In “Senate Democrats: Get Your Stories Straight!,” Jason Linkins writes at The New Republic: “The U.S. Senate: For a long while now, it’s where Democratic Party ambitions, along with democracy itself, have hit the skids. There are structural reasons for that: Far fewer voters are represented by the GOP majority, and this malapportionment problem is exacerbated by changing demographics that could one day allow 30 percent of Americans to elect 70 of its senators. But Republicans learned long ago that their agenda—showering tax benefits on the wealthy and breaking the government—only requires 51 votes most of the time. Democratic governance—which involves building, fixing, regulating, preserving, and improving—requires 60 nearly always…One might have expected by now that Democrats would have recognized how the Senate filibuster, which requires them to regularly conjure these supermajorities, is something of a suicide pact. Or that it’s a recent innovation that’s easily discarded. Or that it runs so counter to the Founders’ ideals that its very existence should be offensive. But not enough Democrats have made this leap. And the reason is that too many of them suffer from what The New Republic contributor Christopher Sprigman calls “Degenerative Senate Brain.”…Having observed this less than august body operate over the past few years, I think that the main problem with many of our Democratic senators is that they believe their own hype. They all think they’ve signed up for an austere debate club—the “world’s greatest deliberative body,” the “cooling saucer” of government. They don’t seem to have noticed that when it comes to deliberating, or maintaining a reputation for judiciousness and equanimity, everyone has to agree to participate in those ideals. And Trumpist Republicans do not: They’ve shut down the government. They’ve willingly ceded the power of the purse. They rarely if ever question the Mad King’s desires…The state of the GOP means that you can’t really have a Senate anymore. Unfortunately, the most Senate-brained Democrats still naïvely believe that they can revive this moribund body, through actions that at best send mixed messages and at worst directly undermine the work of Democrats like Jeff Merkley…
Linkins continues, “Case in point: This week, amid the government shutdown, 13 Democratic senators joined forces with all but one Republican to advance the nomination of Harold Mooty to a judgeship in the Northern District of Alabama. Some fun facts about Mooty that The New Republic’s Ellie Quinlan Houghtaling collected: He has gone to some lengths to dance questions about the January 6 riots and who was culpable; he practically invented new verb tenses to avoid saying directly that Joe Biden was the legitimately elected president…When it comes to deal-breakers, to each their own, but I find it puzzling that these weren’t some crimson flags for Senate Democrats. But even if they weren’t, everyone should understand that the only role a Republican judicial nominee plays in American life is serving Trump as if he was their personal legal client and backstopping his savage corruption. For that reason alone, there should never be a Democratic name signed to the advancement of Trump’s judges…In their own skewed, Senate-brained view of the world, taking these kinds of votes helps to bolster democracy. That is to say, any time there is a small window in which they can make a gesture of comity and bipartisanship, they believe the right thing to do is to take it—the better to demonstrate that the ol’ ship of state is still humming along, normal business and regular order is possible, and that we aren’t so far off from recovery. Democrats are leaving the door to deliberation open. They’re keeping that saucer on ice…Folks, I would love to believe that a small overture might seed a future coming together of polarized parties. But if watching schoolchildren get shot to pieces several times a year isn’t going to foster that fellowship, then we’re definitely not getting there by throwing the other side a bone…Is democracy in grave danger? This week, it looks like Merkley and his allies agree, and that 13 other Democrats aren’t really ready to believe him. But with midterms looming, everyone in the party has to be of one mind on the matter in order to not sow confusion among critical voters. And if they all truly agree that Trump is some unique threat, we cannot have Democrats in double digits signing their name to support his agenda—not now, not ever.”
From “It is So ‘Disconcerting’ that We Have No Congress: Republicans refuse to do their jobs” by Jennifer Rubin at “The Contrarian”: “… a headline from The Hill announces: “GOP senators disconcerted by possible $230M Justice Department payout to Trump.”…There are so many things about which to be “disconcerted,” including unconscionable misuse of the military against Americans, brutal ICE raids, skyrocketing debt, corruption on a grand scale, and herky-jerky trade wars (complete with Trump’s temper tantrum over an ad accurately reminding us that Ronald Reagan opposed protectionism). One should further “raise concerns” that the Affordable Care Act premiums will “spike on average by 30 percent next year” for 17 million people, so that “along with the likely expiration of pandemic-era subsidies… millions of people will see their health insurance payments double or even triple in 2026,” as The Washington Post reports…If only these fretful Republicans belonged to some sort of governmental body that had the ability to limit or even stop these troublesome actions. One could image, say, a separate legislative body to check the executive, control spending, and vet unfit nominees. But they want no part of that…” Rubin provides a list of specific legislative initiatives Republicans could do if they really cared, then writes: “Republicans’ brazen refusal to do their constitutionally assigned duties should compel voters to boot them out in 2026. Since they have shirked their duties and thereby enabled Trump’s corruption, malfeasance, and replete policy failures, what justification could there be to rehire them?…Put simply, if MAGA lawmakers are not moved by their oaths of office or the health and security of the American people, perhaps the prospect of a blue wave in 2026 will jolt them from their slumber. If Democrats perform strongly next week in elections in New Jersey, Virginia, Pennsylvania (state supreme court), and California (Prop. 50), Republicans might become “disconcerted” enough to take up their constitutional obligations.”
An excerpt from “Virginia: Ticket-splitting, dropoffs, and write-ins” by Kyle Kondik at Sabato’s Crystal Ball: “The focus in Virginia remains on the state attorney general race. While former Rep. Abigail Spanberger (D, VA-7) leads all recent polling against Lt. Gov. Winsome Earle-Sears (R) by varying margins in the gubernatorial race, Attorney General Jason Miyares (R) has more often than not led former state Del. Jay Jones (D) following the exposure of inflammatory text messages from Jones. Decision Desk HQ has polling averages for both races: Spanberger is up 50.4%-43.5% on Earle-Sears, while Miyares is up 47.1%-44.4% on Jones. Miyares is running about 3.5 points ahead of Earle-Sears’s vote share, while Jones is lagging a larger 6 points behind Spanberger’s vote share. The danger for Miyares is that the undecideds in the AG race may just be disproportionately Spanberger voters who, when push comes to shove, just end up voting a straight Democratic ticket. Needless to say, though, there is much more uncertainty about the AG race than the gubernatorial race…This year, there are no named third-party candidates in any of the three statewide Virginia races. However, there is a write-in option, and it may also be that some voters skip the AG race altogether…In recent Virginia elections, there have always been more votes cast for governor than there were for lieutenant governor and attorney general, and typically there is slightly less of an undervote for attorney general than there is for lieutenant governor. That makes some intuitive sense, as attorney general is a higher-profile and more powerful office than lieutenant governor.” More here.
