● Seven Republican House members released a joint statement explaining why they would not oppose counting the electoral votes as presented to Congress by any of the states. Among the most significant reasons they offered, as Jim Newell noted (“Trump is Breaking Congressional Republicans on His Way Out”), is one that will “give Republicans a chance to keep winning presidential elections against the wishes of a majority of the country’s voters“:
From a purely partisan perspective, Republican presidential candidates have won the national popular vote only once in the last 32 years. They have therefore depended on the electoral college for nearly all presidential victories in the last generation. If we perpetuate the notion that Congress may disregard certified electoral votes—based solely on its own assessment that one or more states mishandled the presidential election—we will be delegitimizing the very system that led Donald Trump to victory in 2016, and that could provide the only path to victory in 2024.
● Kevin Drum on the role of Fox News Channel: “As long as Fox News exists in its current form, American politics is going to be broken. But what’s the answer to that?“
I agree and I have no answer.
● “There’s been no serious talk of a challenge to his leadership position, and the legislative filibuster will grant McConnell plenty of clout even if Republicans lose both Senate races in Georgia and, with them, their majority. (Democrats are unlikely to be able to gut the filibuster with so narrow an advantage.) But either way, he’ll have to manage a conference divided between Republicans inclined to work with Biden on bipartisan deals (such as Senators Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, Susan Collins of Maine, and Mitt Romney of Utah) and a dozen or more conservatives who won’t even acknowledge the Democrat’s legitimacy as president.” — Russell Berman, “Mitch McConnell’s Slipping Grip on the Republican Party”
Yes, but while Murkowski, Collins, and Romney are perhaps the most plausible candidates who might be cast as “Republicans inclined to work with Biden on bipartisan deals” — if Mitch McConnell remains majority leader after Tuesday, it will be surprising to see much meaningful bipartisan cooperation. Max Baucus, for all his efforts, couldn’t find one or two Republicans to cast a vote for the ACA. And if significant Biden initiatives gain support across the aisle, it will likely extend more deeply into the Republican caucus than these three senators.
● From The Cynic: The Political Education of Mitch McConnell by Alec MacGillis (which I’ve just finished), pp. 74-75:
Even as his position on spending limits or PACs or soft money shifted, McConnell had spoken in favor of public disclosure of political giving and spending. It had become his ultimate mantra: stop trying to limit the inevitable flow of money into campaigns, but just make sure it’s all out in the open. “Disclosure is the best disinfectant, and I think the maximum amount of disclosure is exactly what we need,” he said on a Sunday morning show in 1996. …
Even that last plank fell away. In 2010 Senate Democrats introduced the Disclose Act, legislation that would have forced outside groups spending more than $10,000 on campaign-related expenditures to disclose contributors who had donated more than $10,000. It was, say Norman Ornstein, a congressional scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, the “last best hope for doing anything to ameliorate Citizens United.” McConnell held together his caucus—even John McCain—for a successful filibuster of the bill. McConnell explained his reversal on disclosure by arguing that the bill favored unions and that the increasingly toxic political atmosphere put a new premium on protecting the privacy of major donors against what he called “liberal thugs.” . . .
As with his previous shifts, though, this maneuver could also be explained by changing circumstances in the partisan landscape.
Perhaps the most prominent recurring theme in the book is summed up in that last sentence. McConnell ingratiated himself among Republican senators by taking on McCain, Feingold, and other reformers on campaign finance reform. He found principled reasons — in the First Amendment — for his views. But the wily Kentuckian shifted his specific positions time and again (in response to specific legislative proposals or Supreme Court decisions), always embracing some principle or another for for doing so — but invariably his newfound position offered a political advantage for Republicans.
In 1997, when McConnell shifted from favoring a soft money ban (when he was convinced that soft money benefited Democrats) to opposing the ban (when Republicans had gained the advantage), he is reported to have told his colleagues: “If we stop this thing, we can control the institution for the next twenty years.” (p. 66)
(Photo: CNBC.)