Within the early Nineties, then-Sen. Tom Daschle was getting ready for his first one-on-one assembly with then-President Invoice Clinton. He wasn’t altogether positive what to say, so the South Dakota Democrat turned to then-Sen. Robert Byrd for recommendation.
The West Virginian thought for a second earlier than telling Daschle, “You inform him you’re glad to work with him, however not for him.”
This, in fact, is the normal mannequin in American governance. Presidents have all the time had partisan allies on Capitol Hill, however most lawmakers have additionally all the time cared about their very own powers and institutional authorities. Congress is a co-equal department of presidency, and its members have lengthy balked at the concept that they someway work for the White Home.
It’s a indisputable fact that too many Republicans seem to have forgotten. CNN reported this week, for instance, on how one main senator is approaching a few of Donald Trump’s most contentious cupboard nominees.
Republican Sen. Michael Crapo, who will chair the Senate Finance Committee that can maintain affirmation hearings for a number of positions, together with Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to be the Division of Well being and Human Companies secretary, mentioned he’ll settle for no matter Trump needs. “No, I’ll let that be a choice that President Trump makes,” he mentioned when requested if he’ll insist on background checks carried out by the FBI. “My place is what President Trump decides to do is what I’ll help.”
It’s one factor for highly effective senators to successfully grow to be rubber-stamps for his or her occasion’s president; it’s one thing else when highly effective senators successfully admit that they’ve voluntarily grow to be rubber-stamps for his or her occasion’s president.
What’s extra, it’s not simply Crapo. Republican Sen. Tommy Tuberville lately advised Fox Information that Trump and Vice President-elect JD Vance will quickly be “working the Senate.” The Alabaman added that, so far as he’s involved, it’s lower than senators to “decide” whether or not Trump’s cupboard nominees have advantage.
That’s the other of the lesson the coach-turned-politician ought to’ve discovered from Civics 101.
Across the similar time, Republican Rep. Troy Nehls of Texas added, in reference to the president-elect, “He’s obtained a mission assertion, his mission and his targets and targets, no matter that’s, we have to embrace it, all of it, each single phrase. … If Donald Trump says, ‘Soar three ft excessive and scratch your head,’ all of us soar three ft excessive and scratch your heads. That’s it.”
The issue isn’t simply that these GOP lawmakers seem detached to separation of powers and their very own advise-and-consent position. The issue is made worse by the truth that Trump — to a level with out fashionable precedent — is attempting to wrest management away from the legislative department as a part of an unsightly power-grab.
The Washington Submit’s Ruth Marcus lately revealed an essential abstract on this, highlighting the diploma to which the president-elect is setting the stage for an “alarming takeover,” targeted on “an unlimited, harmful and unconstitutional growth of presidential energy.”
This agenda, Marcus added, “contains not simply emasculating the Senate’s advice-and-consent position but additionally refusing to spend cash that lawmakers have appropriated.”
It’s in opposition to this backdrop that senators like Crapo mentioned, “My place is what President Trump decides to do is what I’ll help.”
The Submit’s Aaron Blake mentioned the remark put the Idaho Republican in Congress’ “fealty caucus,” and evidently faction already has too many members.
This submit updates our associated earlier protection.
Steve Benen
Steve Benen is a producer for “The Rachel Maddow Present,” the editor of MaddowBlog and an MSNBC political contributor. He is additionally the bestselling creator of “Ministry of Fact: Democracy, Actuality, and the Republicans’ Struggle on the Current Previous.”