The Senate kicks the can until after the midterms

Same sex marriage bill on hold until after midterms

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (AP)

Congress is a little more than halfway through its work session for September before campaign season kicks off in earnest. Even-year September work sessions are always peculiar because they often come right after the August recess and right before everybody breaks to go back on the campaign trail.

That often means that senators choose to do the absolute minimum, and that looks to be the case as the Senate hopes to pass a continuing resolution by the end of the month to avert a government shutdown.

Otherwise, it looks like the Senate has chosen not to take up any action that would be too controversial, lest any member be forced to defend a tough vote. Last week, the group of Democrats and Republicans negotiating the codification of same-sex marriage punted on the issue.

Burgess Everett at Politico reported last week that Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and Senators Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona and Tammy Baldwin of Wisconsin–the two first openly LGBTQ+ Senators who are negotiating with Republican Senators Susan Collins of Maine, Rob Portman of Ohio and Thom Tillis of North Carolina–want the same-sex bill to pass more than to score political points and have a vote on a bill before the election.

Incidentally, Representative Ted Budd, the Republican nominee for North Carolina’s other Senate seat, already voted against the version that passed the House of Representatives and his Democratic opponent Cheri Beasley has attacked him for doing so.

Democrats have only 50 seats, which means they need 10 Republicans to join them in the vote if they want any chance to actually pass the legislation. They’ve essentially made the calculated decision that if they don’t attack Republicans on same-sex marriage, they can actually pass it.

Senator Roy Blunt of Missouri told Igor Bobic of HuffPost last week that “They’ll get more votes in November, December than they’ll get on Monday.” Mr Blunt, a conservative Republican who nonetheless is open to making a deal with Democrats, is retiring this year and is a loyal troop for Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell. So his remarks essentially guarantee that more Republicans might jump on after the midterm is over.

But same-sex marriage isn’t the only area where the Senate is delaying a tough vote. Business Insider’s Bryan Metzger, who is a must-follow on Twitter for his coverage of stock trading by members of Congress, reported that the Senate will also delay a vote on banning members–and, importantly, their spouses–from trading stocks.

This comes nine months after House Speaker Nancy Pelosi creaked the door open to a ban and everyone from Senator Elizabeth Warren and Republican Senator Steve Daines of Montana to Senator Josh Hawley all released different pieces of legislation. Business Insider reported that House leadership went radio silent with Representative Abigail Spanberger–an endangered Democrat and the main proponent of the bill in the House. That means that passing a bill in both the House and Senate will likely have to move in earnest during the interim period after the election and before the new Congress is sworn in, when Republicans are likely to take control of at least one chamber.

In addition, Sam Brodey of The Daily Beast reported that the Senate is also punting on legislation that would prevent presidents from firing civil servants at will after former president Donald Trump has hinted at a plan to do as much. The House already passed the bill last week but it looks unlikely that Democrats could get the requisite 10 Republican votes to overcome a filibuster given Republicans’ dislike of federal bureaucracy and government employees.

That bill stands probably the least likelihood of passing of the three but it shows just the predicament that Congress faces: many of these bills have popular support or are seen as good-government measures. But the opposing forces – social conservatives in the case of same sex marriage, the former president in the civil servant bill and members who trade stock – make it nearly impossible to pass such bills when there is an election coming up.