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House wingnuts aren’t the only ones with subpoena power

1975 Church Committee

Now we’re talking. Senate Democrats finally have subpoena power, and they claim they’re ready to use it.

Though their target list is still under discussion, Democrats in the upper chamber have made clear that they intend to use their investigative authority — newly acquired thanks to their functional 51st Senate seat — as a counterpoint to House GOP probes of Hunter Biden’s business dealings and the Biden administration’s withdrawal from Afghanistan.

They’re also mulling picking up the baton from House Democrats on two fights: scrutinizing the oil industry’s culpability for climate change and obtaining former President Donald Trump’s tax returns, according to senators.

The House has been the epicenter of investigations in the current Congress given the deadlocked Senate, but that spotlight will be shared starting next year. Democrats’ loss of the House has created an investigative “vacuum” that party senators intend to fill, said Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), an investigative-minded former prosecutor and senior Judiciary Committee member.

“There are very definitely investigations that I think now will be possible,” Blumenthal said, referring to Democrats’ inability to issue subpoenas in the current 50-50 Senate because Republicans could block them at the evenly divided committee level.

They’re also going after private sector malfeasance with Bernie Sanders’ committee beginning with the pharmaceutical industry. But before we get too excited there is a problem. Of course…

[T]hey’ll have to carefully navigate aggressive investigations for another reason: a difficult 2024 Senate map. Several of their seats in red and purple territory are up next term, where partisan probes may not pay political dividends.

Among those up for reelection, besides Sinema, are Sens. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.), Jon Tester (D-Mont.) and Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio), who chair the energy, veterans’ affairs and banking committees, respectively. And all hail from states that voted for Trump in 2020, two by overwhelming margins.

It’s always something with the Senate, isn’t it? There was a time, during the long ago era of bipartisanship (largely because northern liberals were Republicans and conservative southerners were Democrats) they were able to form bipartisan committees and commissions that could get to the bottom of something like an insurrection or the use of the federal government for partisan gain. That’s much more difficult now for Senate Democrats dealing with a red state majority that votes in lockstep.

But they do have to try. The House is going to be batshit crazy for the next two years and I was worried the Senate Dems were going to opt for “statesmanlike” silence in the face of it out of a misplaced belief that they would be rewarded for being the adults in the room. That won’t work. It’s a fight and they need to engage.

We’ll see how it goes. I suspect a lot of this will be driven by the presidential race and Donald Trump’s legal woes. But with DeSantis breathing down their necks as the Great Whitebread Hope who plans to dismantle public health and install quacks at every level of government funded science, they might want to think about planning some public hearings to counteract that.

Happy Hollandaise everyone!

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