Senate agenda shows lawmakers keep their focus on November
By Devin Henry | 09/09/14
WASHINGTON — It appears to be Messaging Week in the U.S. Senate.
Congress
has returned to work with one main goal before the end of the month —
pass a bill funding the government beyond the end of the fiscal year on
September 30. There’s also a debate simmering over the American response
to ISIS in the Middle East, and President Obama will use a Wednesday
speech to outline what he wants from Congress on that front. Everything
else has taken a back seat until after November’s elections.
But
just because lawmakers are in Washington doesn’t mean they’re taking a
break from playing politics — they’re just doing it a bit more subtly.
Take
the Senate’s agenda this week. Lawmakers are in the middle of a debate
over a constitutional amendment that would overturn the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision,
a measure backed by Minnesota Sens. Amy Klobuchar and Al Franken. The
bill passed a procedural hurdle on Monday, but even Franken, one of
Congress’s biggest Citizens United critics, has no illusions about its passage. He told MSNBC Monday, “I would love to think we’re going to be able to pass this, but we’re not.”
Then,
on Tuesday, Franken and a group of Democrats including Massachusetts
Sen. Elizabeth Warren held a press conference promoting a bill that
would allow federal student loan borrowers to refinance those loans to
lower rates, covering the lost revenue by raising taxes on high-income
earners. The bill is one of Franken’s biggest legislative priorities,
and he’s held events around Minnesota to talk about college
affordability. Franken said the bill could come to the floor for a vote
sometime this week.
But the Senate already voted on the measure in June. Most Republicans voted to block it,
blaming the bill’s tax increases. Franken noted Tuesday that, “we had
three Republican votes … so that’s really close [to breaking the
filibuster],” and Warren said, “since we last voted, everyone’s been
home, and everybody’s heard from the students,” implying that could
change the minds of some opponents. But that seems unlikely.
These
bills are probably going to fail. But by calling them up now, Senate
Democrats will get Republicans to go on the record opposing what could
be very popular provisions with voters — polls tend to show Americans
oppose the Citizens United decision, for example, and loan
refinancing as a concept has some Republican support, just not Franken’s
bill’s funding mechanism (Franken’s opponent, Republican Mike McFadden,
told MinnPost
he supports the idea of refinancing but would pay for it with spending
cuts instead). Democrats will remind voters about this — Franken’s
re-election campaign, in fact, already put out a press release about a potential vote on his bill.
So Congress may be back in session, but lawmakers are most definitely keeping their eyes on Nov. 4.
Devin Henry can be reached at dhenry@minnpost.com. Follow him on Twitter: @dhenry
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