Democrats brush off calls for Biden to play hardball on Cabinet picks

Senate Democrats are distancing themselves from calls by progressives for President-elect Joe Biden to play hardball with Republicans over his Cabinet picks.

Facing the prospect of a GOP-controlled Senate, progressive groups argue Biden should try to leapfrog Republicans if Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) blocks a nominee or refuses to even allow a floor vote by utilizing the Vacancies Act or trying to force Congress to adjourn.

Democratic senators say the groups shouldn’t assume Republicans will be complete obstructionists in the event Democrats fail to win the two runoff races in Georgia on Jan. 5 and Republicans retain control of the chamber.

Sen. Chris Coons (D-Del.), a close Biden ally, said Democrats shouldn’t “get ahead of ourselves” by expecting the worst about the confirmation process.

“I think our immediate challenge is getting President Trump to accept reality and the Republican majority to begin the sort of outreach and consultation that I suspect the incoming administration would welcome to figure out who is appropriate to move forward for confirmation,” he said.

“You know, the suggestions that we should leap ahead and assume that no one can get confirmed and that we should use some extraordinary measures is just getting a little bit ahead of ourselves,” he added.

Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) added that the scenario envisioned by progressives makes assumptions about the outcome of the Georgia races and McConnell’s actions.

“Let’s just wait,” Murphy said. “My hope is that progressive groups focus on one thing at a time, and right now, we should be focused on winning Georgia.”

The battle lines on potential Cabinet picks come as Biden is expected to name his choices for key roles. Those picks could test the preelection truce between the president-elect and progressives, who are jockeying for influence in the new administration.

Biden has already said that he’s made a decision on one key position, his Treasury secretary, pledging that it would be someone palatable to progressives and moderates alike. A list of front-runners for other top positions, such as secretary of State, have been circulating in Washington for weeks.

But progressives, who lined up behind Biden to help defeat Trump earlier this month, are urging him to make bold choices for his Cabinet picks, powerful positions that will shape significant policy decisions in the administration.

Two top progressive groups — Justice Democrats and the Sunrise Movement — released a wish list earlier this month for Cabinet picks that included Sens. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), who could face a rocky, potentially impossible, path to confirmation in a GOP-controlled Senate.

They also floated Rep. Barbara Lee (D-Calif.) to serve as secretary of State and Reps. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.) and Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.) as potential nominees to lead the Department of Health and Human Services.

Sanders — who has publicly confirmed his interest in being Labor secretary — told The Associated Press that “progressive views need to be expressed” within the new administration.

“It would be, for example, enormously insulting if Biden put together a ‘team of rivals’ — and there’s some discussion that that’s what he intends to do — which might include Republicans and conservative Democrats — but which ignored the progressive community. I think that would be very, very unfortunate,” Sanders added.

But a GOP-controlled Senate awaits as a likely landmine for progressive picks. Even though a Republican majority would be capped at 51 or 52 seats, McConnell would have leverage to block any nominees he or a majority of his caucus considered too far to the left.

Progressives say that’s why Biden should be willing to play hardball.

“All personnel must have demonstrated that they prioritize the needs of communities of color and service in the public interest. If necessary, we urge you to accomplish this by using tools like the Vacancy Act and recess appointments to overcome any obstruction by Mitch McConnell and Senate Republicans,” nearly 60 progressive and good government groups wrote in a letter to Biden.

Indivisible, one of the groups, detailed its own vision for how Biden gets his desired Cabinet, saying he should “use a play from Donald Trump’s playbook.”

Trump has used the Vacancies Act and tapped “acting” appointments to get around the Senate confirmation process for key posts. He also briefly floated forcing Congress to adjourn so that he could make recess appointments — something legal experts quickly said he couldn’t do because there was no disagreement between the House and Senate.

Though legally untested, Article II, Section 3 of the Constitution grants a president the power to “on extraordinary occasions, convene both Houses, or either of them, and in case of disagreement between them, with respect to the time of adjournment, he may adjourn them to such time as he shall think proper.”

Asked if he thought those two options should be on the table, Sen. Dick Durbin of Illinois, the No. 2 Senate Democrat, replied, “I hope they are not. I hope we get back to a normal chain of events, and I hope the Republicans are reasonable.”

Pressed if he would be comfortable with Biden using the options if Republicans prove problematic, Durbin demurred, calling it a “hypothetical on top of a hypothetical.”

McConnell in 2015 temporarily held up former Attorney General Loretta Lynch’s nomination and in 2016 ignored Judge Merrick Garland, then-President Obama’s final Supreme Court nominee.

McConnell hasn’t publicly acknowledged Biden’s election victory, much less publicly discussed potential Cabinet picks. Asked about the chance that a GOP-controlled Senate would confirm Sanders or Warren, Sen. John Thune (R-S.D.) sidestepped, calling it premature.

Republicans have bristled for years over Democrats’ handling of Trump’s Cabinet. Trump got only two Cabinet picks confirmed on the first day of his presidency, compared with six for Obama and seven for then-President George W. Bush. By Feb. 10, Trump had seven confirmed Cabinet members confirmed to Obama’s 12 and Bush’s 14, which was his entire Cabinet.

“I do think that what has been, I think, a historically unprecedented effort to keep the government from being staffed … will have repercussions,” said Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.).

“I think that means that this next administration, if it’s a Biden administration, will not get a free ride,” he said, predicting that the dynamic would play out not only with Cabinet picks but also with sub-Cabinet-level nominations.

Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) added that “there’ll be a lot less deference given to presidential appointments.”

“There’s just no way that Biden’s nominations are going to be treated like they traditionally have been treated under previous presidents, simply because the atmosphere in the Senate has changed,” he told conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt.

But other GOP senators, including Sens. Susan Collins (Maine), Rob Portman (Ohio) and Mitt Romney (Utah), have indicated they would be willing to give Biden a Cabinet as long as the picks were within the mainstream.

“I think most members of the Senate would be pretty responsible,” said Sen. Mike Rounds (R-S.D.). “There’s some individuals that naturally would not philosophically be acceptable within a Republican Senate. At the same time, there are some nominees that we’ve heard of who might very well be pretty easy nominations within the Senate.”