Sen. Mitch McConnell speaks to the media last week; Sen. John Cornyn (R-Tex.), who sponsored the anti-human-trafficking bill, is on the right. (Mark Wilson/Getty Images)
The adults were supposed to be in charge.
With the fractious House of Representatives on recess last week, Republican leaders in the Senate had high hopes of making good on promises of capable governing, starting with passage of a noncontroversial measure cracking down on human trafficking.
But the bill quickly became entangled in partisan skirmishing, thanks to a divisive provision that went unnoticed for months by Democrats, even as they voted to advance it. The battle lines have since expanded, with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) promising to hold up a long-awaited confirmation vote on Loretta Lynch, President Obama’s pick for attorney general.
Meanwhile, an emerging consensus on staking out a congressional role in a potential nuclear accord with Iran eroded after the vast majority of Republican senators signed a letter to the Iranian regime seeking to influence — some say derail — the negotiations.
It now appears that a perfect storm of polarizing issues — abortion, immigration and the limits of Obama’s executive authority — has made it impossible for the Senate to get even the most basic work done. And the pileup comes just as matters such as the federal budget, Medicare fees and highway spending loom on the horizon.
“Life is very simple, but we insist on making it complicated,” Minority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) said Monday as the Senate kicked off a new week of business.
The current gridlock is due to and symbolized by the Justice for Victims of Trafficking Act, authored by Sen. John Cornyn (R-Tex.) and co-sponsored by numerous Democrats. That legislation would increase penalties for those convicted of slavery, human smuggling and sexual exploitation of children and provide for additional compensation for their victims.
It is largely similar to a bill that passed the Republican-led House last year and advanced through the Senate, stopping just short of a floor vote. At the start of last week, in bringing the measure to the Senate floor, Reid and McConnell joined in calling for quick passage.
But by last Tuesday, the show of comity had devolved into dueling accusations and rampant finger-pointing, with Democrats accusing Republicans of slipping anti-abortion language into the bill. Since then, Republicans and Democrats have only sharpened their rhetoric and further entrenched their positions as each party sees political advantage in the gridlock.
“It would be a real shame and a tragedy if something that was designed to help these vulnerable kids was killed in the Senate because this became a political football,” Cornyn said Thursday.
Democrats have accused Republicans of “trying to pull a fast one,” in the words of Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.), by inserting abortion language — similar to the funding restrictions that have long been attached to federal appropriations — to the authorization language for a new fund for victims.
Democratic staffers pointed to an early-January e-mail, reviewed by The Washington Post, in which a Republican staffer for the Judiciary Committee sent a Democratic staffer a summary of changes to the previous version of the bill. The abortion provision was not among them.
But Republicans have countered that Democrats simply could have read the bill: The language was in plain view for nearly two months and passed a committee vote without objection. And Republicans have seized on the fact that the oversight has now led Democrats to filibuster a bill they had supported only weeks before.
Anti-trafficking advocates said they were hopeful that female senators of both parties would take a leading role in brokering a compromise.
Melysa Sperber, director of the Alliance to End Slavery & Trafficking, said it has been an “extraordinary disappointment” to see the partisan wrangling. “The consensus that we forged over two years should not unravel in one week,” she said.
Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) said Monday that she did not consider the abortion provision in the trafficking bill “new or unusual” but that she was in talks with colleagues about a compromise. “I hope we can come to some agreement . . . so we can get the bill unstuck,” she said. “I think it would be unfortunate if we can’t.”
But Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.) said McConnell’s threat not to move on Lynch was “probably not the way to get the women senators all warm and fuzzy.”
“It’s insulting to all of us women, especially those of us who have been prosecutors, that she’s being treated this way,” she said. “We’re willing to work with them, but they can’t keep waving red meat in order to slow down the process. Let’s take the trafficking bill we all agreed to last year and pass it.”
Senators are scheduled to take a procedural vote Tuesday morning to wrap up debate and bring the anti-trafficking measure to a vote. With abortion rights groups steadfastly opposed to any expansion of federal funding restrictions, enough Democrats are expected to oppose moving forward to keep the bill in limbo.
That could keep the Senate bottled up well into spring. McConnell, appearing Sunday on CNN, said he would not allow the Senate to proceed to the Lynch nomination — pending in the Senate since November — until consideration of the anti-trafficking bill is complete. “If we can’t finish the trafficking bill, she will be put off again,” McConnell said. “They need to come to grips with this.”
Lynch’s nomination was advanced by the Senate Judiciary Committee in a closely divided vote three weeks ago, and while her confirmation appears likely, it is not assured. Numerous Republican senators have declared their discomfort with or outright opposition to Lynch, citing her comments in support of Obama’s executive orders offering temporary legal status to millions of illegal immigrants.
That includes McConnell, who said Sunday that he remains undecided: “I think the attorney general nominee is suffering from the president’s actions. There’s no question about it.”
If the standoff continues, it could be mid-April before a vote on Lynch comes to the Senate floor. Next week, both houses of Congress are expected to take up budget legislation and possibly a “doc fix” bill that would permanently adjust Medicare fees. A two-week recess for both houses follows.
On Monday, neither side showed any willingness to move toward compromise.
Cornyn, speaking on the Senate floor, noted that Democrats have previously voted for similar abortion language, including in the spending bill passed in December.For Democrats to be willing to hold up the anti-trafficking bill now, he said, “It’s really unconscionable, and it’s shameful, and more than that, it’s just simply baffling to me.”
Meanwhile, Democrats see political advantage in painting the Republicans as willing to hold up the anti-trafficking bill over the abortion measure, and, in the process, delay the confirmation of Lynch, who would be the nation’s second female attorney general.
“You’ve got to hand it to Republicans, that they’ve taken even a measure as common sense as [combating child sex trafficking] and turned it into a partisan controversy,” White House spokesman Josh Earnest said Monday. “The fact that leader McConnell can’t build bipartisan support for a child sex-trafficking bill, I think is an indication that his leadership here in the majority is not off to a very strong start.”
