A Consequential Week in the “Perishable City”

There are a lot of basic political lessons to be noted coming out of the past several weeks of legislative wrangling that culminated in Senate passage of the newly christened “Inflation Reduction Act.”  Speaker Pelosi will call the House back from summer recess to pass the IRA later this week. Pelosi leaves nothing to chance. As recounted in my forthcoming book, “Arc of Power: Inside Nancy Pelosi’s Speakership 2005-2010”, Pelosi eschews delay, knowing that unforeseen events – illness, accidents, overseas travel – could jeopardize passage. Washington, she frequently notes, is a “perishable city.”

Many Democrats are understandably frustrated by the maneuvering (some might use less neutral terminology) of Sens. Joe Manchin (WV) and Kyrsten Sinema over the changes they demanded as the price of their votes for the legislation. Many of those alterations weakened or eliminated provisions all other Democrats fervently wished could be included in the already scaled back measure. However, both senators were employing time-honored tactics, using the clout afforded them by a close margins to compel concessions. Neither senator believed the changes they wanted would attract a single Republican vote. This was all about the basics of dealmaking: using leverage to secure benefits for constituents (electoral or financial).

Manchin’s demands were straightforward and completely predictable. He has a compelling political rationale, after all: the lone Democrat in a state Donald Trump carried by 40 points. Love him or hate him, he knows the alternative to him – a liberal Democratic Senate nominee who is crushed by a Republican general election winner – produces Majority Leader Mitch McConnell. Pretty hard to argue with that. 

There was no doubt in my mind that Manchin ultimately would come around to support a bill. Addressing the expiring provisions of black lung law, one of the most crucial federal programs for West Virginians, has been a little-noticed component in every version of Build Back Better, when the dust cleared, it was, I predicted, inevitable that Manchin would sign off on a broad bill to secure these benefits for his ailing constituents. Unsurprisingly, he threw a two-state oil and gas pipeline into the mix, an insignificant tradeoff given the national climate program the bill includes.

Sinema’s motives are far more suspect and unlike Manchin, her changes (to the bill’s tax provisions) cannot be said to benefit her state in particular. One cannot help but be suspicious of why she would insist on deleting the carried interest provision that benefits a handful of billionaires. On the other hand, she also included a $5 billion drought relief program aiding Arizonans and other water-short westerners that, by securing her support, could help fellow senator Mark Kelly, who is in a tight race and does not need a festering tension with his senior senator.

Political realism had long since established the endgame for this legislation; it had to pass, because otherwise Democrats would demonstrate legislative incompetence months before the mid-terms, and it was going to look like whatever Manchin and Sinema wanted. Arc of Power is filled with similar maneuvering by the Senate a dozen years ago when senators employed their rules to manipulate the House into accepting the version of legislation favored on the North end of Capitol Hill. Yes, it is another example of what majority leader Steny Hoyer (MD) has called the Senate’s “my way or the highway” style of negotiating, but it is political realism, and one reason so few senators really want to give up procedural advantages like the filibuster.

In contrast to Sinema and Manchin’s scheming, the actions of Bernie Sanders were pointless. Sanders, unlike the two moderates, obviously knew that he lacked the votes to pass any of the liberal changes he demanded the Senate vote on. Nor was he ever going to vote against final passage even if his amendments were defeated (as they were on a bipartisan basis). His petulance, a signature trait, achieved nothing except to put at-risk Democrats on record against policies that excite the liberal base but that had no chance of inclusion (and whose passage would have killed the bill). As is so often the case with Sanders, a safe senator in a deep blue state, his actions were motivated entirely by enhancing his standing as an uncompromising advocate for the Left regardless of the implications for more marginal Democrats. 

In the House, the Sanders-like Left has no opportunity to tinker with the bill. Pelosi will not allow them any opportunity for counter-productive floor shenanigans. However much the Squad or others will gnash their teeth over the absence of one sacrosanct liberal provision or another, every Democrat understands changing this bill kills it. End of discussion. They’ll all vote “yea” but hopefully not undercut the victory with a lot of self-serving whining about how weak Democrats are. 

It would be far better to have a unified Democratic message focusing on how Republicans voted against climate change, against, making the richest corporations pay as much taxes as their lowest paid employees, against reducing prescription drug costs for seniors, against capping insulin costs: not to mention earlier votes against protecting abortion rights and reducing gun violence. The messaging this fall needs to be less about the benefits of this and other Democratic-passed legislation (little of whose benefits will register by November) and more about fingering Republicans as the extremist party of “NO” that, given power, will unleash the legislative equivalent of January 6^th, tearing through the Capitol on a destructive rampage against health care affordability, women’s rights, the planet and many other policies that register with the vast majority of voters.

Finally, Joe Biden is looking like a pretty successful president, albeit unable thus far to shake the inflation monkey from his back. (Of course, no prospective challenger from either party has much to offer about driving down inflation in the short-term either.) The president’s 2024 decision is likely going to be shaped in part by what happens in the mid-terms. Contrary to conventional wisdom, he could easily decide that, should Republicans win control of one of both houses of Congress, he must remain on the ballot in 2024 to prevent Democratic fragmenting that could risk losing the White House as well, much as he decided to enter the 2020 presidential race to unify the party against Trump.

Critics will say he is too old and certain to get four years older in a second term; there is little reason to suspect he will become a more compelling speaker or more spry. But Biden will be able to point to an impressive set of legislative accomplishments despite his geezer status. And unlike other presidents whose health was an issue in their successful re-election campaigns (FDR, Ike, Reagan), he has secured historic legislation with razor thin congressional margins. This isn’t to say he should or will choose to run again, but one thing is for certain: the old man is going to be taking some victory laps in the next few weeks and the competition is far behind him.

Now available for pre-order: “Arc of Power: Inside Nancy Pelosi’s Speakership 2005-2010” https://www.amazon.com/Arc-Power-Pelosis-Speakership-2005-2010/dp/0700633790