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Senate Republicans have been agonizing over how to deal with a House-passed bill, the Respect for Marriage Act, that would codify same-sex marriage. They’re caught between the most far-right elements of their base and the preferences of their states, nearly all of which now support the right of gay couples to marry. The result would either be the kind of formal, statutory protection for LGBT couples that was missing when Roe v. Wade was overturned, or another vote by Republicans alienating them from mainstream opinion.
The only way Democrats could screw this up is by either not holding a vote, or linking that vote to some other measure in a heavy-handed way, giving Republicans a clear out from the dilemma they’ve put themselves into. So of course, we started hearing yesterday that Democratic Senate leaders were keen on … linking the same-sex marriage vote to the government funding bill that must pass by September 30.
The purpose of this was very unclear. Both bills need 60 votes to pass. Linking the two wouldn’t make the same-sex marriage vote harder for conservatives, it would make it easier. They can decry the obvious gimmick of the linked votes as the reason for their opposition, making it a question of process over principle. And it made the risk of a government shutdown greater.
But I don’t think Republicans were really the target for this maneuver. As we’ve reported, Democrats also want to attach the Manchin/Schumer deal on “reforming” permitting of energy projects to the must-pass funding bill. Progressives have been demanding a delinking of those two bills. But adding same-sex marriage into the mix would make it extremely difficult for Democrats to reject the permitting changes. It seemed like the Democratic leadership was more interested in shouting down progressives who oppose changes to environmental laws to make things like pipelines easier to build than putting Republicans in an uncomfortable position.
Fortunately, cooler heads appear to have prevailed. The Senate co-sponsors of the Respect for Marriage Act, Tammy Baldwin (D-WI) and Rob Portman (R-OH), both condemned the idea, saying it wouldn’t help to pass either their bill or the government funding measure. It seems like it was more of a trial balloon in the process of being shut down.
Now the Democratic leadership has a couple of other choices to make. Should they hold a stand-alone vote on Respect for Marriage, even without 60 votes in hand, because it’s such an uncomfortable vote for Republicans to take? And should they sever permitting reform, which still is woefully lacking in detail with just three weeks until September 30, out of the government funding bill? After all, it’s going to be hard enough getting additional money for COVID response in the funding bill, let alone a major change to environmental law that no Democrat agreed to other than Schumer and Manchin.
It seems like the best answer to both of those questions is “yes.”
