David Drucker reports in Roll Call that the House Republicans have a new strategy. They will eschew negotiations with the administration and the Senate Democrats and begin passing “message” bills that they know will have no chance of becoming law. The idea is that there isn’t much profit in spending all their time fighting the White House. They need to give the American people a taste of what life would be like if they were actually in charge. Apparently, their model will be based on a speech Eric Cantor gave last week at the American Enterprise Institute, and the theme will be “Making Life Work.”
I think that is unintentionally funny. I read it as “Turning Life into Nothing But Work.”
My opinion of this strategy is that it is fairly stupid. It’s kind of like the old question about whether a tree makes a sound when it falls in the forest if there is no one around to hear it. The House can pass all the bills it wants, but no one will do much reporting about those bills if they have no future.
It can always be profitable to force the opposition to take unpopular votes, but the House Republicans are not in a position to effectively pursue that strategy. For starters, Republican ideas (even moderate ones) are generally unpopular, especially in Democrat-held districts. Second, if a bill has no prospect of becoming law, Democrats have no reason not to support the bill if it might cause them some heartburn to oppose it. Nancy Pelosi is not going to set her Whips loose on votes that don’t matter in the real world.
If they aren’t making Democrats uncomfortable and they aren’t getting any press coverage, then all their votes are just a form of wanking.
What do you think?
