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**FEBRUARY 2, 2022**

Kuttner on TAP

Biden's Bad Luck

Lujan's stroke temporarily deprives Democrats of a Senate working
majority.

It was only a matter of time, in an evenly divided Senate, before one
senator or another became incapacitated. Lightning finally struck, and
true to the Democrats' unlucky streak, it struck one of their number,
Sen. Ben Ray Luján of New Mexico.

Luján, who is just 49, is hospitalized following brain surgery to
relieve pressure from a stroke. His prognosis is said to be good. But
there is no telling how long he will be out, and in the meantime the
Republicans now have a 50-49 working majority. (Mitt Romney is currently
out, having tested positive for COVID, so there is a de facto 49-49
split, at least for this week and maybe longer.)

This turn of events prompts several observations.

For starters, Stephen Breyer looks even more like a self-centered goat
than ever. If Breyer had just retired earlier, his successor would be
confirmed by now.

With the clock ticking, there is now more pressure on Biden to name the
more conservative of two likely Supreme Court nominees, Judge J.
Michelle Childs
,
a former management-side labor lawyer who is a favorite of Biden patron
Rep. Jim Clyburn of South Carolina. One of Clyburn's selling points is
that Childs can get some Republican votes. This Clyburn move, jamming
his president, comes at the expense of Breyer's former clerk and
protégé, federal Appeals Court Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson, who is far
more progressive.

Second, we will now learn just how shabby the Republicans are. Will
Mitch McConnell try to take advantage of the (hopefully) temporary 50-49
majority to claim his old job as majority leader and take Republican
control of the Senate? Will Republicans freeze confirmations? Will
alleged bipartisan Republicans such as Susan Collins, Mitt Romney, and
Lisa Murkowski, do the decent thing and not take advantage of an absence
due to illness?

The immediate consequence is that several key confirmations that go
through committees on which Luján serves will likely be bottled up.
Those include Commerce and HELP (Health, Education, Labor and Pensions),
where several key regulatory and labor department confirmations are
pending.

Two of those nominees are the deciding votes on the FTC and FCC, which
are now deadlocked, 2-2 each, Alvaro Bedoya at the FTC and Gigi Sohn at
the FCC. This setback also lengthens the odds against swift floor
confirmation of Biden's three nominees to the Fed, who have drawn
solid Republican opposition.

It will also further delay passage of some version of Build Back Better,
where every Democratic vote counts.

If the unthinkable happens and Luján dies or is compelled to resign,
New Mexico law

provides that the governor shall immediately name a temporary successor,
with the vacancy for the remainder of the term to be filled at the next
election. New Mexico's governor is a progressive Democrat named
Michelle Lujan Grisham (who is no relation to the ailing senator). So if
McConnell were to take advantage and seize control, it would be
short-lived.

****

~ ROBERT KUTTNER

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**Robert Kuttner's latest book is**

The Stakes: 2020 and the Survival of American Democracy
.

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The Hidden Costs of Containerization
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the unsustainable growth of the container ship industry led to the
supply chain crisis BY AMIR KHAFAGY

Antitrust Should Be Used to Fight Inflation

Controlling market power is an integral tool to deal with rising
costs. BY HAL SINGER

Michelle Childs's Punitive Criminal Justice Rulings Were Repeatedly
Overturned

The candidate for the Supreme Court vacancy has a history of
tough-on-crime sentences and opinions that higher courts subsequently
tossed out. BY ALEXANDER SAMMON

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