News Journal: What will the next two years be like in Washington?

I’ve been involved in national politics for the past 40 years, and I like to think I can put aside my own beliefs to take a cold hard look at political realities. Believe it or not, I’ve had many discussions over the years with professionals on the other side where we were in nearly total agreement about the political landscape. I think many of them would agree with my take on what’s about to happen.
First, let’s put the midterms in some perspective. Yes, the Democrats took a beating. But since the Civil War, in all but one midterm election in a president’s second term, the party out of power has made sizable gains. In fact, the Republican gains in the House and the Senate this year were very much in line with the average gains of the party out of power in past midterms – gains in the House a bit lower, in the Senate a bit higher.
Second, of the nine Senate seats Democrats lost, seven were in states that had been won by Romney in 2012. In 2016, there will be nine Republican senators running for re-election in states won by Obama.
The one thing virtually everyone – Republican or Democrat – agrees on is that both the low turnout in 2014 and the anti-Obama vote were caused by the electorate’s revulsion with the gridlock in Washington. No matter what people like me think has been the main cause of the gridlock, most voters as well as non-voters blamed the guy in charge – the president.
I don’t doubt that both Speaker of the House John Boehner and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell would like to pass meaningful legislation in the next two years. But they are going to have to overcome a few political difficulties before they do that.
Start with the fact that it looks like at least three Republican senators – Ted Cruz, Rand Paul and Marco Rubio – will be actively seeking their party’s 2016 nomination for president. They will be staking out different positions, and it is already clear there are major policy differences among them. Each will have supporters in the new Senate. Mitch McConnell is a canny legislative leader, but herding cats might be easier.
Congressional Republicans have united on one central issue during the past two years – to thwart just about anything Obama proposes. Now they are faced with a new reality. When you control both houses of Congress, you are expected to govern. But how? There seems to be a very clear difference of opinion within the party.
On the one hand, Boehner and McConnell have both said there will be no government shutdown and have laid out what they call a “small bore” agenda that starts with authorizing the Keystone XL pipeline and reforming the tax code. That may be enough for the Chamber of Commerce wing of the party, but not for the tea party base. “I think the members of the leadership need to decide what they’re willing to shut down the government over,” said Thomas J. Filton, president of Judicial Watch. Relishing a House of Representatives that will be even more conservative than the last one, Freedom Works Vice President Adam Brandon says, “There’s going to be an opportunity to put some real kick-ass policies on the floor of the Senate.”
It now seems likely there will be 54 Republicans in the new Senate. That’s a good majority, but far short of the 60 votes needed to pass legislation over a Democratic filibuster. I expect the tea party wing to pressure McConnell to do away with the filibuster. Will he do so, after his party has spent six years setting new records for using it? Maybe, but he has to keep in mind those nine Republican senators up for re-election in two years in blue states. They definitely don’t want to run on a tea party record. Even if McConnell does end the filibuster, it would take an unreachable 67 Senate votes to reverse a presidential veto.
If the new House follows Mr. Brandon’s advice and sends “kick-ass” bills to the Senate and the filibuster is still in effect, every one of those bills will die there.
So what’s going to happen? My cold hard political crystal ball isn’t clear enough for definitive predictions. But I do believe that McConnell and Boehner will make a real effort to persuade their members to find some compromises with the Democratic minority. I think we will know by next March whether they are going to be successful. If not, we are in for another grim two years of gridlock.
Read all of former U.S. Sen. Ted Kaufman’s columns at tedkaufman.com.