GOP Disarray Hands Democrats a Big Midterm Gift

Another stunning legislative embarrassment for House Republicans has handed Democrats a mighty big talking point over the next three months until the midterm elections: The GOP is incapable -- if not unwilling -- to govern, they will argue. “Republicans,” you’re going to hear Democrats say, “can’t even agree how to respond to a serious crisis on our borders. But where they do agree is launching a partisan lawsuit against the president of the United States. That’s your ‘Do-Nothing’ Republican Party.” Of course, Republicans have powerful talking points of their own and have had them for months. “The world is on fire!” “Obama and Obamacare are unpopular!” “It’s time to boot Harry Reid out of being Senate majority leader!” Indeed, when you think about it, the past month has been a rough stretch for Democrats. President Obama’s approval rating is stuck in the low 40s (high 30s in some key Senate swing states), and the dominant news stories have been violence and instability around the globe. But the past 48 hours might have been even worse for Republicans -- suing the president for taking executive action, not passing legislation to provide relief at the border, and then saying that there are executive actions Obama should be taking on the border. (Huh?) As even Charles Krauthammer said on Fox, “It is ridiculous to sue the president on a Wednesday because he oversteps the law … and then on a Thursday say that he should overstep the law.” Here’s the deal: If Democrats hold serve in November (retain control of the Senate, minimize losses or even pick up seats in the House), we’ll all look back on the last two days as the week the GOP blew it.

Why it could resonate into the fall

In other words, Democrats now have something fresh to run against. And you couldn’t necessarily say that on July 1. Yes, there was the government shutdown last fall. But that was a year ago -- and it got immediately overshadowed by the months-long story about HealthCare.Gov’s failure (an example of the Obama’s administration own difficulty in governing). But what’s significant about yesterday’s legislative embarrassment for Republicans is that 1) it comes just three months before the midterm elections, and 2) it came a day after the House, in a partisan vote, moved to sue the president. That’s why Democrats have a chance to exploit this -- that is, of course, until we see the next Democratic misstep or national/international crisis.

A dysfunctional House -- and a dysfunctional Congress

Moving from a look at the upcoming elections to examining Capitol Hill itself, Washington might be broken right now, but your House of Representatives is in shambles, even making the gridlocked Harry Reid-led Senate seem more functional (though it also couldn’t pass its own border bill yesterday). Yesterday’s inability for Republicans to get 218 votes on a border-relief bill was just the latest example of House Speaker John Boehner’s and his leadership team’s inability to manage the House GOP caucus. If you’re not going to pursue legislation that will get significant Democratic support, then you need to get nearly all House Republicans to support it. But that didn’t happen. Yet let’s also not ignore the games that Democrats played here: Senate Majority Leader Reid was saying that the House border bill could be a conference vehicle to pass comprehensive immigration reform. And that comes as the Senate itself was unable to move its own border-relief bill (Republicans, joined by a couple of Democrats, voted to block it last night.) A final note here: We’ve been saying it for a while, but immigration reform’s chances are really, really, really dead in this Congress. Folks, this was a House bill to give the administration the ability to DEPORT these undocumented children, and the House couldn’t even pass that.

Do-over time for House Republicans

All of that said, House Republicans will meet at 9:00 am ET for another try at passing a border-relief measure, because they realize they HAVE to do something. “I think at the end of the day we’re going to end up getting to a majority and get this thing passed,” Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-IL) told the New York Times. “We’re not going to leave here until this is done.” A House GOP aide adds to First Read: “Oh, I think we'll get there. It just ain't pretty.” But the price for getting the votes today -- going on the record wanting to repeal the president’s DACA executive action or trying to prevent him from expanding it -- only will exasperate the GOP’s problems with Latinos in the long term. It’s your political rock and a hard place.

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http://www.nbcnews.com/politics/first-read/gop-disarray-hands-democrats-big-midterm-gift-n170421