Mariam Zuhaib/AP Photo
Despite a few howls to remove Chuck Schumer as Senate Democratic leader, there seems to be no energy around it.
One of the least productive Congresses in history will wrap up starting today, with unified Republican government likely looming on the other side. Since Republicans will perceive any bill proposed now as inferior to the better deal they can get later, expect the same level of inactivity in these final weeks.
That’s not to say there is nothing to do, or that could be done, if Democrats, particularly in the Senate, had the stomach for it. That doesn’t look to be the case.
Let’s start with the basics. Government funding only lasts until December 20, and more spending is needed to deal with recovery from Hurricanes Helene and Milton. The Small Business Association disaster fund is completely out of money, for example. The defense authorization bill has a reputation of always passing at the end of every year, so something is likely to happen there, with both parties angling to attach their favored pieces to it. And the debt ceiling—remember that?—actually runs out in January.
I suspect we’ll see various forms of muddling through here. Donald Trump probably doesn’t want to have to deal with any of these things when starting his second term, but he also has consistently groused about big end-of-year spending bills. So some stopgap solution would be the expected course. The new Congress will swiftly dispatch the debt ceiling, which will magically become unimportant to conservatives when they don’t need to take it hostage to get what they want out of government. The defense bill sits above partisan politics and will probably get done.
But two bigger issues will dominate the lame-duck session: party leadership elections and judicial confirmations.
House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) is running again. Getting 218 votes when that might be the exact number Republicans hold in the House could be difficult for the fractious GOP caucus, but thus far there doesn’t seem to be much tension, and Johnson has Trump’s support.
Republicans do need to elect a new Senate leader, as Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY) is stepping down from his leadership post. The three candidates are Sens. John Thune (R-SD), John Cornyn (R-TX), and Rick Scott (R-FL). The Trump influencer right has already made its choice, as Elon Musk and Tucker Carlson boosted Scott, who won this favor by essentially agreeing to adjourn the Senate to allow for rapid recess appointments. Thune and Cornyn quickly agreed to the same. So the competition on the right is apparently over who will dissolve the Senate first. The real battle is between a candidate like Scott who might empower the far right of the caucus, and establishment types like Thune who would maintain tight control.
Since 2023, the Senate has been little more than a judicial confirmation factory, and that’s expected to continue in the lame duck.
Incredibly, there’s been barely a peep about Democratic leadership elections, after a campaign cycle exposing Democrats’ inability to fashion a national majority and losing touch with the party’s working-class roots. Despite a few howls to remove Chuck Schumer—the guy who came up with the concept that “for every blue-collar Democrat we lose in western Pennsylvania, we will pick up two moderate Republicans in the suburbs in Philadelphia, and you can repeat that in Ohio and Illinois and Wisconsin”—as Senate Democratic leader, there seems to be no energy around it. Hakeem Jeffries seems pretty ensconced as Democratic leader in the House, where the entire leadership team is likely to run unopposed.
After such a debilitating loss, you’d think that caucus elections could be used to force a discussion on what went wrong and how to come back. But the extreme conflict aversion that has enabled Democrats to avoid such difficult conversations shows no signs of abating.
That can also be seen in the debate over how Senate Democrats will close out this session of Congress in the majority. Since 2023, the Senate has been little more than a judicial confirmation factory, and that’s expected to continue in the lame duck with greater urgency, as a last chance to stock the federal courts.
Under Joe Biden, Democrats have confirmed 213 judges, compared to 234 in Trump’s first term. Over half of the federal bench comes from just these two presidencies. There are currently 47 judicial vacancies, and Biden has over 30 nominees awaiting confirmation. Every judge that gets confirmed is one less seat that Trump gets to fill starting next year. Judges are clearly a priority, but there’s been some rumbling suggesting that it’s maybe not as much a top priority as it should be. “Chuck Schumer must use every minute of the end-of-year legislative session to confirm federal judges and key regulators—none of whom can be removed by the next President,” wrote Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) in Time.
Against a brick wall of Republican opposition, any judicial nominee will probably need the support of one of two lame-duck senators, Joe Manchin (I-WV) or Kyrsten Sinema (I-AZ). Manchin said at one point he would not vote for any judge who didn’t get at least one Republican vote, though he has since softened and voted along party lines for judges. If vice president-elect Sen. JD Vance (R-OH) and governor-elect Sen. Mike Braun (R-IN) don’t show up to vote, Democrats could pass judges without Sinema or Manchin. But all of their caucus would have to be present.
What’s probably not on the menu is a Supreme Court battle. I made an offhanded tweet on X the day after the election, noting that Democrats may not get another moment to replace Justice Sonia Sotomayor, who is 70 years old and has prior health complications. I’ve been surprised to see that tweet show up all over the mainstream media, amid real back-channel conversations among Senate Democrats. But The Wall Street Journal reported that Sotomayor has no plans to step down.
There would have been no guarantee that Democrats could replace Sotomayor in the lame duck; the same issues with Sinema and Manchin would apply. But the risk of inaction is real too, something we all experienced in the fall of 2020 when Ruth Bader Ginsburg died right before the election. But just as Democrats lack a unified message, they lack unified resolve to employ the levers of power to their fullest. As a result, we advise Justice Sotomayor to invest in bubble wrap and to roll herself in it.
