Nobody wins shutdown smackdown -- Dec. 13, 2018 column

By MARSHA MERCER

Oh, the drama! The intrigue! The suspense!

President Donald Trump threatens to shut down the federal government just before Christmas if he doesn’t get $5 billion to build his border wall.

“I am proud to shut down the government for border security,” he said Tuesday during a testy, 17-minute, on-camera exchange with Democratic leaders Sen. Chuck Schumer and Rep. Nancy Pelosi.

Trump orchestrated live reality TV from the Oval Office when he invited Schumer and Pelosi to negotiate, then argued in public and violated the cardinal political rule of a government shutdown: He owned it. 

“I will be the one to shut it down. I’m not going to blame you for it,” Trump said.

After pledging to make Mexico pay for the border wall, Trump asked Congress for $25 billion to build it. Congress appropriated $1.6 billion for fencing. Senate Democrats have offered to extend the current spending, but House Democrats are balking at more than $1.3 billion.

Trump’s strategy, if he has one, is baffling congressional Republicans who would share blame if a shutdown occurs.

“I’m on the record saying numerous times I think a shutdown is a fool’s errand. Every shutdown we’ve been in, nobody wins. So I’m very discouraged by that,” said Sen. Shelley Moore Capito, Republican of West Virginia, The Washington Post reported.

Schumer and Pelosi stood their ground at the meeting, a sign of the tempestuous times ahead in divided government.

“The American people recognize that we must keep the government open, that a shutdown is not worth anything, and that we should not have a Trump shutdown,” Pelosi told the president.

All this makes for riveting TV but terrible government. Funding gaps lead to shutdowns when our leaders fail to do their constitutional duty. 

“No Money shall be drawn from the Treasury, but in Consequence of Appropriations made by Law,” Article 1, Section 9, Clause 7 of the Constitution says.

Shutdowns literally show us a government that doesn’t work.

During the October 2013 shutdown, private citizen Trump tweeted: “Government is shut down yet Obama is now harassing the privately owned @Redskins to change its name. He needs to focus on his job!”

Shutdowns actually cost taxpayers. Agencies take their systems down and bring them back up. They send workers home on furlough but eventually pay them for the days they were idle. Millions of dollars in fees go uncollected.

After the 16-day shutdown in 2013, furloughed workers received an estimated $2.5 billion in pay and benefits, the Office of Management and Budget reported. The National Park Service estimated the shutdown cost $500 million in lost tourist revenue to the parks and surrounding communities, OMB said.

We shouldn’t be at the precipice again. Congress has passed and Trump has signed five of the 12 spending bills for the fiscal year that began Oct. 1, funding about 75 percent of the government through next September.

So, if there is a shutdown, only 25 percent of the government would be hit. Defense would be unaffected and Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid recipients would get their benefits. But Congress still must pass the remaining seven bills by midnight Dec. 21 or risk angering millions of Americans deprived of services.

The way out is through old-fashioned, unsexy, effective compromise. Trump should agree to a path to citizenship or legal status for more than 1 million “dreamers,” young people who were brought to this country illegally as children.

Democrats, despite their hatred of the wall, need to show they care about border security with increased technology and personnel and even building segments of the wall -- in places that are not environmentally sensitive.    

Polls, unsurprisingly, show people polarized on the issue. Fifty-seven percent of Americans overall want the president to compromise and avoid a government shutdown, but two-thirds of Republicans want him to stand tough, an NPR/PBS News Hour/Marist Poll reported this week. 

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky told reporters he’s “hoping for a Christmas miracle” to end the standoff and avoid a shutdown.

We don’t need a miracle. We just need Congress and the president to do their jobs.

(C)2018 Marsha Mercer. All rights reserved.

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Women voters likely power players in fall elections -- again -- July 23, 2014 column

By MARSHA MERCER

Today’s question: Would we be better off if more women held political office?

Yes, say nearly two in three Americans, a Gallup poll reported Monday.

The question was, “Do you think the country would be governed better or worse if more women were in political office?” Sixty-three percent of Americans said better -- a jump from 57 percent in 1995 and 2000. The trend bodes well for women candidates in this fall’s congressional elections.  

While the number of women serving in Congress has been inching up – to a record 79 in the 435-member House and 20 in the 100-member Senate – women are still just 18.5 percent of the Congress. In the House, 60 women are Democrats and 19 are Republicans. In the Senate, there are 16 Ds and four Rs.

Gallup didn’t ask why people thought women would do better, but perhaps a Grateful Dead song has the answer: “That’s right, the women are smarter.”

In any case, women vote. Women were the majority of voters in 2012 and largely decided to keep President Barack Obama in the White House and continue Democratic control of the Senate, according to analyses of exit polls by the Center for American Women in Politics at Rutgers.

Fifty-five percent of women voted for Obama, compared with 52 percent of men. Women’s votes also elected seven Senate Democrats: Tammy Baldwin in Wisconsin, Sherrod Brown in Ohio, Bob Casey in Pennsylvania, Joe Donnelly in Indiana, Tim Kaine in Virginia, Jon Tester in Montana and Elizabeth Warren in Massachusetts, the center’s analysis found.

Women don’t always vote for woman candidates, of course. In the Senate race in Connecticut, men split their votes evenly between Democrat Chris Murphy and Republican Linda McMahon, while “women showed a clear and decisive preference for Murphy,” who won, the center said.

This time around, with continued Democratic control of the Senate increasingly in doubt, Democrats are pinning their hopes on Michelle Nunn to flip the red-state Georgia seat held by retiring Republican Sen. Saxby Chambliss.

Democrat Nunn, daughter of popular former Sen. Sam Nunn, is running against Republican businessman David Perdue, former CEO of Reebok and other firms. Perdue beat Rep. Jack Kingston, a 22-year House veteran, Tuesday in a GOP runoff election.

Neither Nunn nor Perdue has elective experience – and that may be a plus. Forty-nine percent of Americans told Gallup the country would be governed better by newcomers to office.

If the Georgia race is pivotal and close, we might have to wait to learn which party will control the Senate. If neither candidate gets more than 50 percent of the vote Nov. 4, there will be a runoff Dec. 2.

Nunn is one of six women candidates running for open seats in five states. West Virginia is poised to make state history by electing its first woman senator. The election is between Democrat Natalie Tennant and Republican Shelley Moore Capito. 

Four states have never sent a woman to the House or Senate: Delaware, Iowa, Mississippi and Vermont. But that could change. In Iowa, tea party favorite Joni Ernst, a Republican, is in a tight race with Democrat Bruce Braley.  

Two of the most vulnerable Senate incumbents are Democratic women, Kay Hagan of North Carolina and Mary Landrieu of Louisiana. Political prognosticators rate both races tossups.

In another high-profile race, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell is working to keep his seat representing Kentucky from Democratic challenger Alison Lundergan Grimes, Kentucky’s secretary of state.

Whether a general inclination to support more women in office translates into votes depends on how individual candidates sell themselves and on the local dynamics of each race.

In 2012, Rep. Michelle Bachmann, R-Minn., dropped her presidential bid after eking out just 5 percent of the Iowa caucus vote. She’s retiring from the House but said this week she might run for president again in 2016. 

 “Like with anything else, practice makes perfect,” she said in an interview with Real Clear Politics, adding that she had participated in 15 presidential debates.

No, unlike learning the piano, for instance, practice doesn’t make perfect in politics. On that men and women voters agree.

Still, if you’re looking for clues about the elections this fall, it makes sense to watch the women.  

© 2014 Marsha Mercer. All rights reserved.

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