?” Westmoreland said.
Just hours after making that comment, Westmoreland’s chaotic House made eyes roll in the Senate. Fifty-two conservatives, including Reps. Barry Loudermilk of Cassville and Jody Hice of Monroe, helped sink Speaker John Boehner’s plan to keep DHS open for three more weeks to try to find a way out of the funding impasse.
But House and Senate Republicans can come together on at least one thing: It’s the Democrats’ fault.
Rep. Austin Scott, a Tifton Republican, was asked why Republicans couldn’t keep their caucus together on the three-week bill.
“Now, let’s be fair about this,” he replied. “Probably 75 percent of our conference voted for it, right? (Actually 78 percent.) …
“The bottom line is Democrats still have enough votes in the Senate to shut down any piece of legislation from coming to the floor. That’s why we’re here, right? Because Democrats in the Senate shut down the debate and wouldn’t allow that on the floor.
“And now the Democrats in the House have effectively done the same thing. So I think our leadership did the best they could to keep DHS funded.”
Netanyahu split
Tuesday’s speech to Congress by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, in a protocol battle between Boehner and Obama, has become a litmus test for Democrats. Georgia’s Democrats are divided on how they’ll approach it.
Rep. John Lewis, an Atlanta Democrat, is skipping the speech, calling the prime minister’s visit so close to an election “an affront to the president and the State Department.”
Democratic Rep. Hank Johnson of Lithonia said he hoped Netanyahu would call off the speech but “if forced to make the choice, I don’t think I will be in attendance.”
But Rep. David Scott, an Atlanta Democrat, said the sensitive nuclear talks with Iran mean Congress should, more than ever, be interested in what Netanyahu has to say.
“I understand it’s not the most pleasant way for it to happen, but I think it’s important now that it’s happened,” Scott said. “Better to hear him now, because we’re at the crucible of this in a matter of weeks.”
Democratic Rep. Sanford Bishop of Albany has not decided whether to attend.
Vote of the Week
The U.S. House voted 203-224 Friday, defeating a bill to extend funding for the Department of Homeland Security by three weeks.
Yes: U.S. Reps. Rick Allen, R-Evans; Buddy Carter, R-Pooler; Doug Collins, R-Gainesville; Tom Graves, R-Ranger; Tom Price, R-Roswell; Austin Scott, R-Tifton; David Scott, D-Atlanta; Lynn Westmoreland, R-Coweta County; Rob Woodall, R-Lawrenceville.
No: U.S. Reps. Sanford Bishop, D-Albany; Jody Hice, R-Monroe; Barry Loudermilk, R-Cassville; Hank Johnson, D-Lithonia; John Lewis, D-Atlanta.
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