Sen. Ron Johnson, Republican of Wisconsin, spreader of conspiracy theories about the Jan. 6 Trump insurrection, is “the dumbest man in the Senate.” Digby awarded Johnson that title one year ago. Johnson, she wrote, “is a millionaire businessman proving once again that you can make a whole lot of money even if you are barely sentient.”
Wealth is a poor measure of intelligence, as the maskless, eclipse-gazing, last resident of the Oval Office displayed for all the world.
Not that the marketer of plastic packaging is uncolorful himself. He too has a flair for the shameless if not the clueless. Thursday afternoon he objected to dispensing with the formal reading when Democrats introduced their $1.9 trillion, 628-page relief bill. Johnson insisted that clerks read the entire thing however many hours that required.
Jim Newell of Slate takes up the tale in appropriately colorful fashion:
Johnson says that he’s submitting the Senate clerks to this trial of vocal-cord durability not to be a jerk, but because the “American people deserve to know what’s in it.” It’s hard to think of a less effective way to inform the American people about what’s in a bill than by forcing an hourslong recitation of incomprehensible legislative language on the Senate floor, but that’s the message.
And when that’s done, Johnson and other Republicans have more plans for dragging out the process. After the bill text has been read aloud—and Middle America is out with pitchforks, infuriated by learning through C-SPAN that the legislation would strike the semicolon in subparagraph 4(b) from Section 2104 of the Semiconductor Transparency Act of 1986—there’s a period of up to 20 hours of debate, followed by the rapid-succession, open-amendment process known as a “vote-a-rama.”
All God’s children got amendments, dontcha know, and the opposition typically offers hundreds on a major bill like this. Only a few actually come to a vote. But it’s a rapid-fire affair often lasting well into the night, as it did during the budget debate in February.
The ringleader of this show is, again, Ron Johnson. Johnson is trying to set up a process, as he told reporters Thursday, to “make sure that all the amendments that are offered are actually voted on.” This would involve Republican senators working in shifts on the floor to ensure that the body doesn’t tire out. “I was in a business that had continuing shift operations in manufacturing,” he told reporters, “so this is, this is just what we did.” (Gumming up the machines to delay output—it’s Manufacturing 101.) Johnson and his gang could also try to force the reading of each amendment, if they wanted to. The Senate, and its accumulated detritus of forgotten 18th-century procedure, is theirs to do with it what they wish.
To streamline the process, Democrats worked to settle disagreements among themselves before introducing the bill, Newell reports. Republicans will propose divisive amendments aimed at peeling off even one Democratic senator. Even one defector would kill the bill if Republicans are unified in opposition.
Republicans in Congress have partisaned themselves into a corner here. The country is hurting so badly after a year in near-quarantine that Americans could care less if the bill passes on a bipartisan basis. They would rather have relief checks in hand than watch Republicans delay them to score political points (USA Today):
More than two-thirds of Americans (68%) said that $1,400 stimulus checks should remain in the stimulus package even if it meant the bill had no support from the opposite party. Democrats have proposed a $1.9 trillion relief package that includes $1,400 stimulus checks; some Republicans have complained that that amount for checks, and the total cost of the bill, are too large.
However, 53% of Republicans polled, agreed that $1,400 direct payments should be left untouched in the bill. About two-thirds (65%) of independents and 85% of Democrats agreed.
Overall, 53% of Americans said $1,400 checks to the public are about the correct amount; 28% of the public would like to see larger payments issued, while 14% think the amount should be reduced.
Nowhere in the ‘‘American Rescue Plan Act of 2021’’ does the word stimulus appear, although that is how Monmouth and others frame these payments. So it bears noting how easily these checks (named “recovery rebates”) went from being about relief to economic stimulus. Relief is about helping people. Stimulus is about helping the economy. The framing speaks to what what you value. Pay attention to who uses which language. This is insidious.