Lyndon Johnson was a classic congressional deal maker. His technique was, shall we say, "unique."
Serving as Senate Majority Leader during the Eisenhower years, he would waylay target senators in hallways of the Senate office building and perform what his contemporaries referred to as "The Johnson Treatment" on certain members.
He would grip their elbow like a vise while simultaneously massaging their backs and putting his face inches away from theirs. Smiling and speaking soothingly, the message was clear: play ball or else.
When all else failed, LBJ would get the two sides in a room, lock the door, and tell them they weren't getting out until a deal was done. He would choose meeting rooms with no bathrooms, knowing that would ensure a quick resolution.
The shutdown will soon last longer than the storm that created "The Great Flood" during Noah's time. All that storm did was wipe all living things off the face of the Earth. Congress is just trying to sit in the same room with the other side without killing each other.
The shutdown has entered surreal territory.
“What we have here is an intergalactic freak show,” said Louisiana Republican Senator John Kennedy after a closed-door GOP caucus meeting.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune isn't locking senators in a bathroomless room, but he's doing the next best thing: he's keeping the Senate in session over the weekend.
If Thune thought that would move the partisan needle towards a deal, he's sadly mistaken.
Kennedy predicted Thune would come up empty: “Nothing. … We’re going to be here for a long time.”
“We’re getting close to having it ready. Ideally, it’d be great to set it up so we could vote today [Saturday], but we have to … have the votes to actually pass it," Thune told The Hill.
“We’re here, and we’ll see if something comes together we can vote on,” Thune told Politico Friday night, adding that it “remains to be seen.”
Members of the bipartisan group at the center of the government funding talks are expected to stay in Washington through the weekend to keep negotiating. One person granted anonymity to disclose private discussions said that as of Friday night the bipartisan talks had picked back up. Thune said he is also speaking to Democrats “regularly” about the path forward.
On a separate track, the top members of the House and Senate Appropriations committees are trying to finalize a three-bill package that would provide full-year funding for food aid, veterans programs and other agencies and programs.
But even as the bipartisan conversations continue, there are doubts they will produce a deal that could eventually get the necessary eight Democrats to break ranks. Trump, for one, continues to press Republicans to ditch the 60-vote filibuster rule and reopen the government on party lines.
That three-bill package might be attached to the funding bill, if it ever gets done. The problem is that the Democrats have painted themselves into a corner by telling their base they'd stay out until the "temporary emergency" Obamacare subsidies were made permanent. That was a huge tactical error by Sen. Chuck Schumer, who is now trying to rectify it by offering to reopen the government if the subsidies are extended for a year.
It was a desperation move that Thune and the Republicans saw through immediately, and they are refusing to bite. They rejected the extension out of hand.
It's doubtful that Thune's weekend work session will solve the problem, meaning the two sides are basically back to square one.
The Schumer Shutdown is here. Rather than put the American people first, Chuck Schumer and the radical Democrats forced a government shutdown for healthcare for illegals. They own this.
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