Minorities in Congress flex muscles with mixed results

As Robert Burns wrote, “The best laid plans of mice and men often go awry.” That seemed especially applicable to Congress last week, when its carefully crafted legislative schedule blew up amid surprises at the Capitol.

Abrupt changes in a democratic legislature can occur when individual members and groups exploit expedited procedures embedded in the Constitution, laws and standing rules to preempt the leadership’s announced schedule. In a Congress with such razor thin margins of party control, this is more likely to happen at the instigation of the minority party.

That alone seldom succeeds unless those efforts can attract a handful of majority party members. Mathematically, on selective issues, a minority of the majority party, plus a majority of the minority party can sometimes produce a new majority. That formula was in play last week when several matters intruded on the leadership’s regular schedule.

On Wednesday and Thursday, the Senate and House preempted their regular business by forcing consideration of resolutions to terminate U.S. military hostilities in Iran. On Wednesday, April 15, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) offered a motion to discharge from the Foreign Relations Committee a war powers resolution introduced by Sen. Tammy Duckworth (D-Ill.), a double-amputee Iraq War veteran. After a spirited debate, the discharge motion was rejected, 47-52, with only one Republican, Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), voting in favor.

That same day, Rep. Brian Mast (R-Fla.), chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, asked unanimous consent to call-up at any time a similar Iran war termination resolution introduced by his committee’s ranking Democrat, Rep. Gregory Meeks (R-N.Y.). The measure was considered the next day and rejected, 213-214, with only one Republican voting in favor, one abstaining, and three others not voting.

Both House and Senate votes were similar to those cast on comparable war powers resolutions on March 4. This time, though, the debates reflected a more anxious attitude as members have grown increasingly impatient with the war dragging on beyond the president’s initial four to five week projection for the mission. Moreover, public support for the war continues to decline, and the War Powers Resolution’s 60-day time limit for unauthorized military actions expires on May 1, absent a 30-day renewal.

Another unscheduled event ripened on Thursday. This was a privileged discharge petition filed by Rep. Ayanna Pressley (D-Mass.). She secured the needed 218 signatures on a bill introduced by Rep. Lauren Gillen (D-N.Y.) that would require the secretary of Homeland Security to extend for three years temporary protected status for Haitian refugees. The administration had ordered that it expire in June. The bipartisan support for the extension was spurred by the fact that an estimated 103,000 Haitian refugees are health care workers in hospitals and nursing homes. Their deportation would leave gaping holes in senior care facilities across the country. The vote to discharge the legislation succeeded, 220-207, and the bill then passed, 224 to 204, with ten Republicans voting in favor.

When the House returned to regular business late Thursday, the majority leadership ran into another bipartisan buzzsaw on a special rule to consider a five-year extension of Title VII of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. Democrats and members of the conservative Freedom Caucus were irate that the bill did not sufficiently protect the privacy rights of Americans.

Around 2 a.m. on Friday, the Rules Committee’s manager of the special rule on the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, Rep. Austin Scott (R-Ga.), who also is also a member the Intelligence Committee, tried to salvage the package by offering an amendment to the rule that would shorten the extension to 18 months. That amendment failed, 200 to 220, with four Republicans voting against. The rule was then defeated, 197 to 228, this time with 20 Republicans breaking ranks, and only four Democrats and one independent voting in favor. 

With the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act due to expire at midnight last Monday, April 20, the House agreed to a unanimous consent request by Scott to extend the act to April 30. The Senate adopted that 10-day extension later Friday morning and sent the stopgap measure to the President Trump.

The House has also just averted three other unscheduled interventions — the threatened expulsions of Reps. Eric Swalwell (D-Calif.) and Tony Gonzalez (R-Texas) for sexual misconduct, and of Rep. Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick (D-Fla.), under indictment for allegedly stealing millions in federal COVID funds. All three resigned to avoid the humiliation of debates and votes to evict by two-thirds of their House colleagues.

Sometimes, the mere prospect of an unplanned interruption can keep Congress from going awry.

Don Wolfensberger is a 28-year congressional staff veteran culminating as chief of staff of the House Rules Committee in 1995. He is author of “Congress and the People: Deliberative Democracy on Trial” and “Changing Cultures in Congress: From Fair Play to Power Plays.”

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