Ominous, or, Your Congressional Forecast

This is what we might call not hopeful; other days we might just call it normal. Either way, Andrew Taylor offers the grim look ahead:

Lawmakers return to Washington this week for an abbreviated election-season session in which they will likely do what they do best: the bare minimum.

All Congress must do this month is keep the government from shutting down on Oct. 1 and, with any luck, finally provide money for the fight against the mosquito-borne Zika virus. Republicans controlling Congress promise they won’t stumble now, but the weeks ahead could prove tricky.

The New Mundane (Petty Grotesquerie)

There are days when we might simply shrug and say, “Yeah, it happens.” But, you know. This happened:

Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) hasn’t yet met with Supreme Court nominee Merrick B. Garland for what has been a long anticipated encounter between the former Judiciary Committee chairman and the federal appeals court judge he has long praised.

But when the meeting does happen, don’t expect Garland to succeed in convincing Hatch to support his nomination, because Hatch has already declared that it won’t.

“Like many of my Senate colleagues, I recently met with Chief Judge Merrick Garland, President Obama’s nominee to the Supreme Court. … Our meeting, however, does not change my conviction that the Senate should consider a Supreme Court nominee after this presidential election cycle,” Hatch wrote in an op-ed published on the website of the Deseret News early Thursday morning and later removed. It remains available in a Google database.

The headline for Mike DeBonis’ Washington Post report is straightforward: “Sen. Orrin Hatch reacts to meeting with Merrick Garland before it occurs”.

Look, the simple fact is that once upon a time politicians used to at least pay lip service to the notion of statesmanship. Certes, the Utah Republican knows this after thirty-nine years in the United States Senate.

It seems futile to complain about such petty grotesquerie; we probably ought to be thankful Republicans aren’t calling for Second Amendment solutions to the Garland nomination. Nonetheless, it’s worth reminding that the presidential contest is neither the only evidence of Republican unfitness to govern nor any manner of surprise. Republicans have labored hard to achieve such depths. The presidential contest is symptomatic. Orrin Hatch’s continued descent is emblematic.

____________________

Image note: Senate Finance Committee Chairman Orrin Hatch (R-UT), left, is flanked by House Speaker Ryan (R-WI), right, while signing the American Manufacturing Competitiveness Act of 2016, on Capitol Hill, 18 May 2016, in Washington, DC. (Photo by Mark Wilson/Getty Images)

DeBonis, Mike. “Sen. Orrin Hatch reacts to meeting with Merrick Garland before it occurs”. The Washington Post. 26 May 2016.

The Rand Paul Show (B-Roll Rules)

It was enough to note Sen. Rand Paul’s (R-KY) tiptoeing fake filibuster that was intended solely to grandstand and annoy his Republican colleagues. And then, of course, he moved on to trying to merchandise the stunt. We ought not, then, be surprised at the latest news from Bridget Bowman for The Hill:

Sen. Rand Paul has lauded his fight against a Patriot Act extension in his presidential campaign, but one campaign video appears to violate Senate rules.

Senate rules state, “The use of any tape duplication of radio or television coverage of the proceedings of the Senate for political campaign purposes is strictly prohibited.” But a video posted by the Kentucky Republican’s campaign Friday appears to violate that rule.

The video, titled “Rand Paul: Filibuster for the Fourth Amendment” lasts one minute and 19 seconds and has garnered nearly 1,000 views. It uses video footage and audio from his May 20 marathon speech on the Senate floor. The video utilizes roughly 20 seconds of video footage of Paul on the floor, and the audio of his speech is then used as b-roll footage of people on the phone and utilizing computers rolls. The audio is also heard as the video shows photos of “Stand with Rand” supporters posing with C-SPAN 2 on in the background as Paul gave his speech.

Because, you know, he’s Rand Paul. Maybe he’ll start his own Rules Committee.

____________________

Bowman, Bridget. “Rand Paul Campaign Video Appears to Violate Senate Rules”. The Hill. 31 May 2015.