New House Speaker Paul Ryan is promising a bold 2016, with plans to reform the criminal justice system, replace Obamacare and remake the tax code. Show the voters what the party is about, he says, and Republicans will be rewarded with deep majorities and, perhaps, the White House.

On the other end of the Capitol is Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), clinging to his slim 54-seat majority like a quarterback with a big lead looking to run out the clock. McConnell believes 2015 surpassed all expectations legislatively, so his most ambitious pursuit this year is trying to pass a dozen spending bills — an important task but one that isn’t exactly going to galvanize the conservative electorate.


Their competing outlooks will meet head-on as Republicans in the two chambers convene Wednesday in Baltimore for their second joint legislative retreat in two years. The idea is to coordinate legislative strategy, but Ryan’s enterprising ideas and McConnell’s goal of defending his majority are already causing visible friction.

“I agree with Paul — there are things you can do with divided government,” said Sen. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.), such as a bipartisan entitlement reform deal. “You’ve got the right dynamics now, and we ought to take advantage of this year. … If you’re not going to do [big things] now, when are we going to do it?”

Gatherings of this nature are typically empty affairs — lots of talking points, news conferences, some complaining, and a little wining and dining. But Ryan hopes to begin cobbling together his party’s agenda. Senate Republicans aren’t even staying for the duration of the retreat, which ends Friday.

Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) laughed when asked whether the Senate would go along with Ryan’s ambitious plans.

“Any member of the House who is confident the Senate will be bold has not been here even the last year, much less [the] 14 before it,” Issa said.

One of the biggest decisions facing McConnell and Ryan is whether to pursue criminal justice reform, an idea hatched by conservatives, liberals, outsiders and the establishment inside Congress. Ryan wants to move forward on the House side, but McConnell won’t commit to bringing it to the Senate floor, even though Flake says passage is a “slam-dunk.” Even McConnell’s chief deputy, John Cornyn of Texas, is aggressively pushing for action.

But McConnell is loath to move forward on anything that might split his conference. Look no further than the surveillance reform debate last year to understand why: Open conflict between House and Senate Republicans led to a two-day shutdown of key government programs designed to track down terrorists.

Those kinds of pressures are only more acute in an election year.

“My hope is we can convince the leader to take up a [criminal justice] bill here in the Senate because I think it’s one of the best prospects we have for getting something done working on a bipartisan basis with this president,” Cornyn said. “To me, the election is beside the point. I’d just like to do something good.”

The budget is also creating tensions between Republicans in the two chambers. House Budget Chairman Tom Price (R-Ga.) is pushing to slash already agreed-upon spending levels, and House Republicans are under the impression that the Senate doesn’t want to produce a spending blueprint, according to multiple sources. But in an early indication of how hard it is to coordinate the two chambers, senators say the upper chamber does, in fact, plan to craft a budget.

While the House and Senate are never really, truly in sync no matter the party breakdown, the differences are exacerbated by two leaders who are, in many ways, polar opposites. McConnell is a taciturn tactician who will cut deals when the timing is right and doing so looks helpful to his vulnerable incumbents. Ryan has won early praise inside the House for his active TV and social media presence and his outspokenness on the need for the GOP to be less an opposition party and more a “proposition party.”

“Paul tends to always be optimistic about what can happen … and Sen. McConnell is always a little pessimistic about what’s going to happen,” said one Republican senator who knows both men well. “That creates a different view maybe of how you launch” into the year.

Ryan and McConnell have already butted heads. Last year, Ryan wanted to pass a sweeping international tax reform bill to help fund transportation projects; McConnell favored the tried-and-true approach of cobbling together various funding streams. McConnell won out, but Ryan subsequently vaulted from his Ways and Means chairmanship to the top job of speaker, shifting the dynamic between the two men substantially.

The leaders start the year united on at least one matter: Passing all 12 appropriations bills for the first time since 1994. McConnell on Tuesday cited that effort as his most important objective of the year. Ryan, however, has much more ambitious plans.

“We’re designed to be more active,” said National Republican Congressional Committee Chairman Greg Walden (R-Ore.). “We really are. We’re better off when our members are active and engaged and coming up with ideas. I think we can show the American people that in the people’s House, we are passionate about trying to get things done and have the tools to do it that the Senate is not equipped with.”

Mending the long-standing divisions between the lumbering Senate and freewheeling House is certainly not in the cards, though the relationship does appear to be warming slightly.

House members love to bash the Senate for not moving their bills, even occasionally begging the senators to change the chamber’s rules to steamroll Democrats in the minority. Those complaints, however, have dropped off since Ryan became speaker.

“When I was in the House I was frustrated with the Senate,” said Sen. John Thune (R-S.D.), who’s now No. 3 in the GOP leadership. “What’s really been helpful, though, is there seems to be a better understanding by the members of the House of what the limitations of the Senate are and less public discussion of their frustration.”