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WASHINGTON – The generally obscure Senate Rules Committee is the most insider of the insider groups, typically tasked with distributing valuable office space on Capitol Hill, running the Senate, and handling fights over the obscure procedures of the ground.
But the circumstances and ambitions of the current committee chair, Senator Amy Klobuchar, Democrat of Minnesota, pushed the panel in the middle of things. In just six months, she spearheaded a voting rights bill that Democrats wanted, while her committee investigated the failures of the Jan.6 assault on Capitol Hill. The panel was also tasked with organizing the inauguration of President Biden, just two weeks after the deadly riot.
“For so long people have focused, naturally, on the inner workings of the Senate with the Rules Committee,” said Ms Klobuchar, who responded with an emphatic ‘yes’ when asked if she was trying to transform the panel into a force. . “But the point is, we have greater jurisdiction, and this is our democracy.”
In keeping with that goal, the panel will convene its first field hearing in 20 years in Atlanta on Monday as it seeks to highlight new voting restrictions imposed by Republican state legislatures there and elsewhere in the United States. hope to build a case for the measurement of voting rights apparently stalled. This is part of a rare initiative by the Rules Committee to attempt to legislate – or at least set an agenda – on an important political issue.
“This is a concerted effort against our democracy,” Ms. Klobuchar said of the Republicans’ national push. “It’s a perpetuation of that lie that this election involved fraud and that Joe Biden was not the rightful winner. For me, that’s what it is.
Republicans, who are unlikely to be very present at the hearing, are fiercely opposed to legislation that Democrats say would protect voters, especially people of color, from Republicans’ efforts to make it more difficult to vote. They ignored the Atlanta event as a Democratic spectacle, even though they conceded that Ms. Klobuchar had every right to stage it.
“She’s the chair of the committee and it’s a burning issue for Democrats,” said Sen. Richard C. Shelby, Republican of Alabama and former chairman of the rules committee.
While the panel’s focus on overseeing the day-to-day affairs of the Senate may make it seem like a lost hole, it has often been led by astute players like Mr. Shelby. Given its power to allocate coveted meeting rooms and offices and offer other perks, those overseeing the panel can reward allies and punish opponents while also adding weight to the chamber.
The two current Senate leaders, Chuck Schumer, Democrat of New York, and Mitch McConnell, Republican of Kentucky, have both served as chairs of the Rules Committee and are both panel members. Senate legends such as Mike Mansfield, the former Montana majority leader, also headed the committee.
The panel may be known to oversee mundane matters like Senate food service, but the institution’s rules give it much broader jurisdiction, such as “federal elections in general, including the election of the president, of the vice-president and members of Congress ”. This portfolio can be translated into influence if the head of the committee chooses to exercise it.
“When you have a chairman who has the time, energy and interest to do something within the competence of the committee, he can have real power,” said Jean Bordewich, a former Democratic personnel director of the panel who is now with American Democracy. program at the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation. “Right now, the elections are in the foreground. “
Due to the committee’s electoral responsibilities, Ms. Klobuchar and Senator Roy Blunt of Missouri, the panel’s top Republican and former chair, found themselves at the center of the presidential electoral vote count and the horrific events of the usually routine incited tally. Ms Klobuchar said she began to worry about the electoral voting ceremony after the election, but never expected the violent assault on Capitol Hill which interrupted proceedings and forced lawmakers to take refuge in a safe place as Capitol Police battled Trump loyalists who stormed the building.
While they remained sequestered, Ms Klobuchar said she had a message for her colleagues: Once it was safe to do so, the House and Senate would complete the presidential tally.
“We will finish our work,” Ms. Klobuchar told them. “And everyone applauded.” In the wee hours of January 7, she and Mr. Blunt returned to the House, stepping over broken glass and other evidence of the breach, to conclude the tally.
But the assault – coupled with the pandemic – has sparked new fears to stick to the groundbreaking plan on the Capitol’s west terrace, with some pressing to limit proceedings as a safeguard. She and Mr Blunt, who have a good professional and personal relationship, insisted on sticking to the traditional approach to demonstrate that the attack on Capitol Hill did not interrupt the transfer of power. They were determined to hold the inauguration on the temporary platform that the rioters had climbed and badly damaged a few weeks before.
“There were members who wanted to move the inauguration indoors, especially after January 6, but the president-elect, his team and our committee wanted it to be as close as possible to everyone’s. was waiting to see, ”Mr. Blunt said. “And I think we did.”
In an aggressive move after the assault, Ms Klobuchar reached out to Senator Gary Peters, a Democrat from Michigan who is the chair of the Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee, to offer him a formal prompt investigation. After the hearings, the panel recommended changes to a bipartisan report deemed credible although of limited scope. And that’s where the bipartisanship ended, as Ms Klobuchar backed the idea of an independent panel to take a deeper dive while Mr Blunt and nearly all Republicans opposed the idea. .
“We both saw our report as important,” she said. “I felt we needed more. “
Mr. Blunt is also one of the main opponents of the voting rights measure which he calls the Democratic attempt to “try to take federal control of the electoral process”. Although he will not be attending Monday’s session, he said he would be interested to see “if this hearing adds anything to the discussion.”
The question for the measurement of the elections is to know what can be done to advance it on a unanimous and deep Republican opposition. Democrats currently do not have the votes to remove the filibuster and impose the measure themselves. Ms Klobuchar conceded that a Democrats-only budget reconciliation measure protected against filibuster would be a potential route for some election arrangements, but that they would be constrained by strict rules.
“We will do whatever we can,” she said.
Ms Klobuchar, who ran for president in 2020, rejected a suggestion that her high-profile handling of the panel was tied to her own political goals, a way to keep her in the national discussion.
“It’s my job,” she said of a role that hasn’t always appealed to politicians trying to make a name for themselves. “It’s not the job that everyone would have chosen, but it was my job and I was, in my mind, in the right place at the right time.”
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