The e-mails of The Washington Post's chief congressional reporter Paul Kane are legendary. Witty and informative, PK's e-mails tell you how Capitol Hill really works. In an attempt to show that to Fix readers, every month or so PK and I have an e-mail exchange about a topic on our minds -- and publish it. This week, we tackled what the 113th Congress meant and whether any of the rising stars in either party will stick around Congress long enough to become legends.
FIX: OK, PK. The 113th Congress is a wrap! And it's rap — see what I did there? -- is that it didn't do much of anything. So, looking back, what is the legacy of the 113th? Least productive ever? Least cooperative ever? Or something else entirely?
PK: Hah, nice pun, or, whatever that was. The sad thing is, the 113th isn't quite wrapped up, because there's gonna be a lame-duck session after the election, and when it's all said and done, the lame duck might be more consequential than the entire 22 months that preceded it. These first 22 months have been so blah, by any possible measure, that the last two months, which could include legislation to allow state sales tax on Internet purchases, authorizing new war footing for our military in Iraq and Syria, and an extension for popular-but-narrow tax breaks like the R&D credit, are likely to be more significant than the previous 22 months.
There was much written that the 112th Congress produced the fewest laws and was the least productive, but the 113th is on pace to blow it away. Worst of all, through the chaos of the 2011 and 2012 fiscal showdowns in the 112th, what emerged was some of the most significant fiscal doctrine of this young century. The Budget Control Act of 2011, forged after an epic debt ceiling showdown, is forcing more than $2 trillion in spending cuts. The American Taxpayer Relief Act, as the legislation is called that ended the 2012 New Year's Eve fiscal cliff standoff, was the most significant piece of tax legislation this century, raising nearly $700 billion worth of taxes on the wealthy while also creating permanent fixes to the estate tax and the Alternative Minimum Tax.
That was some ugly sausage making back then, but at least in the 112th, the sausage ended up cooked. In 2013 and 2014, the 113th Congress just kept the government lights on -- and for nearly three weeks last October, lawmakers couldn't even do that.
FIX: OK, so let's look forward. Republicans will (still) hold the House after the November election and have a slightly better than 50-50 chance — at the moment — of taking control of the Senate. Let's say all of that comes to pass; Republicans have unified control of Congress with two years left on Barack Obama's presidency. What changes? Anything?
My sense — admittedly as someone not up on Capitol Hill every day covering the story — is that neither John Boehner nor Mitch McConnell (assuming he a) gets reelected and b) gets elected Majority Leader) aren't terribly keen on standing up to the tea party elements within their base and working with President Obama on big ticket items like debt and spending or immigration. In fact, McConnell has given interviews where he suggests that his main goal will be to roll back some of the things passed by a Democratic Senate and Obama.
Given that, is it safe to assume that the 114th Congress could make the 113th look like the peak of productivity?
PK: Yes, sadly, the overall view of the next Congress, from 30,000 feet, is not likely to be any more beautiful than the current mess. That’s the case whether Republicans control both chambers or if it remains a divided Congress. The reality is, the can has been kicked into next year on a number of issues that will create, rather than one big fiscal cliff, a series of small hills to climb: the “Doc Fix” in March, the highway fund expiring in May, Ex-Im Bank in June and debt ceiling sometime in early summer.
The Republicans, if they win the Senate, must choose between a series of big challenges to Obama or whether they want to at least begin with a few easy victories. Using a football metaphor, do they go deep with a series of go-for-broke touchdown passes on bigger energy, healthy and tax bills? Or do they use a more ‘West Coast Offense’ approach by getting a few easy wins/first downs by just passing bipartisan things like the Keystone pipeline and repealing the medical device tax?
There are some optimists who believe that the next Congress might look a little bit better on the ground level here in the Capitol. This view, held by some Republicans and Democrats, is that the process is going to be better, that especially in the Senate the process is going to open up and, whichever party is in the minority, will get their fair share of amendments and some senators will have to take a few tough votes.
If this happens, it could allow for more legislative give and take in the Senate, push a few modest pieces of legislation through the pipeline and – possibly – begin to teach many of these relatively new lawmakers in both chambers how it’s actually supposed to work.
This will likely require some of these newcomers on each side to essentially buck their leadership, to compel Harry Reid and Mitch McConnell to trust them and let the process work, build some trust and see what happens. I’m not sure this is going to happen, and in the grand scheme of things, it won’t lead to really big things getting done, but if it does, we might see the foundation being laid for the next generation of leaders to finally step up.
FIX: I L-O-V-E talk of the up and comers we should pay attention to. So much of that "who's next" talk is focused on running for president though. From the second Marco Rubio, Ted Cruz and Rand Paul got elected to the Senate, they've had their eye on national office. But, we (or at least I) don't hear nearly as much about the people who might be the next McConnell or Reid or Boehner or Pelosi — the legislative giants (or giants in waiting).
So, who are they? And is there a potential leadership race for one of the lesser leadership gigs that will be the fight to be the Next Big Thing in Congress?
PK: The next big thing question is one of the most frustrating, when you talk to the smart people in Washington. The leadership structure in all four congressional caucuses has been amazingly static – Pelosi, top House Dem for 12 years; Boehner, top House Republican for 8 years; Reid, top Senate Dem for 10 years; McConnell, top Senate Republican for 8 years.
There are people in each of the caucuses who are holding lower-level leadership posts, all sorta waiting and hoping and angling to jump into the succession lines if and when any of those Big Four leaders retire or lose re-election. But those junior members of leadership really are clones of who is currently in leadership, people who won’t really jolt Congress in a much different direction. Deeper down, among the rank-and-file, there are a few people who seem truly gifted who could really be fascinating should they decide to seek out the leadership route.
But in each of their cases, the first thing those rising stars need to decide is: What is their own ambition?
Here are four from all four caucuses: Tim Kaine, Marco Rubio, Joe Kennedy III, Paul Ryan.
Kaine is one of the most respected new senators in the building, hands down, just really appreciated for his genuine earnest approach to legislating and actually reading his briefing book. He would seem to make a great Democratic leader someday, but … he’s from Virginia, a swing state, a proven vote getter there. Won’t he be on everyone’s short list for VP in 2016?
Rubio, everyone knows how much ambition he has and he seems poised to run for president in 2016, but man, he demonstrated some genuine leadership in the Senate 15 months ago when he became the lead spokesman/defender of the bipartisan immigration bill. It was courageous the way he defended it, again and again, and then the bill fell flat and he seemed to walk away from it. It’s frustrating, because you saw the glimpse of senatorial greatness there, but then you saw presidential ambition get in the way.
Joe Kennedy, man oh man, this is the ultimate weapon in the Kennedy family. He’s really smart, good looking, appears to have none of the family baggage, and through his time at Stanford, has built his own fundraising network that is unique from his great uncles. He’s my choice to run the [Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee] in the near future, and then maybe early next decade he’d be poised to do something no one in his family has ever done – become speaker of the House. Then again, it’s no secret that Kennedys always think statewide, and beyond. Will he stick around long enough in the House to truly change the arc of that raucous institution?
And Prince Paul, the man every House Republican pines for, already a national figure thanks to Mitt Romney in 2012. Ryan is, time and again, pointed to as the one Republican who bridges the divide in the House GOP caucus. But he never wants to jump into leadership, happy to stand on the sidelines in committee hearing rooms.
Let me name four women who could also be game-changers for the House and Senate: [New York Sen.] Kirsten Gillibrand, [Hawaii Rep.] Tulsi Gabbard, [New Hampshire Sen.] Kelly Ayotte, and, once she gets sworn in in January, [Utah House candidate] Mia Love. All four of them are dynamic in their own way and have already made impacts on these institutions. It’s entirely unclear though that any want real leadership roles in Congress.
Do the great ones really want to stick around here and do the dirty task of making Congress work again?
