Well, the 114th Congress is off and running. As has been the tradition for the last century, the President came to Congress to deliver his thoughts on the state of the union. As has been the tradition for the last five years, the President delivered his own unique version of that – a lecture. What struck me about this speech in particular, is that the President’s tone (and content) still hasn’t evolved despite a dramatic change in the composition of Congress.
When he was first elected, President Obama enjoyed massive majorities in both the House and Senate. He preached bipartisanship in his State of the Union while also presenting a fairly partisan agenda. I didn’t begrudge him that his first time out. He’d won big and he’d run on that message. As he famously said to then-minority leader Eric Cantor, “elections have consequences”. But as time wore on and the American people became less enamored with his vision and his execution, the bipartisan notes he sounded in his speeches started to sound hollow. He wasn’t reaching across the aisle at all.
After two years in office and one massive government takeover of healthcare, the President lost his majority in the House. Not one Republican voted in support of his bill. I entered Congress that very next year. Like a lot of people, I was interested to see whether the President took anything away from that loss and whether he would take a different tone in that year’s State of the Union Address.
As it turned out, he didn’t.
He lectured again about the importance of bipartisanship and coupled that again with highly-partisan plans. And while I learned a lot about the President’s leadership style in that speech, at that point, it still remained to be seen how well he’d actually work with a new Republican majority. Speeches are one thing, but can you work behind the scenes to build consensus and find solutions?
Needless to say, he didn’t work very well with the new Republican majority. Part of that is Republicans’ fault, to be sure. But the President didn’t change up his style either. And he didn’t change up his playbook. He kept singing the same tune. He kept lecturing the same message.
As we all know, he was reelected in 2012. That year, Democrats maintained control of the Senate and Republicans maintained control of the House. The status quo continued. The State of the Union remained the same.
But in this most recent election, the President got trounced one more time. He lost complete control of Congress. The American people voted against him. They voted against his team. They voted against the Democrats’ track record and style of governing. Surely, with only two years left in his administration and a natural desire to ensure some tangible legacy beyond the disastrous healthcare law that bears his name, President Obama would finally take a different strategy. He’d be more conciliatory and more genuinely interested in finding what common ground there is between the two political parties.
I’m not sure if you watched his speech on Tuesday – a huge percentage of the country did not. But if you did, then you saw the same speech he’s given year after year. Lofty goals without any corresponding detail. Hollow lectures about bipartisanship. Liberal talking points designed to fire up his base. The show went on just as it always has. The challenge, at this point, is not to allow the stale air from these speeches to affect our ability to push forward with new ideas and better solutions for America.
Like most people, I want to see Congress work. I want to see the President lead. I want to see us get results. For far too long now, that hasn’t been the case. And while we can’t control what the President does (or how he does it), we are now in a position to control what Congress does (and how we do it).
Although it may be a little procedural and a little “inside baseball”, you’ve heard me talk enough over the years about how few bills the Senate decided to take up. You’ve heard me talk about Harry Reid’s desire to shield his members from having to take tough votes heading into an election. You’ve heard me explain what the impact of that inaction has been on both our budget and our economy.
And although we have a very long way to go and so very many things left to prove, I will leave you all with this one fact to demonstrate where I think we’re headed:
In the three weeks since Republicans took control of the Senate, they have already considered more amendments than they did in all of 2014. You read that correctly. More amendments in the first three weeks than in all of last year. The Democrats got to offer their amendments, just as Republicans did. They got to make Republicans take politically dicey stands on things. They got to play “gotcha”. And the end result is that the Senate worked its will a little bit. They’re debating the issues again. They are taking a stand on things. This week, it’s the Keystone XL Pipeline – something they hope to wrap up next week. And while it appears they are four votes short of what would be necessary to override the President’s threatened veto, I am genuinely encouraged by what might be possible with a Senate that does something – anything really. There are plenty of issues out there that we need to work on.
Is there common ground out there to be found? You bet there is. Would it be good for America if we can find some solutions within that common ground? I have no doubt that it will be if we can get there. But what is becoming clearer by the day is that no matter how loudly the American people send the message, it appears that the drive and the leadership will have to come from Congress. The President will continue to threaten vetoes. He’ll continue to try to push executive decisions. But what he can’t do is blame a dysfunctional Congress. We’re going to keep sending solutions to his desk. What he does with those solutions will be up to him.
Congressman Rich Nugent represents The Villages in the U.S. House of Representatives.