View from K Street: A House divided; a Senate in tatters

The dispiriting events in Congress during these last weeks have revealed just how miserably our legislative branch has performed. And with government shutdowns looming, there is every reason to believe things are going to get worse.

We used to think the Senate—impaired but oddly empowered by hobbling rules—could act as “the adult in the room,” bringing a gravitas earned from its multiyear terms to the political maelstrom. No more. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY), who foolishly thought he could win over his caucus by opposing the second Trump impeachment, became a captive of his own betrayal of his principles. He is now a spent force, consigned to insignificance, as his caucus responds to a different leader, Donald Trump, who repaid McConnell’s act of loyalty with contempt.

The Senate, once the home of Webster, Clay, Taft, Wagner, Humphrey, and McCain, now acts like a diminished House. The recent spectacle of the Republicans in the Senate—after successfully wringing unthought of compromises on immigration from the Democratic majority—turning on their own bill, demeaning their own floor leaders at the whim of their erstwhile-leader-now-candidate Trump is shocking. It’s a demonstration that the Republican caucus in the Senate has reduced itself to a minor subcommittee of the Trump election campaign.