Republicans in the United States Senate had a plan to put vulnerable Democratic colleagues on the spot by making them take uncomfortable votes on Biden administration policies — only to be dismayed when it backfired.
GOP leaders had aimed to used Congressional Review Act votes to tie Democrats to President Joe Biden's administration policies that are unpopular in their home states.
But, as Axios reported Tuesday, Senate Republicans have now scrapped plans to make Sens. Jon Tester (D-MT) and Sherrod Brown (D-OH) go through Congressional Review Act votes on Biden policies that are unpopular after experiencing what the publication describes as an "unexpected backfire."
In explaining the decision to scrap the plan, Sen. James Lankford (R-OK.) told Axios that the votes were "not actually getting anything done," but were presenting Senate Democrats an opportunity to take a stance that went against Biden and "send a message" of independence to their voters.
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A Senate GOP aide acknowledged to Axios that "a part of the shift was to stop giving vulnerable Democrats free votes to signal more moderate or right-leaning stances."
Brown and Tester, who have both won several elections over the past 18 years despite representing conservative states, have both made distancing themselves from certain Biden administration policies a cornerstone of their election. The Senate votes would have offered an opportunity for them to do that.
"Tester got a major victory in March when the Senate voted to overturn a rule from the Department of Agriculture that would end a ban on beef imports from Paraguay," writes Axios. "Tester and Brown both voted for a CRA that would overturn a Biden administration rule on measuring and setting greenhouse gas emission standards."
