National Journal: “Congress will close the year with 58 public bills (the congressional term for measures with broad impact) enacted into law, assuming that President Obama signs the budget deal as promised. They may add a few to that in the last few days of the year. But it won’t change substantially.”
“That’s the lowest one-year output since at least 1947, and only the tiniest fraction of the 6,366 bills introduced by lawmakers, according to House and Senate records.”
John Sides says his forecast shows Democrats have just a 1% chance to win control of the House of Representatives next year.
“This is a testament to the fact that current conditions in the country, and the presence of so many Republican incumbents, make it hard for the Democrats to pick up many seats. In order for that forecast to change measurably in the Democrats’ favor, the economy needs to grow more rapidly or President Obama needs to become more popular, or both. A few more Republican retirements and strong Democratic challengers wouldn’t hurt, either.”
Sides discussed his forecast with us on the Political Wire podcast.
Jonathan Chait: “The conventional wisdom – propounded by many of the same pundits now equating Obama with Bush – held that Obama’s hardball tactics would backfire. Obama needed to negotiate over the debt ceiling, and didn’t dare change the Senate’s rules… To fail to placate conservatives would only enrage them more. This analysis turned out to have it backward. Congress managed to pass a budget for the first time in three years precisely because Obama
defeated the GOP’s extortion tactics, forcing Republicans to actually trade policy concessions rather than demand a ransom.”
“The prospects for Obama’s second term remain constricted. Not many deals beckon in Congress. The Obamacare rollout was surely a political disaster, but the administration has three more years to get the law up and running. By the end of 2005, George W. Bush had seen the promise of his presidency collapse from justifiably lofty heights. At the end of 2013, Obama stands at just about the same place he began his term.”
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Bloomberg: “When the Republican victory in the 2010 midterm election raised the prospect of political gridlock, John Podesta was ready with an answer: The president should bypass Congress and wield the executive powers of his office.”
“Now, Podesta’s appointment as counselor to Obama adds a strong promoter of that strategy to the president’s inner circle as Republicans stand in the way of the White House agenda. The activist vision… could play out across the economy, encompassing matters such as greenhouse gas emission standards for power plants, food safety and border enforcement.”
Obama 2012 campaign manager Jim Messina said that he is not considering an appointment in the U.S. Senate to replace departing Sen. Max Baucus (D-MT), The Hill reports.
“The Montanan was said by sources to be influential in Obama’s decision to nominate Baucus as envoy to China. Speculation on Gov. Steve Bullock’s appointment centered on Lt. Gov. John Walsh, who is running to succeed Baucus.”
Wall Street Journal: Do appointees often win Senate races?
Former Sen. Scott Brown (R-MA) told WMUR that his move to New Hampshire was “strictly personal” and said he had “nothing to announce with regard to my future political plans.”
Said Brown: “Once we get settled, we will do what many other people have done upon moving into New Hampshire. We will register to vote, get new licenses and enjoy the fact that there is no income or sales tax in New Hampshire.”
Despite a poll yesterday showing Sen. Thad Cochran (R-MS) in a dead heat with primary challenger Chris McDaniel (R), a new Harper Polling survey shows Cochran comfortably ahead, 54% to 31%.
Washington Post: “From the moment the government’s massive database of citizens’ call records was exposed this year, U.S. officials have clung to two main lines of defense: The secret surveillance program was constitutional and critical to keeping the nation safe. But six months into the controversy triggered by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden, the viability of those claims is no longer clear.”
“In a three-day span, those rationales were upended by a federal judge who declared that the program was probably unconstitutional and the release of a report by a White House panel utterly unconvinced that stockpiling such data had played any meaningful role in preventing terrorist attacks.”
Daily Beast: “Obama told his blue-ribbon panel on reforming the government’s domestic spying program that he didn’t want them to pull their punches. He got what he asked for and a good bit more.”
President Vladimir Putin issued a decree “to free Russia’s most famous prisoner, Mikhail B. Khodorkovsky, the former chief executive of Yukos Oil whose arrest and imprisonment 10 years ago punctuated an authoritarian turn in Russia’s modern history,” the New York Times reports.
“Mr. Putin, who commands singular political authority here, now appears to have the confidence to risk freeing a man who even in prison has persisted as one of his harshest political critics and who still has the will and financial resources to challenge not only the seizure of his company’s assets but Mr. Putin’s power.”
“A long-awaited report analyzing the male-dominated culture of the U.S. Secret Service has concluded that the elite law enforcement agency does not have a widespread problem with its employees engaging in sexual misconduct while on official business,” the Washington Post reports.
Rep. Trey Radel (R-FL) “has left rehab and is ready to return to Capitol Hill, the Florida Republican announced in a news conference in his district office on Thursday night,” Roll Call reports.
“He didn’t, however, divulge whether he was prepared to announce whether he would seek re-election for a second term.”
Miami Herald: “While he declined to say whether he would run for re-election, he gave what amounted to a campaign speech, vigorously defending his legislative record and repeatedly addressing TV viewers.”
Wonk Wire: U.S. Could Face Debt Crisis in Late February
The New Mexico Supreme Court “ruled in favor of same-sex couples, granting them all the same rights of marriage enjoyed by heterosexual couples,” the Albuquerque Journal reports.
From the opinion: “All rights, protections, and responsibilities that result from the marital relationship shall apply equally to both same-gender and opposite-gender married couples.”
“New Mexico joins 16 other states, the District of Columbia, and several Native American tribes in recognizing same-sex unions.”
“The Senate will vote through the weekend on pending nominations that Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) would like to see completed before Christmas — just don’t expect most Republicans to be there for it,” Roll Call reports.
“Many GOP senators, still bristling from the rules changes enabling Democrats to proceed on said nominees, are planning to hit the exits for Christmas after Thursday night’s 11:15 defense bill vote. In the minds of these members, as long as one of their colleagues hangs behind to block consent requests from Democrats that would allow everyone regardless of party to go home, they apparently are cool skipping votes they have no power to defeat.”
The Washington Post reports that Mitt Romney’s 10 highest-paid campaign staffers “all made more in 2012 than anyone on Obama’s campaign. That’s just one of the many notable findings in data complied by New Organizing Institute, a liberal group, which took a broad look at federal campaign staffers in their study.”
“I met in the last few days with Rand Paul. I have spent a lot of time
with him, and I have grown to really like him. Even though he has some
set political views, he wants to get things done here.”
— Sen. Harry Reid (D-NV), quoted by TPM.
A new Human Events/Gravis Marketing poll in Mississippi finds Sen. Thad Cochran (R-MS) is in a dead heat with primary challenger Christopher McDaniel (R), 40% to 40%, with 20% still undecided.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) thinks the healthcare law will ultimately help Senate Democrats in 2014 even though some incumbents fear a backlash at the polls, The Hill reports.
Said Reid: “I think for sure it will be a net positive.”
Taegan Goddard is the founder of Political Wire, one of the earliest and most influential political web sites. He also runs Political Job Hunt, Electoral Vote Map and the Political Dictionary.
Goddard spent more than a decade as managing director and chief operating officer of a prominent investment firm in New York City. Previously, he was a policy adviser to a U.S. Senator and Governor.
Goddard is also co-author of You Won - Now What? (Scribner, 1998), a political management book hailed by prominent journalists and politicians from both parties. In addition, Goddard's essays on politics and public policy have appeared in dozens of newspapers across the country.
Goddard earned degrees from Vassar College and Harvard University. He lives in New York with his wife and three sons.
Goddard is the owner of Goddard Media LLC.
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