Congress might not be productive, but it’s going to be interesting

[BloombergOpinion]( [Early Returns]( [Jonathan Bernstein]( On Wednesday, the Senate voted 54-46 to [end U.S. involvement in the war in Yemen](. The Senate is expected today to vote to end the state of emergency President Donald Trump declared in order to build his border wall, likely by an [even larger margin]( — up to a dozen Republicans may vote with all the Democrats. Trump will veto both resolutions. Neither chamber has the votes to override him. But perhaps we can finally put to rest the idea that Republicans are in lockstep with the president no matter what he does. What Republicans have actually been fairly good at are two things, which add to up voting records that create the illusion of policy convergence. One is to fill up Trump’s mostly empty policy agenda with conventional Republican policies. House and Senate Republicans voted for those things, such as repealing Obamacare and slashing taxes on corporations and the wealthy, because they have always supported them. To the extent anyone changed, it was Trump. The other is to keep things that divide Republicans, especially those that divide congressional Republicans from Trump, off the House and Senate floor. When it’s something Trump wants done, such as funding for his border wall, preventing a vote is a defeat for Trump. The two measures in the Senate were failures by Majority Leader Mitch McConnell in the sense that they exposed the differences between several Republican senators and Trump. In both cases, special procedures prevented him from blocking votes. Most of the time, such procedures are not available. However, the new Democratic majority in the House may well make McConnell’s strategy more difficult to carry out. It’s possible that the House will attach limits to the Yemen war and the border wall to must-pass legislation later this year, forcing a showdown with the Senate in which more than 50 senators agree with the House position. That may leave McConnell with no good choices, and he could decide to let Trump fight his own battles. Of course, we’ve just been through an extended government shutdown in which McConnell sought to keep the Senate on the sidelines. Remember, it’s likely that 51 Senators were willing to vote to end the shutdown at every point; had McConnell allowed that vote, Trump would have had to veto a bipartisan bill to re-open the government, something that would have made him look even worse. McConnell wasn’t just protecting the president by resisting a vote; he was protecting Republican senators who didn’t want responsibility for a shutdown or responsibility for opposing Trump. Still, none of it worked particularly well for Republican senators, although some may still think it was better than any of the other alternatives available. It’s unlikely to work any better in the future. Now that they have a House majority, Democrats naturally would like to force as many tough votes for Republicans as possible. Whether Democrats will be able to jam McConnell — and Trump — will depend on whether they can remain sufficiently united so that they can use legislation for that purpose. Expect them to try. That means attempting to force votes on things they already know split Republicans, such as Yemen and the border wall, and things Republicans oppose that are overwhelmingly popular, such as an increased minimum wage. And not all of that will just be for show; Democrats really do want some of those policy changes, and they may have at least a plausible chance of getting some of them. No one is expecting a very productive Congress. That doesn’t mean, however, that nothing interesting will be going on. 1. Kelly Dittmar and Debbie Walsh on [women running for office](. 2. Dan Drezner on how the [737 Max demonstrated U.S. weakness](. 3. Elizabeth F. Cohen [on immigration](. 4. Dave Hopkins explains why there’s still not much of a chance for a [contested Democratic convention in 2020](. Yup. It’s possible — but the logic of winnowing remains strong. 5. Nate Silver on [Joe Biden, Bernie Sanders and early nomination polls](. 6. And Nate Cohn on [early polls](. My two cents: I wouldn’t be confident that early polls are meaningless, but I’d be very careful about making any assumptions based on them. Bloomberg L.P. ● 731 Lexington Avenue, New York, NY 10022 [Web]( ● [Facebook]( ● [Twitter]( [Feedback]( ● [Unsubscribe](