Chuck Schumer's Right Flank Problem
Time is running out for the new Senate Majority Leader to get control of his caucus
I spent my teenage years in Pine Bluff, a sleepy town in south-central Arkansas. Across the street from our house was the Pine Bluff Commercial, the town’s newspaper. Behind the paper’s brick building was a large grassy piece of land that the newspaper owners allowed the neighborhood kids to use for sandlot sporting events.Â
We always had plenty of players to field two teams, but we never seemed to have enough equipment to go around. Not everyone had a baseball glove, and we didn’t always have a decent baseball for our games.Â
Fortunately for us, there was Corey, a kid that lived a few streets over. Corey seemed to have an unlimited amount of athletic equipment. He had an assortment of baseball bats — wooden and aluminum — along with several baseball gloves and balls. Whenever we saw Corey walking through the alley behind our house, a large duffel bag over his shoulder, we knew we had enough equipment to go around, and this way, we could pick sides and proceed with a few innings of baseball.Â
But there was a problem. Somewhere along the way, Corey realized all that equipment gave him enormous power over our games and whether we could play at all. If Corey’s team started to lose, or if a close call didn’t go his way, he’d snatch up his bats, balls, and gloves and go home — leaving the rest of us standing there, unable to continue our game. The guy was an idiom playing out in real-life.Â
As a result, we went out of our way to appease Corey. We knew if he didn’t get his way, he had the power to grind everything to a screeching halt. Even though we were just kids, we knew if we ever wanted to play a regular baseball game, we had to figure out some way to take Corey’s power away.Â
Finally, my parents took note and bought each of my brothers and me new bats and gloves, which we were more than happy to share with the other kids, thus neutralizing Corey’s powerful, albeit fleeting influence.Â
Not long ago, I read that going into the 2020 election, New York Senator Chuck Schumer express a concern that, if true, seems pretty similar to my childhood dilemma.Â
The newly-minted Senate Majority Leader said he had two fears regarding the election’s outcome. His primary fear was losing additional seats in the Senate. The other, and perhaps the worst, was winning just enough seats to secure a narrow majority, giving a few Democratic Senators virtual veto power over everything that comes down the pike.
The good news is Democrats hit the trifecta: control of the White House, the House of Representatives, and the Senate. But now that the euphoria of winning a Senate majority has faded, it’s easy to understand Schumer’s concern.Â
Although he is now Senate Majority Leader, his control of a 50–50 Senate rests on Vice President Kamala Harris’s ability to break ties as President of the Senate — which is meaningless unless he holds his Caucus of 50 Democratic Senators together. With conflicting ideologies like Senators Bernie Sanders on the left end of the spectrum and Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema on the right, that’s a very tall order.Â
To even the casual political observer, this should not be a huge surprise. We know who Sanders is from a policy standpoint, and both Sinema and Manchin have consistently sought to lay claim to the center-right flank of the Democratic coalition.Â
But a month into Democratic control of all three levers of government, the Senate’s right flank — not the progressive wing — is poised to throw a monkey wrench in Schumer’s plans and, by extension, Biden’s agenda.Â
Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema have gone out of their way to drive home the notion that all legislative roads go through them  —  whether their machinations coincide with President Biden’s agenda — or not.Â
Sinema expressed early support for maintaining the filibuster, a key Schumer bargaining chip during power-sharing negotiations and an issue of importance in the passage of health care and voting rights reform. Sinema contacted Republican leader Mitch McConnell to assure him of her support for the filibuster, sabotaging Schumer’s negotiations.
Meanwhile, Joe Manchin overtly flexed his swing vote muscle, publicly chastising the White House for having the audacity to give an interview to a West Virginia media outlet without first consulting him. He has been lukewarm in passing Covid relief through reconciliation and $2,000 stimulus checks. Like Sinema, he is against raising the minimum wage to $15 and abolishing the filibuster. To top things off, Manchin opposed Biden’s Cabinet pick for the Office of Management and Budget, Neera Tanden ostensibly, because of her mean tweets.
On its face, Manchin’s behavior seems understandable given West Virginia’s deeply conservative makeup. However, Biden’s Covid relief bill is wildly popular with Democrats as well as Republicans. Even Jim Justice, the state’s Republican governor, gave his full-throated support for Biden’s $1.9 trillion relief package, as have dozens of other Republican governors across the country.Â
Senator Sinema’s position, especially on the minimum wage, is also puzzling. With the election of Mark Kelly, Democrats hold both Arizona Senate seats. That, plus Biden’s win in the Electoral College, gives Sinema plenty of political space to accommodate Biden’s agenda. After all, in Arizona, the $15 minimum wage may be more popular than Kyrsten Sinema. You’d think this would appeal to a Senator headed for what promises to be a close 2022 reelection campaign.
Why then is this happening? It all boils down to one word: POWER.
So what, then, should Chuck Schumer do?
Even though the Senate parliamentarian has kiboshed, including the $15 minimum wage provision in the Covid relief bill, Schumer still has options.Â
He could simply fire the parliamentarian and appoint a new, more friendly congressional expert. In 2001, that’s what Republican Majority Leader Trent Lott did in a similar situation. The White House has zero interest in this approach.
Or, Schumer could go full Lyndon Baines Johnson and call Sinema and Manchin’s bluff on the $15 minimum wage. It’s a long shot, but boy, would I love to see Schumer get tough for once. Alex Pareene, of The New Republic, explains:
If the parliamentarian rules against including the minimum wage proposal in reconciliation, and Democrats decide to overrule the parliamentarian, Sinema would still be unable to block its inclusion in the bill. The parliamentarian has no official power; the vice president, as president of the senate, decides whether to overrule the parliamentarian. It then takes 60 votes to overrule the vice president’s decision.
Under this approach, if Vice President Harris overrules the parliamentarian, the only way Sinema or Manchin could block the minimum wage provision would be to sink the entire Covid package — the political equivalent of lighting themselves on fire.
More realistically, Schumer can proceed with the Covid relief package minus the $15 wage provision, potentially bringing the $15 minimum wage back later as a stand-alone bill, which the White House prefers. He can probably hold on to progressive support, giving Manchin and Sinema no excuse for failing to support the bill. Several progressives are already pushing for an amendment penalizing big companies that don’t pay a $15 minimum wage while offering small businesses incentives to meet the mark.
The fact that all these political gymnastics are even necessary underscores the long-term issue .  Democrats need to win more Senate seats in the 2022 mid-terms to reduce Manchin and Sinema’s ability to gum up the works. With Richard Burr, Rob Portman, and Pat Toomey reportedly retiring, the odds for Democrats to pick up Senate seats look pretty darn good.
