From the New York Times: Senate Takes Major Step Toward Repealing Health Care Law

They began a process that allows the repeal to be considered as a reconciliation bill which makes it filibuster proof.


- Click here for the article.

Senate Republicans took their first major step toward repealing the Affordable Care Act on Thursday, approving a budget blueprint that would allow them to gut the health care law without the threat of a Democratic filibuster.

The vote was 51 to 48. During the roll call, Democrats staged a highly unusual protest on the Senate floor to express their dismay and anger at the prospect that millions of Americans could lose health insurance coverage.

One by one, Democrats rose to voice their objections. Senator Maria Cantwell of Washington said that Republicans were “stealing health care from Americans.” Senator Ron Wyden of Oregon said he was voting no “because health care should not just be for the healthy and wealthy.”

The presiding officer, Senator Cory Gardner, Republican of Colorado, repeatedly banged his gavel and said the Democrats were out of order because “debate is not allowed during a vote.”

The final vote, which ended just before 1:30 a.m., followed a marathon session in which senators took back-to-back roll call votes on numerous amendments, an arduous exercise known as a vote-a-rama.

The approval of the budget blueprint, coming even before President-elect Donald J. Trump is inaugurated, shows the speed with which Republican leaders are moving to fulfill their promise to repeal President Obama’s signature domestic policy achievement — a goal they believe can now be accomplished after Mr. Trump’s election.

The action by the Senate is essentially procedural, setting the stage for a special kind of legislation called a reconciliation bill. Such a bill can be used to repeal significant parts of the health law and, critically, is immune from being filibustered. Congress appears to be at least weeks away from voting on legislation repealing the law.

From Roll Call: Senate Leadership Elections Set Stage for 2017

Senate party leadership is set for the 115th Congress.

- Click here for the article.

The Senate’s leadership elections went off without a hitch Wednesday, with victorious Republicans keeping their top echelon intact.

Democrats elevated Charles E. Schumer to the role of minority leader for the next Congress, as anticipated, but the most interesting development might be that the Brooklyn lawmaker is going to need a bigger meeting table.

In what appeared to be an effort to respond to the 2016 elections with a more ideologically diverse team, Democrats added Vermont independent Bernie Sanders and Tammy Baldwin of Wisconsin as representatives of a more progressive faction and Joe Manchin III of West Virginia representing a more centrist contingent. Sanders will be chairman of outreach, Baldwin will serve as conference secretary and Manchin will be vice chairman of the Democratic Policy and Communications Committee, an advisory board to leadership.

. . . There probably would not have been suspense on the Republican side even if the GOP had lost the majority, but the outcome was even more predictable given the election results.

Majority Leader Mitch McConnell was re-elected as the chamber’s Republican leader Wednesday during a closed-door organizational meeting.

The Kentucky Republican was nominated by Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida and Sen.-elect Todd Young of Indiana, and received a standing ovation from the caucus.
Young said he highlighted his faith in McConnell’s leadership in his remarks to the caucus. “I trusted Mitch McConnell because I had direct interaction, especially over recent months,” Young said.

The top GOP leaders are all white men. But in the 114th Congress McConnell did appoint four counsels to broaden the discussion at the leadership table, which included two female senators.

Nebraska’s Deb Fischer, who served as one of the counsels, expects those positions to continue in the next Congress. She was also not concerned with the lack of diversity at the top.

“I think it’s important that we put the best person in the job,” Fischer said. “Diversity is good, whether it’s age or prior work experience, life experiences, gender, whatever, that’s always good to have it in the mix. When it comes down to a certain position, I think you always have to look at the qualities of the individuals.”

From Vox: Democrats really might have a shot at taking the House. Here's the math.

Still a long shot though, despite indications that they are on track to take back the Senate.

- Click here for the article.

Even though most analysts think it’s unlikely — Democrats would need to pick up 30 seats, including in reliably Republican territory — there is one political analyst who has a theory of how it could happen.

Geoffrey Skelley, who closely tracks congressional races at the University of Virginia’s Center for Politics, suggests there’s a crude shorthand for evaluating the battle for the House: Look to see if Clinton can beat Trump by 6 points or more in the presidential race. If that happens, Skelley projects 50 seats would be in play.

If Clinton wins by 6 points — and current polling suggests she might — it would mean Democrats could have a real, genuine, honest-to-goodness shot at pulling off whatlooked impossible just a few months ago.

By most projections, Democrats look more likely to get closer to 15 or 20 seats, not the 30 they’d need. Many states have gerrymandered safe Republican seats that would require an extraordinary landslide to do the trick. In 2012, for instance, Democratic House candidates won 1.7 million more votes than their Republican foes — and still ended up with 33 fewer members of the House. This is why even many Democrats believe taking the House is unlikely.

But unlikely doesn’t mean impossible. Here’s the math behind how Democrats’ long-shot dream might just become a reality.

From Politico: Senate rejects all gun bills

More on last night's vote:


- Click here for the article.

The Senate voted down four separate gun measures Monday in the aftermath of the worst mass shooting in modern U.S. history — showing the partisan paralysis over gun control has barely moved on Capitol Hill despite the stream of continued gun violence across the country.

Lawmakers took up two separate issues involving gun regulations: how to improve the nation’s background check system for those who want to purchase firearms, and how to ensure those with terrorist ties do not obtain a gun. But those questions remained unresolved by lawmakers as of Monday night.

Instead, Democrats made it clear they want to make it as painful for Republicans to oppose their gun amendments, whether through a flood of advocacy calls to their Senate offices or at the ballot box in November.

For a look at the actual votes, click here: Senate Roll Call Votes.

The votes were not for a unique stand alone bill on gun control. Instead they were offered as amendment to one of the appropriations bills that has to passed later this year. Click here for it:

- H.R.2578 - Commerce, Justice, Science, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2016.

For more on the appropriations process:

- House Committee on Appropriations.
- Congress.Gov: Appropriations for Fiscal Year 2017.

The Sentencing Reform and Corrections Act

Vox is impressed that the Senate might actually pass something substantive. The bill shows that the nation has drastically changed its opinion on criminal justice in the past 20 years.

- Click here for their story.

On Thursday, a group of senators introduced a bill they called "the biggest criminal justice reform in a generation" — an effort that, unlike other bills, actually has a shot at moving through the chamber.

The Sentencing Reform and Corrections Act would reduce sentences of some current federal prisoners, and allow future prisoners to get shorter sentences. It's not the first bipartisan criminal justice reform bill to be introduced in Congress, but it's the first one with a clear path to passage in the Senate. That's thanks to an important ally: Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA).

Grassley chairs the Senate Judiciary Committee, and he's opposed past criminal justice reform bills — which has been enough to keep them from coming up for a vote in the full Senate. But the growing pressure for reform, both from advocates and within his own party, appears to have convinced him that he needed to do something. The Sentencing Reform and Corrections Act, written by Grassley after months of negotiations with colleagues, is the result.

This means the bill isn't just a compromise between Democrats and Republicans — it's a compromise between criminal justice reformers and at least one prominent skeptic. But reformers hope Grassley's support will be enough to ensure that this bill makes it further than previous efforts have — and even ends up on the president's desk.

From Politico: How McConnell outfoxed Ted Cruz

There have been several articles recently about how Cruz has been contained in the Senate.

- Click here for this one.

Ted Cruz called out Mitch McConnell seven times by name on Monday night. Afterward, the Senate majority leader barely uttered a word about his chief Republican adversary.
Asked about Cruz’s diatribe on the Senate floor, during which the Texas Republican suggested McConnell is a puppet for Democratic leaders and a foe of conservatives, McConnell couldn’t conceal his smile on Tuesday.

“I have tried very hard to stay out of the presidential race, and I think that’s probably a good rule for me,” he said with a chuckle.

McConnell may not like to talk about Cruz, but he and his leadership lieutenants have quietly and methodically worked to isolate the conservative senator and minimize his effect on the critical fall spending debate. The end result, in spite of Cruz’s invective toward Republican leaders, is music to McConnell’s ears: no government shutdown.

“We had to be prepared,” said John Thune of South Dakota, the No. 3 Senate Republican. “He’s running for national office. He’s got a different endgame than we do. There are things we have to do here. We’ve got to fund the government every year.”

A List of United States Senators from Texas

From Wikipedia of course.

- Click here for it.

Notice that Texas' Senators fall into class 1 or class 2. This establishes when these senators face re-election. The manner in which senators face the electorate is established in the Constitution - click here for it - and is meant to ensure that the general population only has a minimal impact on the institution. 2/3rds are immune from the electorate in each election.

- Click here for a description of the process.

And.....

- For a full list of senators in class 1 click here.
- For a full list of senators in class 2 click here.
- For a full list of senators in class 3 click here.

From the Huffington Post: Here's A Dramatic Reminder Of Just How Partisan The Senate Has Become

This is a bit dated - originally posted 11/13/13 - but it walks through the recent trend towards polarization in the Senate. It shows how often Senators voted together from 1989 to 2013. Democrats in blue and Republicans in red.

- Click here for it.

The post had a video which walks through the voting patterns in each session. In order to cut to the chase. Here are three images that illustrate the trend.

From the New York Times: Who Will Win The Senate?

As of right now - Republicans have a 67% chance to be the majority party in the Senate after this election.

- Click here for the story.

On Ted Cruz and the recent debt ceiling vote

Out junior Senator is not making many friends in the Senate among his fellow Republicans. A few stories related to the recent debt limit vote:
- After GOP filibuster bid, Senate votes to suspend Treasury’s borrowing limit.

. . . Wednesday turned into a wild ride in the Senate. All the political unrest that has roiled the Republican Party in recent years — the establishment vs. conservative outsiders who threaten incumbent Republicans with primary challenges from the right — was on full display.

As he has for the past year, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.) placed himself at the center of the day’s action. McConnell and Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) had sought to allow a simple majority – all Democrats – to approve the suspension of the debt limit until March 2015. But Cruz refused to go along, forcing more complicated procedural moves. That infuriated his Republican colleagues, because it meant that at least five GOP senators would have to vote with the Democrats to end the filibuster.

- The Minority Maker: Ted Cruz hurts his party by forcing a meaningless debt-ceiling vote.

The Senate passed the House debt-limit increase on Wednesday, but not before some needless drama that helps to explain why Republicans remain a minority.

Democrats had enough votes to pass the increase with a simple majority, which means they would have owned the debt increase. But then Senator Ted Cruz —the same fellow who planned the GOP's shutdown fiasco in October—objected on the floor and insisted on a 60-vote majority. This is exactly what Democratic leader Harry Reid wanted because if the bill failed he would have sent the Senate home on recess and returned later this month to join President Obama in flogging the GOP as the debt-ceiling deadline neared.

The 60-vote threshold was reached only after GOP leaders Mitch McConnell, John Cornyn and 10 others voted to let the final debt-ceiling vote proceed. All 12 then opposed the increase on final passage, but thanks to Mr. Cruz they had to walk the plank with Democrats on a procedural vote.

- Ted Cruz isn’t planning to be in the Senate for very long.

By forcing the Senate to round up 60 votes to end debate and force a final vote on a clean increase of the debt ceiling, Cruz knowingly complicated things for the top two Republicans in the chamber -- Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (Ky.) and Senate Minority Whip John Cornyn (Texas). Both men face primary challenges from their ideological right and neither relished the idea of helping break a filibuster for a debt ceiling increase with no Republican proposals attached.

It's not news that Cruz cares little for Senate tradition. He ran in 2012 on his willingness to shake up the institution, and time and again -- most notably during his nearly 24 hour talk-a-thon to protest Obamacare -- he has been willing (and gleefully so) to be a fly in the ointment. But, this latest gambit by Cruz may well be the most telling because it directly impacts two men who, if Cruz had any thought of sticking around the Senate for any extended period of time, not only could, but would make life very uncomfortable for him.

- High cost of an ego trip.

Cruz’s ego trip had come at a high cost. He had forced McConnell, Sen. John Cornyn of Texas and other Republicans to cast votes that could cause them to lose primaries to weaker general-election candidates, and he had risked getting his party blamed for a default.

The Wall Street Journal’s conservative editorial page dubbed Cruz “the Minority Maker” for making his GOP colleagues “walk the plank” on a “meaningless debt ceiling vote.”

But Cruz doesn’t care about all that. Leaving the chamber, he told reporters McConnell’s fate would be “ultimately a decision . . . for the voters in Kentucky.”

His actions suggest Cruz has put himself before his party and even the nation’s solvency. And in this sense his actions are typical of the 2016 GOP presidential field. Cruz, Sen. Marco Rubio and Sen. Rand Paul are mucking up the gears of government in ways that will earn them favorable attention in the primaries.

Party polarization in the Senate in one pretty picture

Click here for the source. It purports to show who votes with whom. Party affiliation matters.

From the NYT: After G.O.P. Leaders Step In, Senate Votes to Raise Debt Ceiling

Now the bill goes to the president for a signature.

Students should note the mention of

Click here for the article:

Senate Republican leaders on Wednesday rescued a measure to raise the nation’s borrowing limit, overcoming a threatened filibuster from members of their own party and averting a potential shock to the economy.

A vote to cut off debate on the debt ceiling measure passed 67 to 31, after a dramatic scene on the floor when Republicans managed to muster 12 votes in support, clearing the way for final approval.

Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the Republican leader, and Senator John Cornyn of Texas, the Republican whip, waited nearly a half-hour as their Republican colleagues refused to vote to end debate on the bill. When it was clear that the debt ceiling increase would fail, they stepped forward in tandem to deliver the deciding votes.

The Senate then quickly voted to raise the nation’s borrowing limit, without any conditions, until March 2015, sending the legislation to President Obama to be signed. The passage ended the possibility of a calamitous debt default, as lawmakers scrambled to get out of town before a snowstorm rolled in.

The 55-to-43 vote, largely along party lines, ended three years of fiscal brinkmanship in which the threat of a default hung over acrimonious debt ceiling negotiations, and came a day after the Republican-controlled House passed the same legislation by relying almost entirely on Democratic votes.

The legislation required 60 votes to clear a procedural hurdle and break a threatened filibuster after Senator Ted Cruz, Republican of Texas, said he planned to object to any effort to raise the debt ceiling with a minimum of 51 votes. But he failed in his attempt to unite Senate Republicans to prevent the increase.

From the Atlantic: Now Abolish the Filibuster for Legislation, Too

People don't seem all that upset at the demise of the filibuster.

This guys wants to see it to further and have it repealed fro legislation also:

Much of the commentary on Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid rolling back the filibuster for most presidential appointees has been celebratory, even euphoric. It certainly was a step toward restoring some semblance of "majority rule" to our creaking 200-year-old republic. But commentators seem to forget that the filibuster has been used to sandbag important legislation as well, not just presidential appointments. And that's arguably where the most damage has been done. All sorts of good legislation, supported by a majority of the nation, also enjoyed majority support in the Senate, but Reid was not able to muster 60 out of 100 votes and break GOP-led filibusters.

Recent Senate filibusters of important progressive-leaning legislation include:
Firearm background checks: After the horror of Sandy Hook and other massacres, 54 senators supported legislation in April 2013 to institute background checks aimed at stopping would-be buyers who are ineligible to own guns. Polls showed that 90 percent of Americans supported the measure. Yet the bill died because its advocates could not round up the 60 votes needed to avoid a filibuster. President Obama called it a "shameful day for Washington," but it was really a pretty typical day in this era.

Cap-and-trade: One of the top items on Obama's agenda after taking office in 2009 was to implement a cap-and-trade law to cut carbon emissions. In June 2009, the Democrat-controlled House passed a bill, but it stalled in the Senate after failing to garner enough votes to overcome a Republican-led filibuster. In July 2010, Democrats finally abandoned hope of passing legislation in the upper chamber. "In order to pass comprehensive legislation, you have to have 60 votes. To get 60 votes, you've got to have Republicans. As of today, we don't have one Republican," said then-Senator John Kerry.

American Jobs Act: A GOP-led filibuster killed this jobs-and-stimulus bill in October 2011. Fifty-one senators voted in favor of a procedural motion to begin debate on the bill—short of the required 60 votes. The bill was a mix of tax cuts and new spending aimed at spurring job creation. It included $270 billion in payroll-tax cuts and other tax relief, along with $175 billion in new spending on roads, school repairs, and other infrastructure projects, as well as an extension of unemployment benefits and aid to local governments to prevent impending teacher and police layoffs. A majority of senators representing far more than a majority of the American people supported the bill.

Paycheck Fairness Act: The Senate Republican minority blocked passage of the Paycheck Fairness Act in June 2012, with "only" 52 senators voting for the bill and 47 against. The act aimed to decrease the pay gap between women and men by increasing protections for women filing gender-discrimination lawsuits, creating a federal-grant program to improve women's salary-negotiating skills, and rewarding employers who have fair pay practices, among other steps.

Sequestration: In February 2013, a Democratic compromise budget plan would have replaced the sequester with a combination of spending cuts and new revenue from closed tax loopholes. It had Senate majority support but it was shot down by Senate Republicans, with 51 senators voting for and 49 against.

Affordable Care Act: In March 2010, Democrats had to deploy the budget maneuver called “reconciliation” to cut off a Republican filibuster of Obama’s signature healthcare legislation. Though the bill was passed, filibusters, as well as threats of filibusters and other parliamentary tricks, constricted lawmakers' flexibility and contributed to the byzantine final law—which in turn helped to create today's implementation mess.

In each of these cases, Democrats tried and failed to find 60 votes, but there are plenty of other cases where they didn't even try. The way the filibuster works today is that even the threat can stop legislation in its tracks. Because the process takes Senate floor time, the Democratic majority has in recent years preferred to avoid drawn-out confrontations by essentially giving in to threats and moving on to other business. Small wonder that the Senate—and by extension the entire government—has become so paralyzed.

A campaign speech, not a filibuster

Our Senator's 21 hour speech was technically not a filibuster since there were already enough votes collected to ensure cloture - meaning that a vote on the continuing resolution was guaranteed to occur.

The National Journal explains here.

Rand Paul's speech which held up the nomination of a CIA director and Wendy Davis' which forced the end of a special session of the Texas Legislature both qualified. But it was similar to a speech given by Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders in 2010 - which was also not a filibuster.

A filibuster - according to Wikipedia - is:

a type of parliamentary procedure where debate is extended, allowing one or more members to delay or entirely prevent a vote on a given proposal. It is sometimes referred to as talking out a bill, and characterized as a form of obstruction in a legislature or other decision-making body.

The consensus seems to be that the speech had little to do with defunding Obamacare, and more to do with raising Cruz's viability as a 2016 presidential candidate and gathering campaign contributions.

This might have been the first big speech of the 2016 presidential race.

Scary thought.

Senate Foreign Relations Committee approves use of military force

From the NYT:

A divided Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Wednesday approved an authorization of force against the Syrian government, setting up a showdown next week in the full Senate on whether President Obama should have the authority to strike.

The 10-to-7 vote showed bipartisan support for a strike, but bipartisan opposition as well.

. . . The approved resolution would limit strikes against the Syrian government to 60 days, with the possibility of 30 more days upon consultation with Congress, and it would specifically block the use of ground troops. But to retain the support of Mr. McCain, considered crucial to the authorization’s final passage, the committee toughened some of the language.

Jack Goldsmith compares the version of the AUMF passed by the committee with that proposed by the Obama Administration (courtesy of The Dish).

- Here is the administration's proposal.
- Here is what passed the committee

While a minority might be powerless in the US House of Representatives, it is not in the US Senate

A useful reminder by James Fallows.

In the House, a minority is indeed "largely powerless." Just ask Nancy Pelosi, Steny Hoyer, et al about how life has changed since 2010.

In the Senate, it's very different. There a minority is extremely powerful. Just ask Mitch McConnell, who has made 60 votes -- not a simple majority of 51 -- the de-facto minimum for getting either nominees or legislation approved.

Here's one way to think about it: in both the Senate and the House, the minority party has about the same proportional strength. The Republicans now have 46 Senate seats, obviously 46% of the total. And the 201 Democrats in the House are just over 46% of its makeup.

But in the House, those 46% might as well be 0%, since everything is run by majority vote. While in the Senate, 46% is a fully empowered blocking minority -- which can keep judgeships vacant, legislation from being approved, and essentially anything else from being done. That is, as long as they vote as a bloc, as they usually have; and are committed to making the filibuster not an emergency matter but a daily routine, as under McConnell they have done.

From the NYT: The Endless Battle Over Judicial Nominees

The author tests the idea that Obama's judicial appointees have been treated worse than W. Bush or Clinton. He finds the record mixed.

First he points out why a controversy even exists over these nominations: 

Judicial nominations tend to be drawn-out, process-heavy affairs, as do the trials and appeals over which federal judges ultimately preside. Yet in the last few years alone, federal judges have shaped policy on climate change, health care, voting rights, labor relations, contraception, gun control and campaign finance, among other issues. Congressional action may get the bigger headlines, but federal judges often have the last word.

He then points out that the picture varies depending on whether the appointment is for a district court, or a circuit court judge.

. . . Mr. Obama has been roughly as successful as his recent predecessors in getting his circuit court nominees confirmed. He has placed a handful fewer judges because he has nominated fewer. His fifth-year failure rate (14 percent of nominees not confirmed) is actually somewhat lower than Mr. Bush’s (22 percent) and Bill Clinton’s (21 percent).

. . . The district courts, where federal trials occur, are a different story. There, Democratic presidents really have had a harder time winning Senate confirmation for their nominees.

The Senate failed to confirm only 3 percent of Mr. Bush’s district court nominees through June of his fifth year in office (and 1 percent by the end of his presidency). The fifth-year failure rate for Mr. Clinton was 11 percent, and it has been 8 percent for Mr. Obama. If every recent president had a confirmation rate as high as Mr. Bush’s, Democrats might have placed 25 more trial judges on the federal bench.

The difference is especially notable, legal experts say, because Democratic presidents have generally avoided nominating passionate liberals, while Mr. Bush did not shy away from putting strong conservatives in the mold of Justice Antonin Scalia on appellate courts.

Republicans, in other words, have played a tougher brand of politics with federal trial courts. Depending on one’s perspective, that strategy is more partisan or more successful — or both.

He finds that vacancies in trial courts happen mostly in states with two Republican Senators. 

Congress now has only two WWII veterans remaining

And both are the House - Ralph Hall (TX) and John Dingell (MI). Frank Lautenberg was the last veteran in the Senate.

Michael Barone describes the domininance this generation had on politics for the bulk of the late 20th Century. It had a greater inpact on any other group of veterans since the Civil War.

Not much notice was paid when the last Spanish-American War veteran in Congress, Barratt O'Hara, died in 1969.

Nor was much attention directed at the retirement from Congress in the 1970s of the last two World War I veterans -- Sen. Mike Mansfield of Montana (who lied about his age to enlist) and Sen. John Sparkman of Alabama (who served in the Students Army Training Corps).

In contrast, World War II veterans made a big splash in politics starting shortly after the war ended. Dozens of young veterans were elected to Congress in 1946, including future Presidents John Kennedy and Richard Nixon.

The Washington Post speculates on what his retirement might mean for the the institution and veteran's policies:

But with the death Monday of Frank R. Lautenberg (D-N.J.), not a single one of the 115 World War II veterans who served in the Senate remain, the latest evidence of the rapid decline in members of Congress with military service.

The passing of Lautenberg and the dearth of veterans in Congress is a concern for veterans advocates, who have seen a number of senior senators with clout and sympathy toward their positions pass from the scene in recent years.

“It’s a sad day,” said Louis Celli, national legislative director for the American Legion. “These were some of the most ferocious advocates for veterans that we had. We as veterans counted on the senior leadership, the World War II veterans, to represent us. We respected them, they respected us, and without them, there’s going to be a void.”

Lautenberg “was a real champion for veterans,” said Bob Wallace, executive director of Veterans of Foreign Wars. “He was very proud of the fact that he served in World War II and got educated on the GI Bill. He wanted to do the same for younger veterans, no matter what generation they served.”

Both stories highlight an interesting factoid:

For a time, the Senate was home to three men — Inouye, Bob Dole of Kansas and Phil Hart of Michigan — who had recuperated at the same Army hospital from serious wounds incurred in World War II combat.

The Washington Post story points out that while WW2 veterans flooded Congress (115 would eventually serve) soon after the end of the war, very few veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan have ben elected. They don't point out - but its worth noting - that no Vietnam Veterans have been elected to the presidency. The three who ran - Gore, Kerry, and McCain - were defeated.

Are there too many old people in Congress?

Some smart types debate the issue following the death of one Senator - New Jersey's Frank Lautenberg -at 89. He was far from the oldest Senator by the way. That would be Strom Thurmond.

- One thinks we - and incumbents - should change our "norms about incumbency" and that more party members should be willing to make primary challenges, which discounts the advantage of seniority of seniority. There should be more turnover in the Senate says he.

- Another points out that a disadvantage of having elderly Senators is that they have no idea what problems face younger Americans, and if they are incapacitated their unelected staffs take over their duties. Is this a good idea? She aregues for more retirements in the Senate.

- The historian emeritus of the Senate reminds us that the word "senate" comes from the Latin "sen" meaning old or an elder - so the Senate is supposed to composed of indviduals with age and experience. The reason there are elderly people in the Senate is because constituents vote for them. Dealing with elderly Senators who are also infirmed can be tricky however.

- An ex-member of Congress thinks we have better things to worry about: . . . "term limits and age limits are antithetical to the power given to the voters. Furthermore, as Americans live longer and healthier lives the people who represent them should reflect the very makeup of the constituents they serve.:

Is Ted Cruz burning the bridges that might help him win the presidency?

Our junior senator - Ted Cruz - along with Rand Paul and a few others, have begun their careers in the Senate by violating a number of unpoken rules about how newly elected members are supposed to act. Rather than defer to senior members, build up relationships and spend time learning how the institution runs they have made it a habit of acting out on their own, even against senior members of their own party.

They are up front about not caring about how the institution runs but the conflict he is stirring up might make him a less viable presidential candidate should he choose to run. The Dish flags two stories to that make this argument.

One points out, ironically, that Cruz is violating advice made by one of his predecessors from Texas, Lyndon Johnson.

There was a time when a new senator could not have survived such a controversial start. "The making of a good senator is in some ways similar to the making of a good work of art," William White wrote in 1956 in Citadel: The Story of the U.S. Senate. "There are few shortcuts." Lyndon Johnson gave a copy of the book to freshman senators. It advised that a career rested "upon what is slowly developing and enduring ... rather than what is quick and spectacular. Eminence may be reached by a concentration on frenetic and untypical senatorial activity, but it will never be sustained in that way."

Ted Cruz didn’t read that book, and even if he did, he’s decided to write his own. Though his colleagues have suggested he tone down his hard charging approach, he continues to engage with verve on multiple fronts.

There are at least a couple reasons why. First, the Senate occasionally provides a quick step to the White House, and the quicker the better. Both JFK and Obama made the jump during their first terms, so if Cruz's goal is the White House and not a long Senate career, he better make the jump soon. Older candidates - John McCain, Robert Dole and John Kerry for example - have not been as competitive.

Second, his real constituency is the Tea Party, and he prefers to do their bidding. They provide his support, so he doesn't rick much in the short term. from taking the establishment on. This includes picking fights with the older members of the institution. But this strategy might be more successful - electorally - if all he is interested in is being a long serving member of the Senate. If he wishes to make the jump to the White House, he needs to broaden his appeal:

. . . there are still dangers lurking for Cruz and others in the purity caucus. Though Barack Obama moved through the Senate quickly, he used it as a platform for bipartisan platform building. That’s what you need to do to win a national election in a diverse country. Cruz is pursuing the opposite strategy. It may win him cheers at home, but that puts him on track toward becoming this generation's Phil Gramm, the Texas senator whose effort to build a conservative platform from within the Senate made him unappealing as a national candidate.

His refusal to create relationships might limit his future goals:

I spoke to Sen. Tom Coburn of Oklahoma this week about a wide variety of topics. He is as principled a conservative as you can find in the Senate, and he is more eloquent than Cruz about the venality of career politicians. But Coburn can also talk about the power of human relationships in politics in a way that seems antithetical to the brand of politics pursued by Cruz. "Relationships are how deals get done," said Coburn, who in this case was talking about President Obama. He's been friendly with Obama since 2005, the year they both arrived in the Senate. This is a constant source of confusion for Coburn’s constituents. "The No. 1 question I get at home is: Why are you friends with Barack Obama?" Coburn's answer, as Obama wrote in his essay about him for Time, is, “How better to influence somebody than to love them?” It's hard to imagine Ted Cruz talking that way.

John Sides makes the same point, and adds a nuance:

Cruz’s problem is that he may want to be president of the United States, reports the National Review’s Robert Costa.  And to be the Republican nominee, he’ll need the support of his Republican colleagues.  The 2012 election once again showed—and despite some skepticism—that it is very hard to win the nomination unless you’re preferred by a substantial chunk, if not the vast majority of, your party’s leaders (as was Romney).  Which is to say, it pays to be nice to your colleagues. 

Here's the nuance. If he really wants to win his party's nomination, much less the presidency itself, he has to tone down his ideology:

. . . many in the party are wary of nominating a strongly ideological candidate—a “severe” conservative, if you will—because they’re afraid that this candidate will lose in the general. And rightly so! See Table 2 of this article (pdf) by John Zaller.

In 2012, as Lynn Vavreck and I show in The Gamble (pdf), only about half of Romney’s supporters were closest to him ideologically. The other half were closer to Gingrich or Santorum—that is, to one of the more conservative candidates. But this other half also tended to believe that Romney was the only candidate who could beat Obama in November. Their vote was about electability, not experience. Of course, Romney didn’t win, but Zaller’s finding suggests that a more conservative candidate would have done worse, other things equal.

Cruz’s path to the presidency—if he decides to run—must consist precisely of convincing “the middle” of the party that he’s electable despite the fact that he may be the most conservative member of the Senate (pdf). To do that, he’ll need the support of his fellow party leaders to send that signal.