At some point in the 2016 elections, should it appear that Donald Trump’s chances of prevailing are unlikely, Republicans will shift their attention, efforts and funding to holding a senate majority. Voters will consider, state-by-state, candidate-by-candidate, if they will return a Republican majority to the Senate.

But why would voters return a Republican majority to the Senate when the Senate is virtually dysfunctional?

Two issues demonstrate why a Republican majority in the Senate is electing yet another Do Nothing Congress, a congress that may well drop public approval below its current amazingly poor 12 percent. If the Senate actions, or inactions, on the Zika virus and on the Supreme Court nomination of Judge Merrick Garland do not convince you that Republicans do not deserve the majority in the Senate, nothing will likely convince you.

The Zika epidemic, spreading from Latin America and the Caribbean to Puerto Rico, and now into Florida, posing serious birth defect risks and potential deadly complications, need not have happened. At least it need not have been posing a risk to so many, had the federal government funded both research and spraying programs using insecticides.

But the senate majority, the Republican majority, along with the Republican House, ladened the Zika funding bill with politically unacceptable add-ons, including a rider to limit EPA restrictions on dangerous pesticides, excluding Planned Parenthood, who provides pregnancy services, from the funding, de-funding a portion of Obamacare, and reversing the ban on confederate flags in cemeteries operated by Veterans Affairs.

The bill failed in the senate 52-48, which should have been a majority that assured passage (though Democrats largely refused the bill due to its riders), but for the abuses of the filibuster that now require 60 senate votes for virtually any bill.

So congress adjourned with no Zika bill after nearly five months of knowledge that emergency funding was needed to prevent the spread of the virus. How many lives will be affected by this incredible level of incompetence and stunning lack of compassion for the victims?

While nothing can compare to the many lives that may be harmed by the senate’s refusal to help stop the Zika virus, the Republican’ refusal to consider President Obama’s Supreme Court nominee, Judge Merrick Garland is a poster for the failure to govern.

Garland is now the longest waiting nominee before the Senate without consideration, and he may yet represent the first nominee wherein the senate refused to honor its constitutional responsibility to provide advice and consent.

But the failure of the Republican senate here, while entirely political and completely disregarding to the constitution, is far more foolish for its practical absurdity on the refusal to hold hearings on Judge Garland.

The Republican “problem” was that Garland, a moderate judge, was replacing the very conservative Justice, the deceased Anthony Scalia. Had Garland been nominated to replace a liberal justice, Garland might have had his hearings. But Republicans thought long and deep, only to decide that, if they stalled on their hearings, and a Republican was elected president, then the seat would remain conservative.

Was this manipulation of the constitution? Most definitely, but they cared more for the politics than the law. But now the Republicans face a potentially different problem. Should Hillary Clinton win the presidency she may well back away from Garland to nominate a more liberal justice, leaving the Republicans wishing for Garland whom they have denied hearings.

Moreover, the Republicans could, during the post-election lame duck senate, reverse themselves and vote for the moderate Garland. But to do so would be to admit that their tactics were never anything but cheap political theater.

Republicans will not allow the Senate to function. It is all too clear they prefer politics over governing.

 

Jim Crawford is a retired educator and political enthusiast living here in the Tri-State.