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March 29th, 2024

Insight

All Hands on Deck

Fred Barnes

By Fred Barnes

Published Oct. 16, 2016

All Hands on Deck

Besides choosing the next president, voters have a second and equally important obligation on November 8. They must elect a strong and clear-minded Congress to protect the country against the extreme policies of both candidates. It will take a Republican Congress to do this.

Why Republican? Two reasons. If Democrats control the House and Senate, they will ratify all of Hillary Clinton's left-wing proposals and appointments (including a fifth liberal on the Supreme Court) and demand still more. The country will suffer permanent damage. Only a Republican Congress will stop her lurch to the left.

The second problem-Donald Trump-is less critical than Clinton and her agenda, and he's less likely to win. Still, a President Trump would need a GOP-led Congress to curb his worst impulses. Given the chance, Democrats would rally around his plans to limit America's influence in the world, warm up to Russia, and weaken NATO. Again, only a Republican Congress will support U.S. leadership and influence globally.

Three weeks before the election, preserving Republican control of the House and Senate is anything but assured. It would take a landslide for Democrats to capture the House. While highly unlikely, that's not inconceivable. But the Senate, now 54-46 Republican, is in real jeopardy, because a disproportionate number of GOP seats are vulnerable.

There is good news, however. Republican candidates are superior to their Democratic rivals in almost every state. This is true even in Indiana, where Democrat Evan Bayh, former governor and senator, left Washington to run for an open seat. Now his chances of defeating Republican Todd Young are no better than 50-50. Meanwhile, Republican campaigns are well funded nationally.

For the Senate to stay in Republican hands in 2016, it will take something we don't always see in electoral politics: wisdom on the part of voters. Voters will have to ignore which side of the Trump divide a Republican candidate stands on. Whether Trump likes or loathes the candidate should not matter. Nor should it matter whether the candidate has endorsed Trump or refuses to vote for him. Control of the Senate is too consequential for those considerations.

Imagine, for instance, a Democratic Senate with Hil­lary Clinton in the White House. She would nominate the Supreme Court justice to fill the late Justice Antonin Scalia's seat. Senate Democrats would rubber-stamp whomever she selects, and Republicans, in the minority, would be all but helpless to block the nominee.

The prospect of this should frighten anyone who cares for the Constitution. In the second debate with Trump on October 9, Clinton revealed the type of justice she would pick. She favors justices "who understand the way the world really works, who have real-life experience, who have not just been in a big law firm and maybe clerked for a judge and then gotten on the bench, but, you know, maybe they tried some more cases, they actually understand what people are up against."



There was more. "I would like the Supreme Court to understand that voting rights are still a big problem ... that we don't always do everything we can to make it possible for people of color and older people and young people to be able to exercise their franchise. I want a Supreme Court that will stick with Roe v. Wade [and] stick with marriage equality."

More still. "I want a Supreme Court that doesn't always side with corporate interests ... that understands because you are wealthy and you can give more money to something doesn't mean you have more rights or should have any more rights than anybody else."

What Clinton doesn't want is a Court that sticks to interpreting the Constitution and respects its assigned role in the separation of powers. In her long answer, she didn't once mention the Constitution. Her justices wouldn't have to either. They could legislate to their heart's content.

Clinton was advocating the liberal dream of a Supreme Court that rules as it wishes, unencumbered by the Constitution or even the hard facts of a case. Her first nominee would create a liberal majority. If any of the four conservatives on the Court step down, she would be able to lock in that majority for years to come.

A Republican Senate could tame her ambitions. By rejecting a nominee, maybe two, Republicans could force Clinton to pick a nominee with a more traditional view of the Court's role. Not a conservative, but someone who might buck the Court's liberals occasionally.

Many of Clinton's worst ideas are practically secrets. Who knew, for example, that she would get rid of fracking, the great innovation in oil and gas extraction that has made America energy-sufficient? Rather than banning fracking, she's for pecking it to death through regulations.

Clinton could brush aside the objections of Republicans on Capitol Hill, but not if they control the House and Senate. They could turn her antifracking position into a political liability by publicizing it at hearings-hearings a Democratic Congress would never allow.

On the economy, Clinton not only opposes incentives for private investment and job creation, she never uses the word "incentives." The word "growth" isn't mentioned much either. There's a reason here. Her recipe for boosting the economy relies entirely on government spending and tax increases.

This has never worked. President Kennedy tried it, then switched to tax cuts. President Reagan went with tax cuts from the start. In both cases, the economy boomed. No matter that it's a recipe for stagnation or worse, a Democratic Congress would approve at least a big chunk of Clinton's plan. A Republican Congress would block it, period.

There's one more major issue to consider. With Democrats in charge of Congress, Obamacare will not only be salvaged but put us on a path to greater and greater government control of health care. With a Republican Congress, it will continue to wither away. It might even start to be replaced by a solvent health insurance system that a Republican majority would approve.

Good news: An aversion to Trump is not driving voters away from Republican candidates for the Senate. In Florida, Marco Rubio is running five percentage points ahead of Trump. In Pennsylvania, Pat Toomey is eight points ahead. In North Carolina, Richard Burr is polling four points better than Trump. And in New Hampshire, Kelly Ayotte is eight points up on Trump. The wisdom of voters is beginning to appear.

Fred Barnes is Executive Editor at the Weekly Standard.

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