Democrats Short a Senator, Republicans Short on Memory
Sen. Ben Ray Lujan (D-NM) underwent brain surgery after suffering a stroke Monday, Punchbowl News reports. With no timetable for his return, the Democrat’s 50-plus-veep majority in the Senate is on hold as Lujan recovers in his home state, and there are questions whether the chamber will pass anything significant before President Biden’s State of the Union speech March 1.
Note: Best the White House can hope for is bipartisan Senate support for small “chunks” of the Build Back Better program, but of course the focus will be on Biden’s replacement for Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer. Politico reports that ranking minority member on the Senate Judiciary Committee, Lindsay Graham (R-SC) is ready to support Biden’s choice. It’s worth noting that Lujan is not on that committee, so his absence will not be a factor in the committee’s vote to send the nominee to the Senate.
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Some Republicans (e.g., Susan Collins of Maine) have expressed concern over Joe Biden’s announcement while he was a candidate that he would appoint a Black woman to the Supreme Court, considering it to be politicizing the judicial branch.
It is worth remembering that in May 2016 Donald Trump, who was not at that time the Republican nominee, released a list of 11 potential nominees to the Court, and a second list of 10 in September 2016 (per SCOTUSblog).
Note: Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) said it was “offensive” for Biden to zero in on a Black woman as nominee because Black women constitute about 6% of the U.S. population, according to Politico Playbook. Cruz shouldn’t be too smug: the population of Texas is approximately 8.9% of that of the entire country, so one wonders about the statistical viability of anything he has to say about anything.
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Donald J. Trump’s two-time campaign advisor, David Boise, is expected to introduce a resolution to expel Reps. Liz Cheney (R-WY) and Adam Kinzinger (R-IL) from this weekend’s annual convention of the Republican National Committee in Salt Lake City, The Washington Post reports. Boise also serves as the RNC’s national committee member from Maryland.
Note: Boise seeks to punish Cheney and Kinzinger for voting in favor of Trump’s second impeachment, and of course they are the only Republicans who serve on the House of Representatives’ Select Committee investigating the January 6 Capitol insurrection. Kinzinger is retiring from the House after the current term, while Cheney faces Trump’s endorsed primary challenger for this November midterms. Meanwhile, House Republicans who voted to oppose electors for Joe Biden January 6 are having no problems raising sufficient funds for their re-election this year, Roll Call reports. Trump has effectively cemented his control of the GOP at least through the year, and Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) should continue to worry about the former president becoming House Speaker if the party wins a majority there in November.
--Edited by Todd Lassa, Gary S. Vasilash and Nic Woods