“The Biden administration has regularly signaled that it truly wants other forms of bipartisanship wherever it can find them,” E. J. Dionne, Jr. writes in his Washington Post column. “But the competition bill’s happy path will almost certainly be the exception, not the rule. Any illusions about bipartisanship ought to have been shattered by McCarthy and McConnell’s rejection of the Jan. 6 commission deal. The agreement between Reps. Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.) and John Katko (R-N.Y.) granted Republicans much of what they wanted on the inquiry. That included giving each party’s leadership five appointments. What could have been more bipartisan?…Let’s stipulate that bipartisanship is lovely when it happens. I’ll always salute Bob Dole and George McGovern for building the modern food stamp program and Orrin Hatch and Ted Kennedy for coming together behind the State Children’s Health Insurance Program….Those who would turn bipartisanship into a fetish need to understand that this Republican Party is not the party of Dole or Hatch, and a longer way still from the great progressive Republicans of times past. When it comes to doing big things, whether to reform the political system through the For the People Act or to expand access to child care, health care and education, Democrats must be willing to act on their own….And this Republican Party is not even sure what it thinks about democracy anymore, given the degree to which its main strategy involves cutting opponents out of the electorate rather than persuading them its way. No wonder the GOP would rather have us forget Jan. 6 altogether.”

The failure of GOP leadership and an overwhelming majority of their House members to support a bipartisan investigation of the January 6th thug riot in the capitol has to be one of the most shameful milestones in the history of the congress. Democratic Rep. Tim Ryan unloaded a welcome sense of outrage:

In “Republicans fear January 6 probe could undercut 2022 midterm message,” Manu Raja writes: “Senior Republicans are making clear they have little interest in moving forward with a sweeping January 6 investigation in part because a detailed probe could become politically damaging and amount to a distraction for their party just as control of Congress is at stake in next year’s midterm elections….Publicly and privately, Republicans are making that case, with Senate GOP Whip John Thune noting that there’s concern among some GOP members that the findings of the probe “could be weaponized politically and drug into next year.”…Sen. Gary Peters, who chairs the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, said there’s a reason why Republicans are battling the commission….”They’re afraid of the truth because it puts them on the wrong side of what is right,” Peters, a Michigan Democrat, said Wednesday.”

At Vox, Nicole Narea writes, “It was clear after the election that Trump had made gains among Latino voters in places like Florida’s Miami-Dade County and Texas’s Rio Grande Valley. The newest and most detailed data yet shows that the trend was nationwide. According to a recent report by the Democratic data firm Catalist, the number of Latinos who cast votes increased by 31 percent from 2016 to 2020, accounting for a 10th of the electorate. A comfortable majority of Latinos — an estimated 61 percent — supported President Joe Biden, but there was about an 8 percentage-point swing toward Trump, based on data on votes cast for either the Democratic or Republican nominees in 2016 and 2020….The data shows that many Latino voters, who represent the fastest-growing share of the electorate, are not firmly part of the Democratic base. Instead, they seem to be persuadable voters, presenting a potential opportunity for both Democrats and Republicans. This is especially true for voters who aren’t hyperpartisan: new and infrequent voters, as well as people who flipped their votes in 2020 or who decided to sit the election out entirely….Democratic losses among Latinos likely already lost the party congressional seats in 2020. If Democrats are to maintain control of Congress in the midterms, sustaining and growing their support among Latinos will be key.”