In an exchange with CNN correspondent Manu Raju on Tuesday, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer dismissed complaints that senators are expected to vote on a 4,155-page, $1.7 trillion omnibus appropriations bill hours after first seeing it.
SO WHAT
America’s laws are increasingly dictated by a small group of people.
THE MOMENT
Raju — echoing some Republican lawmakers — asked Schumer how it is a “functional process” to hold a vote Wednesday on the legislation, which was filed overnight in hopes of staving off a government shutdown at the end of the week.
- “The bill has been carefully worked on by the Appropriations Committee for a very, very long time,” Schumer replied.
- “Most of the provisions were well known weeks and weeks and weeks in advance, and getting this bill done for the American people, which really matters, is the most important thing.”
- The bipartisan bill contains $772.5 billion for non-defense programs and $858 billion for defense, including $45 billion in emergency aid for Ukraine.
THE PROBLEM
“The founders envisioned Congress as a deliberative body in which outcomes are discovered. We are fast approaching the point, however, where Congress exists as little more than a formality to legitimize outcomes dictated by the president, the speaker of the House and the Senate majority leader,” wrote then-Rep. Justin Amash, R-Mich., in a 2019 Washington Post op-ed about why he was leaving the GOP.
- “With little genuine debate on policy happening in Congress, party leaders distract and divide the public by exploiting wedge issues and waging pointless messaging wars. These strategies fuel mistrust and anger, leading millions of people to take to social media to express contempt for their political opponents, with the media magnifying the most extreme voices. This all combines to reinforce the us-vs.-them, party-first mind-set of government officials.”
- A number of conservative thinkers and lawmakers have traced Congress’ failures to a legislative process that is more and more top-down.
