It's Tuesday, September 13, and Day 212 since Justice Antonin Scalia died and Mitch McConnell decided no nominee would get any Senate attention: No meetings, no hearings, no votes. It's also Day 181 since Merrick Garland was nominated by President Obama to fill that vacancy.
So what's the Senate doing today? On the floor, they're continuing work on the Water Resources Development Act, which matters because it finally has assistance for Flint, Michigan, and other cities with "emergency" drinking water crises. The real action, however, is happening behind the scenes on a short-term funding bill. McConnell has started the legislative process on a stop-gap bill to fund the government into December, giving the Congress time to work out funding in the lame-duck session after the election. That follows a meeting between congressional leaders from both parties and President Obama.
Top priority, beyond staving off a government shutdown? Zika funding. Top priority for Democrats? "The Republicans need to get away from their vendetta," says Harry Reid. "Planned Parenthood should not be part of Zika funding." McConnell made happy talk after the meeting about "wrapping up the funding issue and I think we're all in a very good place to do that on a bipartisan basis pretty quickly." Meanwhile, "conservatives in the House, namely members of the House Freedom Caucus, are wholly resistant to any stopgap funding plan that runs into the lame-duck session later this year —unless they also secure partisan riders, such as a provision halting Syrian refugees." They're also going to raise hell about any Zika money possibly going to Planned Parenthood.
McConnell is moving inextricably toward passing this short-term bill, probably without the poison pills Democrats have been fighting for months, and then handing it off to the House and leaving tow. That leaves Ryan holding the bag, and having no choice but to pass the bill with Democratic support, and setting himself up against the Freedom Caucus maniacs. Which has always been inevitable, anyway.
Meanwhile, if McConnell really wants to end work this week, there probably won't be any more Obama nominees for anything on the floor before the election.
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