Blunt rises to fourth in Republican Senate leadership

Nov. 14--WASHINGTON -- Missourian Roy Blunt has moved up a rung to fourth on the U.S. Senate leadership ladder, a position that will put him directly in the middle of how Republicans take on key policy issues in Congress starting in 2019.

Blunt, who is in his second term, was elected by his Senate peers Wednesday to head the Republican Policy Committee. The position comes with a staff of more than a dozen and a mandate to help shape GOP policy initiatives and messaging.

But it also comes at a time of transition in Congress.

Democrats took control of the House of Representatives last week, which means any legislation that comes out of the new Congress will need bipartisan support of ideologically divergent chambers. Some new House Democratic members campaigned on greater expansion of government in areas like health care, environmental policy and fiscal regulation, and they have signaled they will challenge Democratic leadership on them.

Meanwhile, Republicans strengthened their majority in the Senate, and will have at least 52, and possibly 53 of the 100 seats, depending on the outcome of an unsettled Florida Senate race.

One of the contenders in that Florida race, Republican Gov. Rick Scott, was among six new GOP senators that Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell met with Wednesday. Sen.-elect Josh Hawley, who defeated incumbent Democrat Claire McCaskill last week, was in a group that met privately with McConnell and then publicly posed with the GOP leader before a bank of photographers.

Hawley stood between Sen.-elect Mitt Romney of Utah and Sen.-elect Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee in McConnell's office, as photographers snapped away. Scott, the Florida governor, ignored shouted questions about his allegations that the Florida vote count between him and current Democratic Sen. Bill Nelson was fraudulent.

Hawley, 38, generally avoided reporters, and his staff said his days were packed with meetings and orientation, including sessions led by Blunt, 68.

Blunt also chairs the Senate Rules Committee, and in that position, he is also trying to hammer out a deal with Senate Democrats and the House on a new sexual harassment policy in Congress before the current session ends late next month.

Both the House and Senate have passed different bills to address it after allegations surfaced earlier this year that some members of Congress had used public funds to pay settlements. Broadly, the competing bills strengthen the reporting and investigative process and lay out congressional policies toward allegations of sexual harassment.

"I continue to believe that there will be and should be real interest in trying to get this done before the next Congress convenes," Blunt said. "There is no realistic reason to have to start this discussion all over again next year, and so hopefully there is every incentive to get this solved."

A split Congress will now mean the greatest thrust of policy initiatives from Republicans will come from the Senate, because it controls the committee and majority-vote infrastructure of the upper house.

Democrats' vows to investigate President Donald Trump's business and political dealings also will mitigate Republicans' opportunities to push policy through the White House.

Blunt, currently fifth in leadership among Senate Republicans, acknowledged that reality but argued it opens up new avenues for his policy job in the Senate.

"I think there is both a greater obligation and a greater opportunity for Senate Republicans to talk about policy than there might have been otherwise, and the small differences between House and Senate Republicans would be different than maybe the more dramatic policy differences between a House led by Speaker (Nancy) Pelosi" and the Republican Senate, he said.

He said he saw one of his jobs as making the case how Republican economic policies have led to a robust economy, and that continuing them should set the direction for Senate Republicans.

"I think there is a lot of reason here for Senate Republicans to want to focus on policy and the results of those policies," he said. "I think we are in a better position to do that, frankly, than the administration might be and certainly a better position than the House is to advocate for the policies we believe that are making a real difference in the country."

Infrastructure spending is one area that both Democratic House leaders and Senate Republican leaders, including Blunt, have said could be an area of common agreement.

But McConnell, mindful that the current GOP-controlled Congress has pushed deficits beyond $1 trillion, said any infrastructure bill would be well short of the $900 billion "stimulus" package passed to boost spending during the Great Recession nearly a decade ago.

"I do think that infrastructure is one of the things that a Democrat House and a Republican Senate and Republican administration should be able to move forward on," Blunt said. "But it depends on how deeply people take opposing positions to start with. (McConnell) was pretty clear today (that) while we think infrastructure is important, we don't think that it is important to the extent that we don't come up with a way to pay for it."

One order of business the current Congress still has not finished is the appointment of many Trump judicial appointees.

St. Louis lawyer, Stephen Clark, is one of those nominees. He passed out of the Judiciary Committee earlier this year on a strictly partisan vote after Democrats raised objections to his writings on abortion rights, gay rights, and other issues.

But Sen. Jeff Flake, R-Ariz., said late Wednesday that he would not allow votes on 21 judicial nominees to go forward unless he received a vote on a proposal to protect Special Council Robert Mueller from being fired.

Blunt said he expects Clark's nomination to come up for a vote before the end of this Congress, and that Republicans will have enough votes to confirm him. But it could be a divisive vote that puts McCaskill in the spotlight one final time before she leaves office.

Also Wednesday:

--Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., was re-elected Senate Majority Whip, the second-ranking leadership post in his party.

--Rep. Steve Scalise, R-La., was elected as Minority Whip, second spot in the Republican minority in the U.S. House. Rep. Ann Wagner, R-Ballwin, is a key ally and seconded the nomination in the Republican conference. Wagner has in the past served as deputy whip to Scalise.

___

(c)2018 the St. Louis Post-Dispatch

Visit the St. Louis Post-Dispatch at www.stltoday.com

Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.