Senate Democrats’ imaginary majority

A majority that comes and goes. Whitehouse said it was like the tide.

It is by far the longest Senate in history. Democrats have had great success in getting confirmations for President Joe Biden's nominees, including the first Black woman on the Federal Reserve Board and the installation of a new FTC commissioner. On a day-to-day basis, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer's job is hard because of whether any of his members have Covid or not.

Sometimes Schumer exposes his own party's divisions, like when Manchin and Sinema voted down an effort to gut the filibuster for elections reform. At a private party lunch on Tuesday, Manchin asked his colleagues to consider a narrower abortion rights bill than the one that failed.

Manchin joined all 50 Senate Republicans in voting no on a bill that would have preserved and expanded abortion rights if the Supreme Court strikes down Wade next month. Manchin was isolated in his caucus again because of that, just as he was on the party-line social spending bill.

Manchin said in an interview that he asked Democrats to write a bill that only codified the law of abortion, rather than one that would have barred states from passing new restrictions on abortion.

Manchin said before the bill was dubbed that he would vote for codification as we have had 50 years of precedent.

He said that he stood in favor of simple codification and that his party was being deceptive.

Manchin said they want people to believe it codifies abortion.

Manchin's colleagues are not happy with either his vote or his rhetoric. Gillibrand said that they had a different view on what the legislation was trying to do. We are trying to codify both of them. All the legal precedent.

The bill is state-of-the-art, Gillibrand said. I disagree with that. It is a good effort, but they left definitions vague.

Manchin has always marched to his own tune, but in the past it often didn't matter because Democrats had votes to spare. Democrats had 55 seats and moved ahead without Manchin when he opposed changing the Senate rules to scrap the 60-vote requirement for most nominations.

When Republicans were in the majority, Manchin's straying from party orthodoxy was often viewed as just the cost of having a red-state Democrat in the caucus.

With 50 seats, defections from Manchin and Sinema were different.

We have the responsibility of being in the majority, without being able to count on all of the votes. The good news is that we can move judges and other nominees if we have a majority in the Senate.

Speaker Nancy Pelosi can still afford to lose a few votes from her own party, and she doesn't need to rely on Republicans given the House's majoritarian rules. The coronaviruses rescue plan, new infrastructure law, reformed the postal system, and a competitiveness bill were passed by the two Democratic leaders along with Schumer. Many in the party focus on the big promises that Democrats have yet to deliver on, such as climate, tax reform and new social programs.

Senate Democrats can confirm nominees with a simple majority, which means getting all of their members to vote in favor of them. That has given the caucus some of its biggest wins recently, including filling out the Federal Reserve and the FTC.

McConnell's focus on confirmation of judges helped keep his majority unified, but Democrats are more interested in legislating. The Democratic interest in successful lawmaking makes it more difficult for them in the Senate.

The caucus can put up 50 votes on major issues, but most Democrats want to scrap the filibuster. Getting 10 GOP votes requires major concessions, which is not as easy as picking off a couple Republicans.

Biden's request for billions of more dollars for Covid vaccines and treatment is a perfect example of how Republicans have bottled it up by demanding a vote on keeping former President Donald Trump's border policies in place. Some Democrats may have to allow a vote on the immigration measure in order to pass a bill that Biden says is critical to combat a future coronaviruses surge.

The Democrats passed the $1.9 trillion relief bill in March of last year. Democrats haven't used that tool since Manchin tanked Build Back Better and the party hasn't yet come up with a replacement.

He said he can often find out more about the Senate's cadence from Republicans.

I don't feel bad about that. We are helping set up the agenda. That is the way it is, Tester said.