There was a lot about Tuesday night worth smiling over. A lot. Kris
Kobach lost big in Kansas as Democrats took over not just the governor
mansion, but a House seat. Scott Walker went down in Wisconsin to
a school teacher who ran on a platform of improving education and
expanding health care. Bruce Rauner’s reign in Illinois ended so
definitely that networks made the call the moment the polls officially
closed. These guys were Republican stars, ambitious guys who definitely felt that Donald Trump is just keeping that chair warm for them. And they’re out.
And it wasn’t just Kobach and Walker, Kansas and Wisconsin have been the go-to examples for Republicans, the test beds of their efforts to destroy labor, trash environmental rules, reward the wealthy, and surrender government services in the name of jobs, jobs, jobs. Both of those efforts are now in abject retreat. If America’s states are the laboratories of democracy, Kansas and Wisconsin have demonstrated that all the conservative mix produces is an explosion. Boom. In fact, Republicans blew up Kansas so well that the blowback from that effort is likely to still be echoing for several elections to come.
There were big state legislative wins in Maine, New York, New Hampshire, Connecticut, Minnesota, Colorado and elsewhere that, together with the gubernatorial flips, mean that Democrats will likely have a chance to address some of the structural issues that have meant that a 5 percent vote advantage from Democrats wasn’t even enough to draw even.
But … there’s no getting around it, the Midterm elections brought record turnout that was—not enough. Or rather, it brought numbers from Democrats that in red states were met by an equal enthusiasm from Republicans. If enthusiasm is the word. It’s impossible to have a real “wave” election unless the other side is caught napping, and Fox News, Donald Trump, and a host of right-wing radio hosts have been screaming in red ears every minute since November 2016, making sure that didn’t happen.
Still, Democrats took the House. They took the House. That’s not a consolation prize. That’s an enormous brake on Republican plans to race America down the failed Kansas path. That’s an end to Republican schemes to destroy Social Security for profit, or the nine hundred and ninety-ninth effort to repeal the besieged ACA. No one has to be a hero in the Senate to stop the next vote. Because Democrats have the House.
And that’s just the start.
Democratic control of the House means that Devin Nunes moves to an impotent tooth-gnashing position while Adam Schiff gains the power to subpoena the documents that Democrats wanted to see during the first aborted “investigation” that Republicans terminated so they could hand Donald Trump a free “no collusion” report. It means they can call the over thirty witnesses who were on their list who Republicans refused to call. It means that the era of writing heartfelt, but essentially useless letters demanding access information are over. They’ll just … demand access.
Sure, Trump is already threatening to use the Senate to investigate the House. But, though the even more Trump dependent Republican Senate may be ready to engage in a little Capitol Hill Civil War reenactment, that effort is unlikely to be effective.
Instead, Republicans in the Senate are likely to find that they have to devote their time to another less-than-glamorous battlefront: Investigating Hillary Clinton.
Republicans in the House started no less than three investigations into Clinton-related incidents last year. It’s safe to say that those waste of times are over. No matter how the survivors of the House fire for Republicans fume, the Uranium One club and the Hillary’s Emails Are the Worst consortium have had their last meeting.
And it wasn’t just Kobach and Walker, Kansas and Wisconsin have been the go-to examples for Republicans, the test beds of their efforts to destroy labor, trash environmental rules, reward the wealthy, and surrender government services in the name of jobs, jobs, jobs. Both of those efforts are now in abject retreat. If America’s states are the laboratories of democracy, Kansas and Wisconsin have demonstrated that all the conservative mix produces is an explosion. Boom. In fact, Republicans blew up Kansas so well that the blowback from that effort is likely to still be echoing for several elections to come.
There were big state legislative wins in Maine, New York, New Hampshire, Connecticut, Minnesota, Colorado and elsewhere that, together with the gubernatorial flips, mean that Democrats will likely have a chance to address some of the structural issues that have meant that a 5 percent vote advantage from Democrats wasn’t even enough to draw even.
But … there’s no getting around it, the Midterm elections brought record turnout that was—not enough. Or rather, it brought numbers from Democrats that in red states were met by an equal enthusiasm from Republicans. If enthusiasm is the word. It’s impossible to have a real “wave” election unless the other side is caught napping, and Fox News, Donald Trump, and a host of right-wing radio hosts have been screaming in red ears every minute since November 2016, making sure that didn’t happen.
Still, Democrats took the House. They took the House. That’s not a consolation prize. That’s an enormous brake on Republican plans to race America down the failed Kansas path. That’s an end to Republican schemes to destroy Social Security for profit, or the nine hundred and ninety-ninth effort to repeal the besieged ACA. No one has to be a hero in the Senate to stop the next vote. Because Democrats have the House.
And that’s just the start.
Democratic control of the House means that Devin Nunes moves to an impotent tooth-gnashing position while Adam Schiff gains the power to subpoena the documents that Democrats wanted to see during the first aborted “investigation” that Republicans terminated so they could hand Donald Trump a free “no collusion” report. It means they can call the over thirty witnesses who were on their list who Republicans refused to call. It means that the era of writing heartfelt, but essentially useless letters demanding access information are over. They’ll just … demand access.
Sure, Trump is already threatening to use the Senate to investigate the House. But, though the even more Trump dependent Republican Senate may be ready to engage in a little Capitol Hill Civil War reenactment, that effort is unlikely to be effective.
Instead, Republicans in the Senate are likely to find that they have to devote their time to another less-than-glamorous battlefront: Investigating Hillary Clinton.
Republicans in the House started no less than three investigations into Clinton-related incidents last year. It’s safe to say that those waste of times are over. No matter how the survivors of the House fire for Republicans fume, the Uranium One club and the Hillary’s Emails Are the Worst consortium have had their last meeting.
Hopefully, forever. If Trump wants to continue the pointless support for his Lock ‘er Up chant—which, really, don’t require any anchor in reality—Republicans in the Senate will have to take up that charge. It’s likely the Senate will do just that, stepping in to play back up to failed Nunes/Gowdy/Meadows efforts in the House. That’s a service that up and coming Reeks like Josh Hawley will be happy to provide for Trump. But Republican senators who are facing elections in blue or purple states in 2020 are going to be much less happy about how they spent the last two years asking people “now, about that server...”
On the House side, it’s not just that Adam Schiff can execute a stack of subpoenas that have surely been drafted for weeks. It’s that Oversight can now return to the job of Oversight, rather than greasing the rails for corruption. It’s not just Don Jr. who can expect to spend more time appearing before Congress, Ryan Zinke and Kirstjen Nielsen and Andrew Wheeler can all expect to appear behind name tags to regularly explain WTF they’ve been up to to people who won’t take “doing thy master’s bidding” as an answer.
Would it be better to have it all? Of course it would. Does the failure to capture the big offices in Florida and the loss of Senate seats represent a harsh reminder that the structure of our government means that even a demonstrable madman is a threat to our democracy, so long as that madman can keep his lever-pulling hoard enraged.
Republicans are going to turn the Senate into a processing system for conservative judicial appointees so efficient they may need to hire some robots from Jeff Bezos just to move nominees among bins. That is not good. But ...
Everything else on Tuesday night was icing. The House was the cake. Take a slice.
It’s still good.
Also, Kris Kobach lost. Sorry, I just wanted to write that again.
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