The Gridlock Scenario

Your read it here first....

I can’ resist, but for those who read my post a couple of weeks ago about the possibility of a Harris win and Republican take over of the Senate, the gridlock that would lead to — consider this from Politico today, several weeks later.

“1. THE STAKES FOR NOVEMBER: It’s not hard to imagine a scenario where Harris wins the White House but Republicans flip that Senate. A pair of new stories explore what could happen then: NBC’s Sahil Kapur and Alex Tabet report (https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2024-election/harris-win-presidency-lose-senate-giving-republicans-veto-agenda-judge-rcna170479) that top Senate Republicans would force Harris to get their approval on any judicial nominees, while the prospects for big-ticket legislation would be slim. Plenty of other nominations could be tough too. Would Republicans pull a MITCH McCONNELL and outright refuse to allow her to fill a Supreme Court vacancy? Democrats aren’t going there yet, but they expect a fight.

Republicans are “in a fighting mood,” Semafor’s Burgess Everett reports (https://www.semafor.com/article/09/19/2024/republicans-plot-a-nominee-rebellion-against-a-potential-president-harris), and they intend to force Harris to moderate her nominees for Cabinet posts and the courts. Progressive picks could get blocked. “It’s hard to overstate how slow-moving and bitter a divided Washington would be next year,” Burgess writes. And the situation could be unprecedented: No president has started their first term without Congress being controlled by their party since the 1980s, when the parties were less polarized.”

Back to my reality: Hope to weigh in with another election-rated post in the next couple of days, see you then