Indiana Sen. Dan Coats isn’t sure whether to run for reelection — but if he does, it’ll be because he has some degree of confidence the new GOP Congress can get something done.

The Department of Homeland Security debacle, he says, has been discouraging in that regard.


“I thought we were off to a good start with Keystone, but now we’ve hit a wall, so I’m trying to weigh where we are going for the next 18 months or so,” Coats said. He added: “We have been at this for two months now, and we are already hung up in terms of not being able to govern.”

Coats isn’t alone.

Republicans on both sides of the Capitol were shaken at the party’s handling of the DHS funding dispute that led to a monthlong standoff, paralyzed the GOP agenda and prompted serious questions internally about whether their newfound majority can deliver anything significant over the next two years. The fear among House Republicans is that Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell will be too quick to heed Democratic demands and push through watered-down bills on education, trade, health care and the budget. And the worry among Senate Republicans is that their House counterparts will scuttle hard-fought compromises that offer the only way to overcome filibusters and get bills to President Barack Obama’s desk.

Sen. Richard Burr, the North Carolina Republican who faces reelection next year and is close friends with John Boehner, voiced confidence that the House speaker can push through bills. But he asserted that Boehner “just might not be able to do it with all Republicans.”

“And that’s something that Republicans need to decide: whether they want to marginalize themselves in that fashion,” Burr said. “The reality is we have to govern. And we have to get legislation to the president’s desk — if, in fact, that we want to prove we can govern. Just to kill things in Congress, we’re pretty good at that.”

The comments came after Boehner was forced on Tuesday to swallow a $39.7 billion DHS funding bill free of riders that would have blocked Obama’s efforts to defer deportations for 5 million undocumented immigrants. The bill, which passed the House 257-167 on the support of mostly Democrats, came after a tumultuous month in which conservative immigration hard-liners in the House pushed Boehner’s team to take an aggressive posture against Obama’s actions. McConnell (R-Ky.), stymied by repeated filibusters led by Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.), ultimately stripped out the immigration riders to keep DHS funded, prompting outrage from House conservatives and breeding a new level of antipathy among Republicans in Congress.

It also highlighted a stark reality: Senate Republicans need at least six Democratic votes to break a filibuster, meaning they’ll have to compromise to pass Trade Promotion Authority, a No Child Left Behind rewrite, the 12 annual appropriations bills, a debt limit increase, a cybersecurity plan and a war powers resolution against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant. But the House conservative opposition to those compromises could be enough to scuttle a bill if the liberal House Democratic Caucus refuses to lend support.

Barely two months into the GOP majority, the pessimism is palpable, particularly among the Republican rank and file.

“Those people who ran around telling Americans that if both houses are in one party that things are going to start happening, with all due respect, probably oversold it,” said Rep. Mark Amodei (R-Nev.). He added: “On just the straight political scorecard, congratulations Sen. Reid, looks like you are still running the Senate.”

Rep. Paul Gosar (R-Ariz.) said he “absolutely” was less optimistic that Congress can achieve its objectives after the DHS stalemate.

“I’d hate to be a U.S. senator and go home and defend my actions,” Gosar said. “We just started ramping up this fight against our senators, making sure they have an obligation to do their constitutional duty and debate this and not hide behind Robert’s Rules of Order.”

Gosar’s senior Arizona senator, John McCain, urged House conservatives to align with their party leadership’s strategy “so we can go to the American people with a candidate for president in 2016 and say, ‘Here’s what we’ve accomplished’ — not a standoff between House and Senate Republicans.”

With the DHS fight behind them, McCain said he hopes Republicans “will all learn that we are not really fulfilling the commitment we made to voters last November. I campaigned for all these Senate candidates, and I said, ‘Look, we are going to govern.’”

Senate Republicans say publicly and privately that Boehner and his leadership team should take on the conservatives and put together a bipartisan coalition that could pass bills with a majority of Republicans and a sizable chunk of centrist Democrats. But House Republicans say most swing Democratic votes have vanished as the GOP expanded its majority in recent elections.

“Look, it isn’t the 1980s or 1990s,” said one House Republican leadership aide, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to speak freely about the challenges facing party leaders. “Blue Dogs are an endangered species because we’ve beaten most of them. So there’s not a block of centrist Democrats that we can pick up by moving legislation just slightly to the left.”

Indeed, House and Senate Republican leaders say the burden of enacting legislation also falls on the shoulders of Senate Democrats and the White House. Democrats in the Senate, they say, need to allow legislation to come up for debate, shape the contours of bills by allowing votes on amendments, and drop dilatory tactics blocking final passage. And the White House, Republicans say, will need to put its political muscle behind measures that will face opposition from Democrats, such as the president’s trade agenda.

Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas), the Senate majority whip, blamed Democrats for the problems of the past several weeks, but acknowledged that his party could have handled the immigration fight more effectively.

“I think there’s probably a number of lessons to be learned from this experience,” Cornyn said before the DHS vote. “And I’m sure we’ll be talking about that for a while. But right now, I’d like to see us resolve this issue this week and get it behind us.”

Boehner spokesman Michael Steel said Republicans’ “challenge in the future” will be overcoming Senate Democrats who are trying “to protect President Obama.”

But in a brief interview, Reid shot back when asked about the GOP’s handling of Congress: “Right now, it hasn’t been too good.”

After making bold promises that they can govern, Republicans are eager to have something to show voters ahead of the 2016 elections. Failure to move legislation — or more fiscal brinkmanship — could affect key Senate races, Republicans fear, particularly for the 24 GOP senators who are on the ballot next year, compared with just 10 Democratic seats.

Some Republicans, like Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, believe the upcoming fights will become easier because immigration is an emotional issue, particularly among Republicans. “If it continues, we’re in trouble,” Graham added.

Sen. Pat Toomey (R-Pa.), who is vulnerable next year, said battling the president when the GOP believes he’s overreached is perfectly within bounds. But, he added, the party should avoid high-stakes fights that could prompt a backlash with little to show for them. “I think what this tells us is we have to be very careful and strategic about how we fight back and over what vehicles.”

One vehicle coming up is the battle over raising the national debt ceiling, something that the Congressional Budget Office said Tuesday would need to occur by October or November. After fiscal brinkmanship over the debt limit led to fears of a default multiple times in recent years, the White House and Reid have insisted they will accept only a “clean” increase free of other provisions.

But Toomey said a borrowing limit increase should include provisions taking aim at the debt, a position consistent with most conservatives in Congress.

“The debt ceiling is a perfectly legitimate occasion to address that,” Toomey said.

Beyond the debt ceiling, Republicans still have to move funding bills before the end of September, many of which will be ripe for riders aimed at blocking Obama policies on the environment, health care and financial services — which could again renew fears of a government shutdown.

“If we grant the Democrats the ability to portray us and demonstrate we are dysfunctional, then I think it makes it more problematic” to keep Congress and win the White House next year, Coats said.

To that end, some influential Senate Republicans, like Lamar Alexander, are progressing with their own agendas — regardless of what the House can do. The Tennessee Republican is aiming to draft a bipartisan No Child Left Behind rewrite that is bound to be more moderate than a version pulled from House consideration last week.

“I learned a long time ago that a senator should focus on the Senate, but the House should focus on the House,” Alexander said.

Jake Sherman contributed to this report.