Sorry, Harry Reid: It looks like the Senate might vote on repealing health-care reform after all. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell plans to force a vote this week, proposing an amendment Tuesday afternoon to reauthorization of the Federal…

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Senate to Vote on Health-Care Repeal

Oops! A day before President Obama welcomed Chinese President Hu Jintao to the White House, Sen. Harry Reid called the visiting dignitary a “dictator.” In a televised interview in Nevada on Tuesday, the Nevada Democrat said: “I am going to go back to…

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Reid: Hu a ‘Dictator’

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid is working on a filibuster-reform plan, to be implemented when the Senate sets its new rules next year. Already, the entire Democratic caucus has signed on to urge Reid to change the rules. “They are already talking it…

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Dems to Take Up Filibuster Reform

Consider going to Capitol Hill and dropping in on the Senate during its marathon sessions in the frantic few days before it takes its Christmas break. During normal tourist times in Washington, getting into the Congressional galleries can be a huge pain. You wait in long lines, you’re ushered in and out for a relatively short stay, you’re amid busfuls of visiting tour groups, and unless you happen to be in one of those visiting groups, on the whole it’s better just to watch things on C-Span if you follow them at all. But two days ago, on a very cold Sunday in DC (Potomac frozen bank-to-bank by the Kennedy Center in December — not a usual sight), my wife and I were on the Mall with our two visiting sons, thawing out in the always-wonderful US Botanic Gardens Conservatory . By chance we ran into friends we’d known in Beijing, one American and two Chinese. They said that they had come straight from the Capitol, where they’d been sitting listening to a debate about the new START treaty. “The doorkeepers thanked us for coming,” one of our friends said, “We were the only ones there.” Hmmm! We walked up Capitol Hill, descended into the huge underground maw of the new Visitors Center , and after passing two security checkpoints (metal detectors; but no shoes-off or pat-downs) we came into the Senate gallery just as a vote on a START amendment was taking place. There were far more Senators on the floor than civilians in the gallery — it was one of those rare moments when nearly all the Senators show up to vote, overseen by the unblinking C-Span cameras and a crowd of maybe 20 or 30 civilian spectators. So we stayed through the afternoon and several cycles of activity: First the full, Brueghel-esque crowd of 80 or 90 famous-and-obscure Senatorial faces, Harry Reid joking with Dick Durbin, John McCain stalking angrily in and out, lameducks like Blanche Lincoln and Byron Dorgan looking none the worse, newbies like Joe Manchin and Chris Coons seeming to glance around for cues about how to fit in. Al Franken, surprisingly stocky as he trudged about. Mitch McConnell, strangely affectless. John Thune and John Kerry towering above most everyone else. Gravelly-voiced Chuck Schumer sounding as if he was at the microphone whether or not it was turned on. The staff assistants who bustled around the floor all had obvious passes around their necks, but even without them: you can normally tell at a glance who is a usually-on-camera politician and who is not. (There are a few exceptions among the Senators, but no point in naming them.) Then a full-out roll call vote on an appeals-court nominee, which took many readings of the roll and ended up in a cliffhanger 92-0 margin. And  voice-vote approval of a district court judge. (This is the new era of harmony? If passage was going to be this easy, why had formal action been delayed for months?) Then, as the floor began to empty, a rousing statement by John Tester, of Montana, about the glorious victory of the Carroll College Fighting Saints in the NAIA championship football game. And then a much longer and more detailed statement by Mike Enzi, of Wyoming, about the birth of his grandchild that day, plus thoughts about his other children and grandchildren, by name. And a note of affirmation by James Inhofe*, of Oklahoma, about his own 20 children and grandchildren, illustrated with a poster-sized group photo of them all. And a complimentary (and complementary) remark by John Kerry about family news of his stepson Christopher Heinz, whose late father John Heinz had of course been a Senator. And then actual START debate between Kerry and Inhofe, about which I’ll simply say: Kerry has been a champion debater through all his life. Inhofe has not. (To summarize: Inhofe raised impassioned objections about the lack of verification under the new treaty. Kerry calmly pointed out that the treaty didn’t work the way Inhofe thought. Inhofe resumed with the same passion and the exact same objections.) With no cattiness quotient whatsoever, Kerry — who was running things for the Democrats nearly the whole time we were there — looked and sounded great. Like his predecessor as Mass. senior senator Teddy Kennedy, he is someone who aspired beyond the Senate but may have found his true home there. I have no larger point point except to say: many of the Senators are grumbling about having to stay in session this week in DC, but it’s a show not to miss, if you happen to be in the vicinity while normal tourist traffic is at a low ebb. [*Note: Sen. Inhofe's last named misspelled in early version of this post. Apologies, and thanks to JM for the catch.]

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If You’re Looking for a Good Time in Lame-Duck DC

Senate Republicans scuttled a bipartisan $1.2 trillion dollar spending omnibus bill last week. Now, Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) is scrambling to pass a temporary funding bill to keep the federal government’s lights on. read more

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Republicans Poised to Declare War on Welfare State

In a dramatic twist played out on the floor of the Senate, Majority Leader Harry Reid conceded Thursday night he lacked the votes to bring up a nearly $1.1 trillion spending bill designed to fund the federal government for the rest of the current fiscal year.

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Democrats pull $1.1 trillion spending bill

The Senate majority leader, Harry Reid of Nevada, said he would drop efforts to pass a $1.2 trillion spending measure to finance the government because Republicans would not support it.

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The Caucus: Democrats End Fight on $1.2 Trillion Spending Bill

E.J. Dionne takes on “No Labels,” but in the process writes this: The No Labelers are also right to be repulsed by the replacement of real argument with a vicious brand of name-calling. When a president of the United States is attacked simultaneously as an “extreme liberal liar” and a “Nazi,” there is a sick irrationality at work in our discourse. I’ve spent a lot of time with my head in the 19th century, and one thing that is immediately clear is that real argument has not replaced vicious name-calling, if only because viscous name-calling has generally been the order of the day in American politics, and perhaps in democracies the world-over.  The 19th Century GOP was derisively referred to as “The Black Republican Party,” and a movement bent on bringing about an age of mass miscegenation. (This was actually sort of true, but not how the Democrats meant it.) Whatever Harry Reid’s sins, I’ve yet to hear of him taking a cane to Mitch McConnell in order to defend the honor of Nevada . I don’t have much of a handle on the rest of American history. Perhaps there was some era of civility that I’ve missed. But, in the main, I think this about television and people who hate themselves for watching cable news. I don’t mean to pick on Dionne–this wasn’t the main point of his piece. But it’s an underlying current in this idea that there is some kind of civility crisis in America today, or that we are uniquely divided at this moment. If you’re black, the country has long been sundered in two.

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Civility

A statement from the Human Rights Campaign said that if the Senate holds a vote on the military’s “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy before a deal is solidified it would hurt chances of a repeal.

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The Caucus: Don’t Rush ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,’ Backers Say

Facing a Republican filibuster, Senate Democrats on Thursday pulled a measure that would allow young Americans who are illegally in the United States to earn citizenship.

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The Caucus: Senate Democrats Put Immigration Bill on Hold

Oakland, California – This coming week, if Sen. Harry Reid keeps his word, Congress may get a chance to vote on the DREAM Act. First introduced in 2003, the bill would allow undocumented students graduating from a US high school to apply for permanent residence if they complete two years of college or serve two years in the US military. Estimates state that the act would enable 800,000 young people to gain legal residence status and eventual citizenship. read more

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DREAM Act Students Defy Deportations, Demand Vote in Congress

Harry Reid won one big battle on Election Day, when he kept his seat, but more lie ahead.

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One Battle Won, Many Others Face Reid in Senate

“If Harry Reid had a crazy man to run against, I think he’d be retired today.” read more

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Sexism in the Midterms: Politicians Win, Women Lose

President Obama made the offer as he tried to adjust to a new political order with Republicans ascendant.

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The Caucus: Obama Invites G.O.P. Leaders to Dinner