Congress!
I’m going to write in much more detail about this over August recess, but in my view people are overthinking the political dynamics of Congress right now. It boils down to five things:
- Narrow majorities in both chambers, but particularly the House.
- A POUTS unusually disinterested in protecting the House moderates.
- No Senate majority to abolish the filibuster.
- Partisan polarization between the parties.
- Small factions willing to exploit their numerical control of the balance of power.
To wit:
John Thune does not have the votes to abolish the filibuster. It doesn't matter why; the Senators have their reasons.
Therefore, everything that moves through the Senate needs either 60 voters, or needs to qualify for reconciliation.
Mike Johnson only needs a bare majority to pass things in the House. Like any good House leader, he’d like to protect his vulnerable moderates, by passing stuff they campaign on. Unfortunately for him, his right flank will not vote for any moderate-pleasing program, and since they control the balance of power, he cannot let them vote no and still find 218 GOP voters, like you normally would.
The president won’t whip the right flank, in part because he tends to side with them on some of the issues, and also because he doesn’t care about maintaining the majorities. Plus he’s got his own hobby horse legislation to push, which the moderates also hate.
If you don’t have your right flank and they control the balance of power in a small majority, you might go look for 10 votes from the Dems. But partisan polarization means those 10 votes are too far across the chasm, so all you could do is negotiate with the Dem leaders, who will want enough goodies in return that you get 100+ Dems votes.
That’s a likely endgame in any case—big stuff in Congress is usually bipartisan—but you aren’t doing that now, since that could easily endanger your job via a conservative/WH revolt. And you couldn’t even if you wanted to—the Dems aren’t ever going to help you pass the rule, even if they like the bill, because they enjoy watching you twist in the political wind. So you have to start by passing something with your majority. And that means you have to make the bill so conservative that your rebel right-flank will vote for the rule. They will drive a hard bargain. Some of the rebels will, amazingly, still vote no. You will have to eat it.
The moderates hate this, for obvious reasons. But you do it anyway, because the president isn’t giving you much cover to do otherwise. The rebels will give you no credit, because they will always be dissatisfied, and they will have been pressured into some votes as well. Which they will resent.
The bills and budget resolution pass, but they are dead letters in the Senate. You go home claiming you jammed them, but you really just teed things up for them to jam you in September and/or have nothing pass. At that point—be it before the election (CR) or in the lame duck (NDAA, some other stuff?) you will eat their compromise by using Dem votes, and hope it doesn’t cost you your job.
Thune, for his part, will either compromise and return bills that got 73 centrist votes, or he will fail. The only party-line bill exception will be the budget resolution, which may also fail for lack of 50 votes. The Senate rules aren't magic and the 50th GOP Senator has a different ideological outlook than the product of the House process.
Now you are all caught up.