Is Claire McCaskill really the centrist that she claims to be?
The real menu was bipartisanship, however, as McCaskill, D-
They had come to promote their bill outlawing "earmarks," those local "pork" goodies thrown into spending bills that were largely banned a decade ago, but were being considered again after President
McCaskill derided earmarks as the "swampiest of swamp creatures," and Flake echoed the sentiment. The word "bipartisan" came up a lot, a word you are likely to hear from McCaskill in the
Legitimate claim?
Bipartisanship is an elusive state, subject to the beholder's ideology. One person's give is not always another's take.
McCaskill does have a history of working with
But on major votes, ranging from taxes to health care to abortion rights, McCaskill is often tethered to her party's line, although she says that's not for the lack of seeking bipartisan compromise in a polarized
Flake, who is retiring at the end of this year, was asked about McCaskill's claims of being a centrist solution seeker.
"I think it is very genuine," he told the
But for some, that will be seen as damning with faint praise. Flake, one of the biggest Trump critics among
Another Republican --
Hawley also argued that, culturally, McCaskill is not middle of the road, either. Last week, Hawley highlighted a fundraiser McCaskill had with
"She voted liberal on every
"She has opposed every major item of
The case
"I know this sounds hokey, but most of us came here to get something done," McCaskill said at the anti-earmark event with Flake. "We got really good at the rhetoric, throwing out the political 'gotcha' phrases on cable TV. But we have gotten really rusty on getting in a room and trying to find common ground."
Days before, McCaskill and Flake and 23 other senators -- 11
McCaskill, who has long tried to portray herself as a raging centrist, touted the meeting as an example of her willingness to work with anyone on solutions. To her detractors, it was window-dressing over the fact that on the signature issues of the new Trump administration, McCaskill has held steadfast to the Democratic line.
Partnerships
In recent years, the former
In 2016, she and Sen.
McCaskill joined with Collins on legislation that increased generic drug competition. McCaskill co-sponsored legislation to extend health care benefits for retired coal miners with Sen.
She and Sen.
When McCaskill worked with Sen.
But a few months later, McCaskill and Sen.
McCaskill has voted for some Trump nominees for
Over the first 13 months of Trump's presidency, McCaskill had voted for roughly two-thirds of Trump's nominees overall, including almost all related to homeland security. McCaskill was one of 10
But McCaskill joined a majority of
Flake, who once spent a
That bipartisanship happens "not as much as it should, but there is more than people think," Flake said.
The perpetual divides
But on many issues where there is no abiding consensus, McCaskill often stands with her Democratic colleagues, even when other center-left
And in trying to thread the needle as a Democrat in a Republican state, McCaskill risks alienating different factions. Her intense focus on rural
A McCaskill aide argued that the senator was among the first politicians on the ground during the
Perhaps McCaskill's highest-profile vote of the Trump era was to oppose the confirmation of Gorsuch to the
McCaskill went through the raw political calculus of the Gorsuch vote with donors at a 2017 fundraiser that was leaked to the press. Her argument: If Gorsuch was voted down, Trump might nominate a justice even less acceptable to
"The Gorsuch situation is really hard," McCaskill said, according to a recording of that private meeting. "There are going to be people in this room who are going to say, 'no, no, no.' Let's assume for the purposes of this discussion that we turn down Gorsuch. ... What then?"
She voted no, decrying the "polarized politics" that surrounded the nomination fight. Because her vote ultimately did not decide the nomination, her critics can say the vote allowed McCaskill to have it both ways by placating a liberal base while decrying the partisanship of the moment.
On other issues where no supermajority consensus emerged -- tax cuts and health care -- McCaskill voted with fellow
She also did on legislation that would have essentially banned abortions after 20 weeks. Late last month, that failed to get the required 60 votes to move toward passage, with two
McCaskill and other
She voted no, attacking the final bill as skewed to the rich.
Now,
McCaskill complained that Senate Majority Leader
"They didn't include us in hearings, they didn't include us in negotiations, they didn't let us know what the bill was going to be, they wouldn't talk to us about it, they wouldn't tell us what was there," McCaskill said.
"So the partisanship that you saw over the last year was the product of
"Frankly, stop almost any Republican in the hall and ask them to name five or six
Ratings
The online legislative analysis site Govtrack.us studied legislation introduced and passed in the
McCaskill was just one of eight senators to appear in the middle quintile, a testament to the shrinking ideological center. The other seven in the middle were the Republicans Murkowski and Collins, and Democrats Manchin, Donnelly, Heitkamp, as well as Sens.
But another analysis of the
McCaskill did not make the top 10 in the
In her 2015 autobiography, "Plenty Ladylike," McCaskill wrote that female legislators were inclined toward collaboration, and that the rising number of women in the
"The extent of collaboration among women is sometimes overstated," she wrote, "but I do believe that women are willing to listen, to compromise, and to share the credit."
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