Games senators play: Both parties are positioning for 2016 and a year of symbolic votes

Republican Senate leaders have scheduled what amounts to a symbolic vote on repealing Obamacare, setting the stage for continued political battles in 2016. (Photo: Win McNamee/Getty Images)

With just more than a week left to keep the government from shutting down, the Senate will spend the day Thursday voting on symbolic political measures that never will become law, staking out year-end fights on hot-button issues that are sure to spill over into 2016.

The slate of amendment votes more resemble a list of topics on a presidential campaign debate stage than good-faith efforts by Democrats or Republicans to forge agreement: Planned Parenthood, gun control and Obamacare are likely to be voted on before lawmakers leave town for the weekend.

And while voting on items that never will become law and leaving town is perhaps business as usual, these particular debates are important for political and strategic reasons. Their timing — after two deadly shootings in the span of five days but before funding the government and the first presidential primaries — creates either awkwardness or opportunity, depending on the politics of the state you represent or if you are one of five sitting senators running for the White House.

Because nothing is more partisan than the vehicle for these votes: a large-scale repeal of Obamacare that enjoys special procedural privileges preventing Democrats from filibustering it. Because it was crafted to be considered through a process called budget reconciliation, the measure only requires a simple majority for passage and has no other higher-threshold hurdles like cloture votes that would allow Democrats to block it.

In practice, this means that Republicans likely will pass the bill and force President Barack Obama to issue his first actual veto on legislation concerning his signature health care law. It also, of course, means that even after another expenditure of time and effort, Republicans ultimately will fail to deliver on their promise to their base to repeal the law.

Moreover, several Republican senators from blue states are up for re-election in 2016 and already wary of how the name at the top of the ticket — with the GOP primary skewing far right — might affect their chances. Often leaders try to protect these members from difficult votes, but the political needs of a senator from Illinois or Wisconsin (who has to appeal to moderate voters next November) are different from those in the South, whose worry is a primary challenge from the right.

Republican leaders are striving to balance appeasing far-right base voters on issues important to them, attempting again to repeal Obamacare and taking away Planned Parenthood funding, against holding the Senate, which could come down to Illinois, Wisconsin, New Hampshire, Pennsylvania and Ohio. A well-worn tactic for leaders over the past few years is to hold symbolic votes on issues important to conservatives just before must-pass spending or debt-limit bills, giving cover to members protecting their right flanks at home. But what is good for Ted Cruz’s presidential campaign is not necessary good for Pat Toomey’s Senate re-election in the Keystone State. And Democrats plan to pile on by offering amendments that put those members in a corner.

Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., announced on the floor Thursday morning that in the wake of the Colorado Springs Planned Parenthood shooting, he would be offering a provision to prohibit gun purchases by anyone convicted of a crime related to access to women’s health clinics.

And Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., who has been a lead congressional defender of Planned Parenthood, plans to offer an amendment that would strip out language, already approved by the House, to completely defund the women’s health care provider. Her amendment would then expand federal spending for women’s health care by $1 billion, fully offset, her office says, by the most partisan pay-for around: the so-called “Buffett Rule,” which would raise taxes on individuals making more than $1 million a year. (Murray’s proposal would not change the decades-old prohibition on using federal money to actually perform abortions.)

Democratic leaders Patty Murray of Washington and Harry Reid of Nevada believe they can use their own political votes to the party’s electoral advantage. (Photo: Al Drago/CQ Roll Call/Getty Images)

“In the year 2015, Republicans in Congress have introduced over forty bills, and held seventeen votes, on whether or not Congress should roll back women’s rights. It’s completely unacceptable,” Murray said Thursday. “I know many of us here today are thinking of those who are suffering, and who lost loved ones, as a result of the tragic violence in Colorado Springs last week. … People across the country, men and women, have had enough of extremism and violence, including at Planned Parenthood health care centers. When a woman seeks health care — constitutionally protected health care — she shouldn’t have to feel threatened in any way. A doctor in a woman’s health clinic should not have to worry about wearing a bulletproof vest under her lab coat. Women’s health care should not be controversial, much less cause for violence, in the 21st century.”

Reid and Murray know that these amendments won’t become law — just as Republicans know that Obama will never approve their efforts to repeal his namesake health care program — but each side is eyeing political advantage in pursuit of their long-range goals. Democrats want to win back the Senate; Republicans want to wrangle the White House from the Democrats.

In the spring of 2011, Murray led the charge to focus Democrats on women’s health issues after Republicans tried to defund Planned Parenthood as part of budget negotiations. She was at the head of the Senate Democratic campaign arm and she made women’s health a signature part of the party’s re-election narrative that year. Thanks in large part to female voters, Democrats maintained their majority in the chamber, even though many pundits and operatives believed the Senate was ripe for a Republican takeover. As Republicans continue their campaign to defund Planned Parenthood, 2016 could see a replay, except this time, the likely presidential nominee for the party is also a woman.

The overall goal of repealing Obamacare is also becoming more challenging for Republicans. Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., told reporters Thursday that he felt “discomfort” over casting a vote to repeal the law wholesale — which he plans to do — because Arizona is one of the more than 30 states that has expanded Medicaid for low-income residents.

Nevertheless, the GOP-led Congress is going to send some form of this legislation to the president’s desk, where it will be vetoed. The real fight is who will be sitting at that desk after next year. Both parties, and the whole country, face another 12 months of symbolic votes on meaningless bills until we have an answer to that question.