Sinema Verite', Con't

While she will still caucus with the Democrats, for now at least, Arizona Sen. Kyrsten Sinema says she's leaving the Democratic party to register as an independent.

 

Arizona Sen. Kyrsten Sinema is changing her party affiliation to independent, delivering a jolt to Democrats’ narrow majority and Washington along with it.

In a 45-minute interview, the first-term senator told POLITICO that she will not caucus with Republicans and suggested that she intends to vote the same way she has for four years in the Senate. “Nothing will change about my values or my behavior,” she said.

Provided that Sinema sticks to that vow, Democrats will still have a workable Senate majority in the next Congress, though it will not exactly be the neat and tidy 51 seats they assumed. They’re expected to also have the votes to control Senate committees. And Sinema’s move means Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) — a pivotal swing vote in the 50-50 chamber the past two years — will hold onto some but not all of his outsized influence in the Democratic caucus.

Sinema would not address whether she will run for reelection in 2024, and informed Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer of her decision on Thursday.

“I don’t anticipate that anything will change about the Senate structure,” Sinema said, adding that some of the exact mechanics of how her switch affects the chamber is “a question for Chuck Schumer … I intend to show up to work, do the same work that I always do. I just intend to show up to work as an independent.”

 

What it means is if the last two years in the Senate was all about Chuck Schumer about keeping Joe Manchin happy, the next two now mean keeping Sinema from caucusing with the GOP, she might do in order to force another two years of 50-50 Senate power sharing, and even if the Dems can somehow magically defend all their other 2024 seats, we're stuck with Co-President Sinema for a long time.

But the big thing is that it now means any sort of primary challenge to her in 2024 is doomed and would assure someone like Blake Masters would win easily. She knew she was facing political oblivion if she stayed a Democrat as Rep. Ruben Gallego was waiting for his opportunity to knock her out of the running.

Now she can safely say that it's her way or the GOP. A three way race would go to the GOP, every time. Kyrsten Sinema did this to save Kyrsten Sinema's narrow ass, full stop. The caucusing with the GOP threat is secondary if she can't stay in her seat.

On the gripping hand, maybe she's just doing this for the lobbyist cred and she won't run in 2024 at all.

The Independent thing worked for Bernie, and worked for Angus King in Maine. It'll work for her if she wants it to.

We'll see.

Biden Burned By BATF Bid

Senate Democrats have all but killed the Biden administration's nomination of gun safety advocate David Chipman to run the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, with all 50 Republicans against him, and at least three Democrats looking to vote him down.

The White House is planning to withdraw David Chipman's nomination to lead the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, according to three sources close to the process.

Chipman is currently a senior policy advisor to Giffords, a gun control group, and faced an uphill battle to Senate confirmation as President Joe Biden's point person on firearms regulation. Sen. Angus King (I-Maine) had previously told the Biden administration and Senate Democrats that he was not supportive of the nominee. Other moderate Democratic senators, including Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Jon Tester of Montana, have also remained noncommittal on the pick.

Chipman, meanwhile, faced universal opposition from Senate Republicans. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell described the nominee as an "anti-gun extremist" and asked for the White House to withdraw his nomination.

The White House declined to comment on the imminent yanking of the nomination. It's unclear when the formal withdrawal of Chipman's nomination will take place, though it could happen as soon as this week.

During his confirmation hearing, Senate Republicans pressed Chipman over a recent interview in which he said new gun owners who have no training should only bring their guns out "if the zombies start to appear." The nominee responded that the comments were “self-deprecating.”

The committee deadlocked on the nomination along party lines, which would have forced the Senate to vote to discharge him.

Chipman isn’t the only high profile White House nominee to be withdrawn amid opposition from members of the Democratic caucus. Neera Tanden, Biden’s initial pick to lead the White House Office of Management and Budget, withdrew in March amid opposition from Manchin and all 50 Senate Republicans.

Tanden ultimately joined the White House in a non-Senate-confirmed capacity as a senior adviser, however, and Chipman may also find a path into the Biden administration. The White House has offered Chipman a role at the Justice Department, per a source familiar.

 

Republicans have been able to block almost every ATF Director since the NRA lobbied the Senate to require Senate confirmation for the post after Ruby Ridge in 2006, the exception was Todd Jones in 2013, and he quit two years later.  Acting ATF heads are in fact normal, even Trump couldn't get his acting director nominee a hearing and didn't bother as Regina Lombardo is still in charge.

Still, multiple Democratic senators saying no to Chipman is a reminder that rural red states with blue senators still pull way above their weight class when it comes to determining our nation's laws, and that I expect that to continue for a long, long time.

Last Call For The Blue Dogs Bite Back

It's not just Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema who understand that they can exercise all the demands they want to when all 50 Democratic senators have to vote, and need 10 Republicans to pass a filibuster. There are plenty of Blue Dog Dem senators waiting in the wings with agendas of their own on upcoming spending bills...and how to pay for them.

“At some point we’ve got to start paying for things,” said Sen. Angus King (I-Maine), who caucuses with the Democrats and is worried higher interest rates could become an albatross on the economy. “It’s got to be paid for. It’s just a question of who pays. Are we going to pay or our kids going to pay?”

Democrats — and Republicans, at least until Donald Trump left office — have shrugged off oceans of red ink over the past year as the U.S. confronted its worst public health crisis in a century. In just 12 months, Congress will have spent nearly $6 trillion fighting the virus and staving off economic free fall.

With an endpoint potentially coming into view, however, some moderate Democrats say it’s time for Congress to recover some semblance of fiscal pragmatism. That means Biden’s next major legislative priority can’t simply rack up more debt in a bid to remodel America’s crumbling physical infrastructure. And that could make things a lot tougher for Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

“Some of it needs to be paid for,” said Sen. Jon Tester (D-Mont.), who suggested an “all of the above” strategy for paying for an infrastructure package that includes spending cuts and raising new revenues.

“You’re going to remind me of this [later] when none of it’s paid for,” he deadpanned, “but I do think some of it needs to be paid for.”

Generating new revenue for infrastructure typically involves a debate about raising the federal gas tax, an idea so politically toxic that it’s been stagnant since 1993 and already repudiated by the Biden administration. Other ideas include charging fees based on the number of miles traveled, which raises privacy concerns with some politicians, or perhaps embracing unrelated tax increases on the wealthy to raise money for roads, rails and public transportation.

House Budget Chair John Yarmuth (D-Ky.) said Democrats are working under the “assumption” they’ll pay for at least some of an infrastructure measure, but he dismissed the idea that they could cover the entire cost.

“I think that’s unrealistic, given what everyone assumes the size of this is going to be,” Yarmuth said, noting that talks are ongoing.

Biden and top Democrats say they are committed to bringing Republicans on board for their plan. That bipartisan coordination would ensure the GOP helps carry the bill and sell it with the public.

But many senior Democrats are skeptical after such fierce opposition to Biden's coronavirus plan. They don’t trust GOP leaders to be serious in the process, and they're already in discussions about again using the budget reconciliation process to muscle through Biden’s next big bill on a party-line vote, sidestepping the risk of a Republican filibuster.

 

If even Jon Tester, Angus King, and Kentucky's only Democrat, John Yarmuth are sounding straight-up like Republican spending scolds, it's going to be a grim journey ahead for badly needed infrastructure spending, even if things do go to budget reconciliation and around the GOP roadblock.

Don't expect much from this as far as becoming law.

Russian To Judgment, Con't

America's intelligence agencies all agree that Russia will attack the 2018 midterm elections, and warn that both Donald Trump and the GOP-led Congress need to do far more to protect the country's electoral process.

Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats said Tuesday "there should be no doubt" that Russia sees the 2018 US elections as a target. 

Coats and the other top national security officials told the Senate Intelligence Committee that they still view Moscow as a threat to the 2018 elections, a stance that appears at odds with President Donald Trump's repeated dismissals of Russian election meddling. 

"We expect Russia to continue using propaganda, social media, false-flag personas, sympathetic spokesmen and other means to influence, to try to build on its wide range of operations and exacerbate social and political fissures in the United States," Coats said at a hearing on worldwide threats. "There should be no doubt that Russia perceives its past efforts as successful and views the 2018 US midterm elections as a potential target for Russian influence operations." 

Tuesday's hearing touched on a wide array of threats, from North Korea to China to weapons of mass destruction. But Russia's interference into US and other elections loomed large amid the committee's investigation into Russian election meddling and the Trump campaign's possible collusion with Russian officials. 

Virginia Sen. Mark Warner, the committee's top Democrat, warned that the US was not prepared to handle the Russian threat to US elections heading into the midterms. 

"We've had more than a year to get our act together and address the threat posed by Russia and implement a strategy to deter future attacks. But we still do not have a plan," Warner said. 

Warner questioned Coats and the other officials testifying — CIA Director Mike Pompeo, FBI Director Chris Wray, NSA Director Adm. Michael Rogers, Defense Intelligence Agency Director Lt. Gen. Robert Ashley and National Geospatial Intelligence Agency Director Robert Cardillo — about how the government was addressing the threat to both the US election systems and through social media. He asked all six of the US officials testifying to reaffirm the intelligence community's findings last year that Russia interfered in the 2016 election, and that the Kremlin will continue to intervene in future elections. All said yes. 

Democrats pointed to that unanimous assessment to criticize Trump for maintaining a contrasting view to his own intelligence community. 

Sen. Angus King, I-Maine, urged the intelligence chiefs to persuade the President to accept their findings that Russia interfered in the 2016 election. 

"My problem is, I talk to people in Maine who say the whole thing is a witch hunt and a hoax 'because the President told me,'" King said. "There's no doubt, as you all have testified today, we cannot confront this threat, which is a serious one, with a whole of government response when the leader of the government continues to that deny it exists."

That denial of course is part and parcel of the problem with Trump.  He can't publicly admit that Russia interfered with the election, because the facade he's hiding behind ends the moment he does.

Trump has been skeptical about the intelligence assessment that Russia meddled ever since he was first briefed on the issue during the presidential transition. But that skepticism has endured even after Trump hand-selected his own intel chiefs and they reiterated the conclusions of their predecessors. 

Trump has only begrudgingly acknowledged that Russia may have interfered in the election. In a press conference as president-elect, Trump said, "As far as hacking, I think it was Russia. But I think we also get hacked by other countries and other people." At a June 2017 press conference in Poland, he again said Russia meddled in the election, but added that "other people and other countries" likely did as well. 

More often, Trump has cast doubt on accusations of Russian meddling. He has questioned whether the Russians were responsible for hacking the Democratic National Committee, and he has called the entire "Russia story" a hoax perpetuated by angry Democrats. He even convinced Pompeo to personally meet with a conspiracy theorist who denies that Russia hacked the DNC. 

Trump caused a stir during his trip to Asia when he suggested that he believed Russian President Vladimir Putin's denials that his government meddled in the election. Trump and Putin met several times on the sidelines of the APEC summit in Vietnam. "Every time he sees me, he says, 'I didn't do that,'" Trump said. "And I believe, I really believe, that when he tells me that, he means it." 

But members of Trump's cabinet have bucked Trump and sided with the intelligence community including Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and US Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley, who said in October: "When a country can come interfere in another country's elections, that is warfare." 

Tuesday's hearing was the latest opportunity for Democrats to pounce on the conflicting messages coming from the intelligence chiefs and their commander in chief. Maine Sen. Angus King, an independent who caucuses with Democrats, urged the intelligence officials to convince Trump that the issue of collusion was separate from election meddling.

Trump's ego won't allow the admission, because it would be an admission of guilt.  Legally and politically it would be his near-immediate end, and any other person on earth would have resigned long ago.

But Donald Trump is a unique brand of evil bastard.  And so we pretend that the orange schlub somehow didn't benefit from Russian interference (and from James Comey's timely October 2016 surprise) and America continues to normalize the fact we're under a lawless regime led by a racist, misogynist abusive idiot.

The Sinister Six

Senate Republicans seem pretty confident they can get things past a Democratic filibuster in the Senate to force president Obama to veto things.  There's three scenarios there: 

1. Mitch McConnell will use budget reconciliation tricks to require a 51-vote majority with no filibuster on things like Obamacare,
2. Senate Republicans will get rid of/severely limit the filibuster altogether,
3. There's enough Democrats that will vote with the GOP to break a 60-vote filibuster.

TPM's Sahil Kapur looks at scenario three there and identifies six Dems who can be flipped.  Regular readers should be able to guess who they are already.

If he does manage to keep his caucus united, here are McConnell's six top Democratic prospects for reaching 60 votes.

Sen. Claire McCaskill of Missouri

It took Todd Akin of "legitimate rape" notoriety to save McCaskill from electoral doom in 2012, and this second-term Missourian recognizes that she can't vote in lock-step with her party if she wants to stay in the good graces of her conservative-leaning state. Look for her to side with Republicans from time to time to appease her right flank, on issues such as the Keystone pipeline. 

Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia

This conservative Democrat has always looked for ways to make himself attractive to West Virginians, from literally shooting the cap-and-trade bill in a campaign ad to voting against Reid on filibuster reform. With the ranks of conservative Democrats diminished in the wake of the 2014 blowout, Manchin will look for opportunities to tout his bipartisan bona fides. 

Sen. Heidi Heitkamp of North Dakota

Heitkamp won her first Senate election in 2012 by a razor-thin 1 percent margin in deep-red North Dakota. Not shy about breaking with her party, she was one of just four Democrats who voted to block the popular gun background checks legislation in 2013 — the other three have retired or lost reelection. Expect her to hunt for issues where she can align herself with the new Republican majority. 

Sen. Joe Donnelly of Indiana

Donnelly largely owes his seat to Indiana Republicans who threw out an untouchable incumbent in 2012 in favor of a candidate to imploded amid a rape gaffe in the general election. One of the more conservative Democrats, he'll likely be willing to partner with McConnell's Republicans in some cases, such as reversing the 30-hour work week definition under Obamacare. 

Sen. Angus King of Maine

King, a progressive-leaning independent who says he'll continue to caucus with Democrats, has often looked for ways to polish his nonpartisan credentials. In two years as a senator, King has tried to play deal-maker and split with Democrats on issues like gun control and student loans. 

Sen. Jon Tester of Montana

Tester survived reelection in the Democrat-friendly year of 2012, but his party got wiped out this year in the race for Montana's other Senate seat. Tester has been willing to buck Democratic leaders at times, most notably when he helped kill the DREAM Act by filibuster in 2010.

Of those six, Manchin and King are going to be the largest problems, but McCaskill is wholly involved in her own self-aggrandizement as well, and the rest can be counted on from time to time to play the same role Olympia Snowe did as a Maine Republican and Evan Bayh did as an Indiana Democrat: the person who will make the call on pass or fail and who can extract the most from both sides.

Manchin is especially keen on allowing the GOP majority to pass bills.

Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV) made in clear in an interview published Monday that he has no plans to support Democrats who want to take a page out of the GOP playbook by obstructing the new Republican majority. 

"That's bullshi—…. I'm not going to put up with that," Manchin told Politico when discussing the prospect of Democrats blocking the Republican agenda over the next two years. 

Manchin didn't appear to be alone either. Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-MO) also talked about the need to get something done. 

"Our caucus needs to take a hard look at the way we do things and make sure we are putting the policy issues first before politics," McCaskill told Politico. "The habit we got into in doing nothing, no one was happy with that. I hope that we never go back to that."

In other words, if you thought President Snowe jokes were annoyingly accurate in 2009, you've not seen anything yet with these six lovely individuals, who won't waste a minute in rushing to screw over Obama heading into 2016.

And Manchin?  Well, don't be surprised if he decides to stay in West Virginia and run for Governor again, opening the door for a second GOP senator from that state in 2016 to go along with Shelly Moore Capito's win last week.

What a guy, huh?

Last Call For Angus Flipper King

I swore that Maine Independent Sen. Angus King was going to ditch the Dems for the GOP back in April after the midterms should the Republicans win the Senate.  Hell, Angus King said as much.

Sen. Angus King (I-Maine), who caucuses with the Democrats, will decide after the midterm elections whether to switch sides and join the Republicans.

He is leaving open the possibility of aligning himself with the GOP if control of the upper chamber changes hands.“I’ll make my decision at the time based on what I think is best for Maine,” King told The Hill Wednesday after voting with Republicans to block the Paycheck Fairness Act, a measure at the center for the 2014 Democratic campaign agenda.

But apparently not only was I wrong, so was Angus King.

Angus King: "I have decided to remain with the Democratic caucus."
— Mike Memoli (@mikememoli) November 5, 2014

.@SenAngusKing: "I think it's In Maine's interests to have a senator in each camp." Sen. Collins will be in GOP majority
— Mike Memoli (@mikememoli) November 5, 2014

So for now, Flipper hasn't jumped.

Whether or not he'll vote with the Dems, well.  That's a whole 'nother thing.

The Angus King Special In Kansas

Two years ago retiring Maine GOP Sen. Olympia Snowe was replaced by Independent former Gov. Angus King after Democrat Cynthia Dill was all but driven out of a race that she couldn't win by her own party.  The logic was that since Dill didn't have a chance, the Democratic party backed King.  It paid off, he won and joined Harry Reid's caucus.

This week it looks like the same play is happening in Kansas.  This time, however, the Democrat is dropping out of the race entirely.  Nate Silver crunches the numbers:

Kansas, however, had become an under-the-radar opportunity for Democrats. The Republican incumbent there, Pat Roberts, barely survived his primary and has extremely low approval ratings. Several recent polls had put the race in single digits between Roberts and his Democratic opponent, Chad Taylor, with the independent candidate Greg Orman getting about 20 percent of the vote. As of Wednesday, the FiveThirtyEight forecast gave Roberts an 80 percent chance of winning. That’s not bad, but it’s not any better than McConnell, who also has about an 80 percent chance of holding on in a race that has gotten far more attention.

Late Wednesday afternoon, however, Taylor announced his withdrawal from the race, setting up a contest between Orman and Roberts. (There is also a Libertarian candidate, Randall Baston, on the ballot.)

Why would Taylor leave the race right when polls showed it tightening?

Perhaps because he and Orman share a lot in common philosophically. Based on the ideological ratings we track (more background on those here), both Taylor and Orman rate as the equivalent of moderate Democrats. Orman, in fact, ran as a Democratic candidate for the Senate in 2008, although he withdrew from the race during the primary.

But Orman had raised more money than Taylor — about $625,000 in individual contributions to Taylor’s $120,000 as of July 13 — and probably had more momentum, having recently received endorsements from a bipartisan group of legislators.

There was also a recent survey, from Public Policy Polling (PPP), which showed Orman ahead of Roberts 43-33 in a potential two-way race. The same poll had shown Taylor trailing Roberts by 4 percentage points in the event Orman dropped out.

If the PPP survey is accurate, this is a huge problem for Republicans. Suddenly, they’re behind in a race against a former Democrat who might caucus with the Democratic Party should he make it to the Senate.

Republicans meanwhile are scrambling to try to keep Roberts in the race, and they figure they can do it if they force ballots to still have Chad Taylor's name on them, confusing voters.  Because that's how Republicans win, you know.

But, if Kansas is now in play, control of the Senate may hinge on which side Orman and Angus King in Maine side with as independents.   The answer may not automatically be "siding with the Democrats" in either case.

Either way, we'll keep an eye on Kansas.

Angus The King Maker

Me, on Charlie Cook's call for a GOP Senate wipeout of Dems back on March 6:

In other words, Cook is predicting the GOP getting 58 seats if everything breaks their way.  That would put them in range of 60, especially if such a crushing margin caused Maine Independent Angus King to flip from caucusing with the Dems.  That would be 59.

The Hill's Alexander Bolton, this morning:

Sen. Angus King (I-Maine), who caucuses with the Democrats, will decide after the midterm elections whether to switch sides and join the Republicans.

He is leaving open the possibility of aligning himself with the GOP if control of the upper chamber changes hands.“I’ll make my decision at the time based on what I think is best for Maine,” King told The Hill Wednesday after voting with Republicans to block the Paycheck Fairness Act, a measure at the center for the 2014 Democratic campaign agenda.

King’s remarks are a clear indication that congressional leaders on both sides of the aisle will have to woo the 70-year-old senator in order to recruit him to their side.

So Angus King is even more of an opportunist than I originally thought.  He will caucus with whichever party controls the Senate, so if the GOP does pick up six seats, he'll bolt to join them.

Then again, he did give that game away in 2012.

King said after the 2012 elections that being in the majority was important to him, when he announced his decision to caucus with Senate Democrats, giving them control of 55 seats.

“The outcome of last week’s election in some ways makes this decision relatively easy. In the situation where one party has a clear majority and effectiveness is an important criteria, affiliating with the majority makes the most sense,” King said at the time.

That will remain in play, apparently.  New tag: Angus "Flipper" King.