He sees a winning political message heading into the fall before the 2014 midterms. McConnell wants fiscal-issue unity

On guns, immigration and controversial nominees, Senate Republicans’ story this year is one of division.

But on fiscal issues, GOP leadership is demanding a different ending — one of harmony rather than discord.


Ahead of fall fiscal talks that already have Washington nervous about a government shutdown, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell is clamping down on Republicans with a firm message to stick with him on spending.

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With the nearly unanimous GOP rejection last week of Senate Democrats’ transportation funding bill, McConnell senses an opportunity to dig in on an issue that highlights the most elemental difference between the two parties: the size of government.

The GOP leader sees a winning political message heading into the fall before the 2014 midterms. Showing himself as the leader of a conference bent on spending cuts as he runs for reelection in conservative Kentucky won’t hurt either.

To McConnell, Republicans are simply following the law established by the Budget Control Act — which created the sequester’s automatic spending cuts — to trim billions in spending each year while Democrats are the party of “tax and spend,” turning their backs on the last big bipartisan budget deal. A vote for the transportation bill would have violated Congress’s promise to stick to the agreed-upon spending levels, Republicans say.

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“The story line would have been that Congress on a bipartisan basis walked away from the Budget Control Act,” McConnell said.

But GOP unanimity while staring down a government shutdown won’t be easy.

A small group of Senate Republicans are participating in open-ended budget talks with the White House. A number of Republicans in both chambers, including House Appropriations Chairman Hal Rogers (R-Ky.), want to replace the sequester before further cuts hit in January. And voting records show that Senate Republicans are more fractured than Democrats.

After GOP splits on guns, immigration, the farm bill, an Internet sales tax bill and some of President Barack Obama’s most controversial nominees, Democrats doubt Republicans can coalesce around anything anymore. Top McConnell aides argue those are issues for which the “breakdowns are not traditional” — or strictly along party lines. In comparison, fiscal issues offer a chance to draw a “very clear line” between the two parties, an aide said.

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The fall spending showdown is of utmost importance to Republican leaders because it involves must-pass legislation, pegged to the hard deadline of Sept. 30. Immigration, farm and the sales tax bills are all stalled in the House with no clear path forward — but they lack the urgency of government funding or raising the debt ceiling, two issues Republicans may try to pair together in order to increase their leverage for more spending cuts.

“The spending one is not in doubt: There will be a law,” said a top McConnell aide.

The strategy of presenting a united front on spending smells of desperation given months of division, Democratic Senate aides say. They believe six to 10 Republicans can be wooed to support levels higher than the $967 billion in discretionary spending that GOP leadership prefers, especially if a spending bill is tailored to some of their interests and replaces some or all of the sequester. Arizona Sen. John McCain is worried about the sequester hurting fire preparedness. South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham frets about national security. Democrats see the unease as an opportunity.

“There are a number of senators who have broken away here who are trying to do the right thing,” Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) said last week.

But signs of GOP fiscal solidarity surfaced the week before the recess as all Republicans but one acted to defeat the sole appropriations bill Democrats brought to the Senate floor, a vote that McConnell called “symbolically significant.” McConnell openly whipped against the transportation bill that Senate Democrats believed best encapsulated their message on jobs and the economy.

“We committed to the American people that we would reduce spending over the next 10 years by $2.1 trillion,” McConnell said last week. “There’s much left to be done to get our financial house in order. But boy, you don’t make any progress in that direction by signaling to the American people that you’re not serious about the things you already agreed to do on a bipartisan basis.”

Just one Republican, Sen. Susan Collins of Maine, supported the bill after five GOP-ers had voted for it in committee. Democrats said they were furious; then they capitalized on the opportunity to rip Republicans as obstructionist for nearly half an hour before Congress headed home for August.

“A lot of people across the country are watching this. And they’re disgusted,” Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.) said after the vote. “I hope that the time back home that we’re going to have will convince Republicans to come back to the table.”

Republicans working directly with the White House on fiscal issues held firm with leadership on the funding measure, even after previously bucking the party line on immigration and nominees. Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.) has been in the middle of nearly everything the Senate has done for the past two months, attempting to craft compromise, move bills and nominations and stop gridlock. He wouldn’t budge on spending.

“We made a commitment when we passed the Budget Control Act to make an effort to start living within our means,” Corker said. “This bill breaks that promise.”

Corker is among the central characters in a long-winded Senate drama that had Republicans all over the place ahead of recess. Fourteen senators broke with GOP leadership to support a comprehensive immigration bill, many of whom then banded together to craft a deal with Democrats to prevent a historic rules change by approving a slate of controversial presidential nominees. Strong bipartisan majorities also supported the Internet sales tax and farm legislation, putting large groups of Republicans on opposite sides of those bills.

The numbers bear out the Republican dilemma. According to party unity scores from OpenCongress, the average Senate Republican voted with the party 87 percent of the time while Democrats, on average, supported their party 95 percent of the time. It’s a continuation of a trend that has made Senate Democrats the more unified caucus since 2007, when they took the majority, according to Brookings research.

The Republicans with some of the lowest GOP unity scores are the same who have played deal maker on immigration and the nuclear option nominees compromise: Think names like Graham and McCain and moderates like Collins and Sens. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Mark Kirk of Illinois. Collins and Murkowski vote against their party about 40 percent of the time, Graham and McCain about 20 percent and Kirk about 30 percent, according to OpenCongress.

Democrats are generally together during roll call votes but less so on fiscal matters. The ten Democrats most likely to vote with Republicans are all from red states, including those running for reelection, like Sens. Mark Begich of Alaska, Kay Hagan of North Carolina, Mary Landrieu of Louisiana and Mark Pryor of Arkansas.

Hagan, Pryor, Begich and Sen. Max Baucus (D-Mont.) all opposed Murray’s budget resolution this year that broke the BCA budget caps. So did every Republican, another data point the GOP leadership hopes will translate into a Republican consensus on spending this fall.