Today, Harry Reid’s Senate committed one more act of legislative malpractice by failing to override a filibuster of the bill to move the Keystone XL pipeline forward. The vote was taken for the sole purpose of giving political cover to nearly former Senator Mary Landrieu (D-La.), who’s in a runoff election. Much of her campaign has been based on her effectiveness in representing Louisiana’s interests. Louisianans overwhelmingly support the pipeline. But Harry Reid has willingly run interference for a White House that doesn’t want to make a decision, and risk alienating either the blue-collar wing or the environmental wing of its coalition. So the trick was to get to 59 votes, but not 60.
Apparently the Democrats thought Landrieu might be able to make some use of it. I’m not sure what failure was supposed to prove, but the fact that it was done at all proves that Harry Reid, like Dorothy, had the power to do so all the time. The message that comes through loud and clear is, “We’ll do anything to hold onto a Senate seat.”
Republicans have solidly supported building the pipeline, and will have no such aversion to embarrassing the White House, so it’s a fair bet that it will come up for a vote in the new Congress. How will it fare?
On the surface, things look pretty good. Supporters only need to get one more vote to move it to the President’s desk. Can they?
We can safely assume that all 54 Republicans will vote for the pipeline. So they need to find six Democrats to go along. Here’s the list of today’s Democrat aye votes:
Carper (D-DE)
McCaskill (D-MO)
Warner (D-VA)
Bennet (D-CO)
Casey (D-PA)
Donnelly (D-IN)
Manchin (D-WV)
Heitkamp (D-ND)
Tester (D-MT)
Begich (D-AK)
Hagan (D-NC)
Landrieu (D-LA)
Pryor (D-AR)
Walsh (D-MT)
Of the 14 ayes, five won’t be around for the next session, because they were or will have been voted out of office:
Begich (D-AK)
Hagan (D-NC)
Landrieu (D-LA)
Pryor (D-AR)
Walsh (D-MT)
That leaves these six:
Carper (D-DE)
McCaskill (D-MO)
Warner (D-VA)
Bennet (D-CO)
Casey (D-PA)
Donnelly (D-IN)
Manchin (D-WV)
Heitkamp (D-ND)
Tester (D-MT)
Only one, Colorado’s own Michael Bennet, is up for re-election in 2016, so he’s probably a safe bet to stay in the Yes column. Gov. Hickenlooper’s reticence to take a position notwithstanding, Keystone remains popular here in Colorado. All the other Democrats up for re-election in 2016 voted No, which tells you that Dems either think those are safe seats, or that people in those states will have forgotten this vote by then. In any event, there’s little reason for them to change their votes to yes between now and 2016.
Casey, Donnelly, and Manchin all come from states with substantial coal production. These are fossil-fuel friendly states, these guys are up in 2018, and none of them won their seats by being economic suicidalists. McCaskill has been a vocal supporter of the pipeline in the past, as well. That gets us to five, and leaves us with:
Carper (D-DE)
Warner (D-VA)
Heitkamp (D-ND)
Tester (D-MT)
Warner also comes from a coal-producing state, and that part of Virginia almost delivered the election to Gillespie this year. Almost, but not quite. Warner doesn’t need to run again until 2020, and his colleague, Tim Kaine, voted No. Carper voted yes, but issued a pretty weasily statement back in 2013. I wouldn’t count on him.
Honestly, I think either Tester of Heitkamp could stay as Yes votes, and largely for the same reasons – they’re Democrat senators in increasingly Republican states. Montana just elected its first Republican senator in 100 years; Tester must be paying attention. Rob Port sees the vote as bad news for Heitkamp.
If Reid does decide to run for re-election, he could be facing a stiff challenge from jaw-droppingly popular Governor Sandoval, who would likely make much of whatever arm-twisting Reid needed to do to keep 41 members in line. On the other hand, he only needs to hold on to one of these senators, 2016 could be a good year for Dems, and it’s always more fun to be on the good side of a petulant Majority Leader with a long memory than on his bad side.
Still, it looks as though Reid could have his work cut out for him.
