Senate still a ‘legislative graveyard’ for partisan House bills

Democrats spent years bemoaning how then-Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) turned the upper chamber into a “legislative graveyard” for House-passed priorities.

Then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) described McConnell in 2019 as the “grim reaper” for refusing to pass the nearly 400 partisan bills she had sent him, and McConnell even acknowledged the dig at one point.

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“It is true,” McConnell said in a 2019 interview. “They’ve been on a full left-wing parade over there. Trotting out all of their left-wing solutions that are going to be issues in the fall campaign. They are right. We are not going to pass those.”

He continued, “We have divided government, and when you have divided government, you have to work on things you can agree on.”

The political tides have since shifted, but the Senate’s “graveyard” status remains.

Only 14 of the 295 pieces of legislation the GOP-led House passed this year have also been passed by the Democratic-controlled Senate.

The divided Congress found enough common ground to pass authorizations to allow for five events on Capitol grounds and a sixth to invite President Joe Biden to deliver his State of the Union address. Both chambers also managed to pass a bicameral resolution expressing support for the state of Israel following the Oct. 7 attack.

Aside from those, there’s been little action.

One Democratic Senate leadership source acknowledged as much to the Washington Examiner, saying there is “not a single partisan bill that passes the House that could pass the Senate.”

Stephanie Scarbrough/AP

Biden and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) have worked with former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) and current House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) on deals to avert a government shutdown and a debt default, but both of those were bipartisan priorities.

Bills like H.R. 2, the House GOP’s mammoth immigration reform legislation that has no Democratic support, will die in the Senate, either through a failed floor vote or by Schumer never allowing them to be brought up for a vote in the first place.

Johnson, who needs to keep the right flank of his conference in line to avoid an ouster like McCarthy’s, has said that he will insist on the Senate passing H.R. 2 in exchange for him putting Ukraine aid up for a vote. While the demand is sure to placate some of those members temporarily, it won’t pass muster in the Senate, where Democrats hold a slim 51-49 majority and the GOP conference has numerous centrists.

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In the meantime, the Senate is working to finish up must-pass legislation to fund the Pentagon and nine of the 12 bills that fund the federal government. It also must find a way to settle disputes on a border security deal necessary to pass a $111 billion defense supplemental spending bill, which includes Ukraine, Israel, and Taiwan assistance bills.

There is only one legislative week left in this calendar year, giving members little time to get everything done. Both chambers punted on the appropriations front, passing a short-term continuing resolution to keep the entire government funded through early February.