Even at its liveliest, the U.S. Senate isn’t known as a fast-paced place to work. By its very nature, the upper chamber was designed to be less passionate than the House, and the rules it has developed over the years — like the archaic filibuster — have only bolstered its intentionally sclerotic pace. But 2023 has been a real masterwork in how idle the Senate as a body can actually be.
Yes, that’s often the case in times of divided government. With Republicans in control of the House and President Joe Biden in the White House, Senate Democrats entered the year expecting to be on defense rather than offense. But as the House GOP descended further and further into a state of pure manic dysfunction, there’s been even less than expected for the Senate to actually do.
GOP control of the House has meant little amid the Republican infighting that’s repeatedly paralyzed the lower chamber. With Republicans having no interest in sending over bills that Democrats could support, the few bits of legislation that have cleared the House have been either intensely partisan or of the utmost necessity. As a result, a record low number of bills have been signed into law after the first year of the 118th Congress: a meager 27, according to NPR.
That wasn’t the case over the first half of the Biden administration. With Vice President Kamala Harris holding the tiebreaking vote in a 50-50 Senate, Democrats controlled of both houses of Congress. A dogged defense of the filibuster from a few key members made the Senate the fulcrum of all activity in Washington. Any deal had to include either two stubborn centrist Democrats or 10 Republicans — and the former often still insisted on the need for the latter.
Despite the drag on progress that caused, the number of bipartisan deals struck was impressive in hindsight. The Senate alone crafted bills providing for a massive investment in infrastructure, new funding for semiconductor production in the U.S. and major (if weak) gun…
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