How Mitt Romney became the most useful Republican Senator

The Senator from Utah has been playing a smart game of politics this week

(Getty Images)

Senator Mitt Romney is quickly becoming the point person on Covid relief. He told reporters on Thursday that he and the Democrats have reached a tentative deal. Republican Senators have clearly put an incredible amount of faith in him, one sign being that he was the person who sent a letter to the White House asking for an accounting of all spending.

“He took the lead on that, so he’s kind of been our lead negotiator,” Senate Minority Whip John Thune told The Independent on Wednesday, while adding that Republicans in their respective jurisdictions are involved. “But I think in terms of what they want to spend on, I think they’re things that obviously most of us agree – therapeutics, vaccines, tests, research, some of the international stuff, are all things that I think there’s pretty broad consensus [on]. But it shouldn’t be new money or adding to the debt.”

Romney’s outsize influence on Covid legislation comes as Senate watchers wait to see how he votes on the nomination of Ketanji Brown Jackson to the Supreme Court. So far, only one Republican – fellow moderate Senator Susan Collins of Maine – has announced her support for Joe Biden’s first nominee. Meanwhile, Senator Lindsey Graham — who voted to confirm liberal Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan and voted to confirm Jackson to the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit — announced on Thursday that he would oppose her nomination.

GOP Senators John Cornyn of Texas and Thom Tillis have come out against Jackson, too, meaning none of the Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee, which questioned her last week, have yet signaled they will vote to confirm her.

Romney doesn’t sit on the Judiciary Committee, and he didn’t vote to confirm Jackson to the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, but he did meet with the judge on Tuesday. He also told The Washington Post last week that “there is no ‘there’ there” when it came to Republican criticisms of her record on sentencing people convicted of possessing child sex abuse images.

When a reporter asked Romney about Collins’ lamentation that the confirmation process has become more acrimonious over time, Romney cited the decision some years ago to end the use of the filibuster for judicial appointments. “Well, I think, actually, when you remove the filibuster from judicial appointments, it made presidents be more inclined to nominate people that would only be supported by their own party,” he said.

That’s a clever dodge, allowing Romney – who if he had had his way and served two terms as president would have named three Supreme Court Justices – to blame Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell for removing the filibuster in 2017 to confirm Justice Neil Gorsuch while also faulting Democrats’ removing the filibuster for judicial nominees during Barack Obama’s presidency, when Republicans blocked many of their nominees. The Senate Majority Leader back then? Harry Reid, who in 2012 famously lied that Romney, the GOP nominee for president, had not paid any taxes for 10 years.