Government Shutdown Looms, Lawmakers Are Focused on Other Things

Lawmakers are forcing each other to take unpopular votes on bills destined to go nowhere.

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Senate and House leadership members at the Capitol on Wednesday. Both chambers of Congress have used this summer to introduce messaging bills that have little chance of passing.

Good evening! Tonight, my colleague Annie Karni takes us to Capitol Hill, where lawmakers staring down a looming government shutdown are focused on other things. Plus, we’re watching North Carolina and digging deeper into today’s new poll.

By Annie Karni

Reporting from Washington

Sometimes in Congress, there are suspenseful and consequential votes that are exciting to witness. Think of an ailing John McCain, the former Republican senator from Arizona, and the dramatic thumbs-down he gave late at night on the Senate floor in 2017 when he voted against repealing Obamacare. Recall the surprise 2008 revolt on the House floor when lawmakers defied senior congressional leaders of both parties and the sitting Republican president and rejected a $700 billion bank bailout, rocking the Capitol and the global financial markets.

This week’s vote in the Senate on a bill that would guarantee federal protections for in vitro fertilizations was not one of those gasp-worthy moments.

In fact, there was absolutely no drama at all — because the Senate had already held the same exact vote on the same exact piece of legislation three months ago, when everyone voted the same exact way. (Both times, all but two Republicans present voted no, leaving Democrats short of the 60 needed to begin debating it.)

The point of this repeat exercise: forcing Republicans to take yet another unpopular vote on an issue that continues to be their biggest vulnerability, in a tense election season where Democrats are counting on reproductive rights to carry the day.

So they did the I.V.F. vote. Again. Why mess with success?

When messaging bills fall like autumn leaves

With just 47 days to go before the election, Show Vote Summer in Congress is turning into Messaging Bill Fall. Democrats who control the Senate are using the floor to force an ongoing conversation about G.O.P. opposition to abortion and reproductive rights. And in the Republican-controlled House, leaders are using the dwindling number of legislative days left on the calendar to pass bills targeting “wokeness” and immigrant crime — legislation that has no chance of passage in the Senate, but works to animate their base and highlight the issues they consider Democrats’ greatest liabilities.

Yes, there is the ever-looming threat of a government shutdown that could come in just 11 days if Congress does not meet its only real obligation, passing spending legislation, by Sept. 30. And sure, there are judges to confirm in the Senate. But with little more than six weeks left before the election, nobody in the Capitol is trying very hard to pretend that there is much left to do in Washington besides posture for voters with competing campaign messages.

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