President Obama’s approval ratings are in the 30s and 40s, yet it’s possible they’d be even lower if it weren’t for his human shield: Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid.
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Reid’s purpose in life for the last six years hasn’t been representing the American people, or even the people of Nevada. It hasn’t even been to protect the constitutionally mandated legislative independence and prerogatives of the U.S. Senate, as it was for many former Democratic Senate majority leaders like Robert Byrd (WV) and Lyndon Johnson (TX).
Reid’s sole purpose has been to protect Obama from having to make difficult political and legislative decisions. That protection racket would come to an end with a Republican Senate.
National Journal says the House and Senate passed 142 public laws since this two-year session of Congress began in 2013 (through August), making it what the media like to refer to as the “least productive” Congress since they began tracking the issue in 1947. The second-ranked least productive Congress was the 2011-12 session, which passed 238 bills.
One reason for those low numbers is that Reid won’t bring bills up in the Senate that could put Obama in a difficult spot. That National Journal article quotes Republican House Speaker John Boehner as saying, “There are 352 bills passed by the House sitting in the United States Senate. Almost all of those bills passed the House on a bipartisan basis, so go take your [the media’s] complaints to Harry Reid.”
But the media have no intention of challenging Reid, and Reid has no intention of bringing up those bills. Many of them repeal the very unpopular Obamacare law or parts of it. Others approve the Keystone XL pipeline or other domestic energy projects. Others were government-funding bills that Congress is required to pass.
As the Washington Post’s Jennifer Rubin points out, “In essence, the Senate has become an adjunct of the White House. Reid’s side comes up with no innovative (or even non-innovative) initiatives of its own and doesn’t allow any from the GOP.”
But Reid’s worst betrayal is that he has eviscerated the independence of the Senate to protect his boss. Obama needed three more liberal judges on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit in hopes of turning back a legal challenge to Obamacare—the recent Halbig v Burwell case.
Reid didn’t have the 60 votes he needed to get Obama’s nominees approved, so he invoked the “nuclear option,” changing Senate rules so that it only takes 51 votes to move most nominations. (A three-judge panel actually sided with Halbig; now it goes to the full court, including Obama’s new appointees.)
When Obama decided that he could determine when the Senate was in recess so that he could use recess appointments to get his liberal activists on the National Labor Relations Board, Reid backed him up—though the Supreme Court didn’t, voting unanimously against that power grab.
In short, Reid has done whatever it took to shield Obama no matter who or what institutions, including the Constitution and the Senate, it hurt. If Republicans take over the Senate after the November election, Reid’s ability to shield Obama will shrink dramatically.
Republicans will likely begin sending the president much-needed legislation that reforms the tax system, eliminates parts (or all) of Obamacare, reigns in several out-of-control regulatory bodies such as the Environmental Protection Agency, and lowers federal spending—and dare the president to veto it.
If he does an already vastly unpopular president might become even more so.