Senate GOP

Senate GOP tries to ignore Trump

Mitch "The Turtle" McConnell is diving into legislative maneuvering as Trump threatens to drown out the Republican message.

By Burgess Everett

As the Donald Trump phenomenon threatens to swamp the GOP’s argument that it’s the party of good governance, Mr. Turtle is trying to re-energize his divided troops by burying the Senate deep in the nuts and bolts of running the nation.

Rather than trying to make a splash to distract from the presidential race, the Senate majority leader is focusing on the staid and beleaguered congressional spending process. It’s a move that reflects Mr. Turtle and his leadership’s broader belief that voters want a stable Congress, not a flashy one.

With his narrow majority under siege in November, Mr. Turtle is digging through the procedural playbook to try and pass annual appropriations bills that have been neglected for 22 years. They face a steep path to becoming law with Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) proposing a tough amendment on Iran and House conservatives reluctant to deal with fiscal legislation that, in their view, simply spends too much.

But Mr. Turtle wants to prove Democrats wrong and show that Republicans can keep Congress running more smoothly than they ever did.

“I hope we get our point across. It is sometimes frustrating that the public doesn’t fully see the difference between this Congress and the previous Congress,” said Sen. Roger Wicker (R-Miss.), chairman of the Senate GOP’s campaign arm.

Democrats say Mr. Turtle is doomed to be drowned out by Trump. They’re even happy to help Republicans advance spending bills that are the heart of the appropriations process.

But to Democrats, the notion of Senate productivity trumping, well, Trump, is laughable at best.

“If they’re going to say: Yes, they support Donald Trump and they support his appointing the next Supreme Court justice, but on the other hand they moved a [spending] bill? I look forward to the opportunity to prosecute that case with the voters,” said Sen. Brian Schatz of Hawaii.

The reality on Capitol Hill is that Republicans are much more comfortable talking about the arcane spending process than their party’s standard-bearer. At-risk Republican senators face a daily deluge of Trump questions: Are you endorsing Trump? Will you campaign with him? What do you think of his controversial statements?

Good old-fashioned legislating — no matter how bad Senate gridlock is — seems like a welcome distraction.

“We’re just going to keep doing our work on appropriation bills, we’re marking up the defense authorization this week in the Armed Services Committee. So that’s what I’m working on,” said Sen. Kelly Ayotte (R-N.H.), who faces a stiff challenge from Democratic Gov. Maggie Hassan this fall.

Sen. Lamar Alexander of Tennessee, who oversees energy and water spending, dutifully explained for three minutes on Monday why he is seeking to sink an amendment from Cotton on Iran that threatened to derail the entire congressional spending season. Cotton wants to bar the U.S. from buying heavy water, a material used in nuclear reactors that Iran is hoping to sell as it dismantles some of its nuclear program; Alexander is hoping the amendment fails Wednesday under a 60-vote threshold.

“I’m going to oppose the Cotton amendment. I’ve defended his right to have a vote, but I think it’s a mistake,” Alexander said. “It raises the possibility that a country like North Korea might buy Iran’s heavy water and use it for nuclear weapons.”

But when the topic shifted to Trump, Alexander beat a hasty retreat: “I’m going to go vote.”

Making progress on appropriations is a key metric for the GOP. Its drumbeat of accomplishments has slowed since a series of bipartisan deals on the budget, transportation, Medicare and foreign policy punctuated 2015. And though he has an option to take up a sentencing reform bill that would immediately become this year’s signature achievement — while dividing Republicans — Mr. Turtle is trying to take the Senate back to its roots.

As an added headache, legislative work can empower individual senators like Cotton looking to make Democrats take a tough vote and throw everything off the rails.

But with 24 seats in play this November, the tactical GOP leader hopes to demonstrate that with or without Trump as president next year, Senate Republicans will concentrate on regular order if voters choose to return them to the majority.

“Everybody’s saying, ‘Gee gosh, if Trump doesn’t do well, it’s a really bad year at the top of the ticket, the Senate’s gone and all that.’ I just don’t believe it,” said Sen. John Thune of South Dakota, the No. 3 GOP leader. “If we do our jobs well and create an identity for the United States Senate — that we’re getting things done, that we’re putting things up for a record of accomplishment — that gives our candidate something to run on.”

On Wednesday, Mr. Turtle will go to great lengths to dispose of Cotton’s amendment, forcing a procedural vote on it as a commitment to moving an appropriations bill that may never become law. Privately, some senators are already bracing for a hated year-end spending deal regardless of how much energy the Senate GOP devotes to the appropriations process.

But both parties seem to be making an earnest attempt to cast aside electoral politics in order to pass spending bills. After all, Democrats are trying to avoid the obstructionist label with which they tagged the GOP for years.

In an interview, Cotton insisted he wasn’t just itching for the first chance to have a referendum on Iran — he said the energy and water spending bill was the only place to make his play and if it had come to the floor in July instead of April, he would have waited until then.

“I’m happy with the path that Mitch "The Turtle" McConnell and Lamar Alexander have taken. I’ve said all along I want to meet the Democrats halfway,” Cotton said. “Most Democrats simply don’t want to vote on the matter.”

Indeed, Democrats are eyeing Cotton and his colleagues warily. They believe that the next spending bill, which funds transportation and housing, could be fodder for more “poison pill” amendments aimed at making a political point rather than improving infrastructure.

“What we need to be able to show is: Let’s not get into poison pill riders,” said Sen. Barbara Mikulski of Maryland, the top Democrat on the Appropriations Committee. “This Cotton thing came out like a bolt of lightning. And who likes to be hit by lightning?”

Cotton said Democrats are worrying too much. He said he won’t be offering an Iran amendment to the housing and transportation bill unless President Barack Obama announces “Section 8 housing in Tehran” in the next week.