The 114th Congress convened at noon Tuesday, and by 1 p.m. Democrats already had thrown a wrench into the works, setting roadblocks in the way of the new Republican majority in the Senate and signaling that midterm election defeats have not chastened President Obama or his top lieutenants on Capitol Hill.
The Obama White House welcomed Congress by vowing to veto two bipartisan bills, while Senate Democrats refused grant permission for their chamber to hold a hearing Wednesday on building the Keystone XL pipeline.
In the House, the acrimony was chiefly within the Republican Party, where John A. Boehner of Ohio survived another conservative rebellion to win a third term as speaker. He had to overcome the largest number of party member defections of any speaker in more than a century.
In taking the gavel, he pleaded with lawmakers to “prove the skeptics wrong” and show that Congress can overcome gridlock.
But early signs were anything but encouraging.
Republicans planned to speed through bills held up by Senate Democrats over the past two years, including one to push construction of Keystone and another to overturn Obamacare’s language that defines a full-time workweek as 30 hours rather than 40.
SEE ALSO: John Boehner accused of ‘intimidation tactics’ for booting defectors from posts
Both of those bills have bipartisan support, but the White House said Tuesday that if either reaches the president’s desk, he would veto it.
Senate Democrats, who while in the majority last year complained that Republicans stymied their agenda, put some of those same tactics to use, blocking Senate Republicans’ plans to hold a committee hearing Wednesday on the Keystone bill.
Sen. Richard J. Durbin, Illinois Democrat, denied he was being obstructionist.
“No, no, no, we’re not,” he told reporters outside the chamber. He accused Republicans of trying to short-circuit the regular process by scheduling a hearing even before the committees had been officially established. He blamed new Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, Kentucky Republican, for reneging on a pledge to restore regular order to the Senate.
The partisan acrimony overshadowed the pomp and ceremony of the day, when the entire House and a third of the Senate were sworn into office, Mr. Boehner won the speakership, and the Senate unanimously affirmed Sen. Orrin G. Hatch, Utah Republican, as president pro tempore, putting him in the line of presidential succession behind Mr. Boehner.
Mr. McConnell also quietly ascended to the majority leader’s post in the Senate, while Sen. Harry Reid of Nevada, the top Democrat, was demoted to minority leader.
SEE ALSO: Obama will veto Keystone bill, White House says
Mr. Reid, however, missed the first day. He said his doctor ordered him to remain at home to recuperate from an exercise accident that left him with a concussion, three smashed ribs and broken bones in his face.
Little substantive work took place, though the House easily cleared a bill that would exempt some veterans from the threshold for when businesses have to start complying with Obamacare’s mandate to provide health insurance.
The House also voted on a set of rules that could have a lasting impact.
Chief among the changes was a provision making it easier to use “dynamic scoring” to evaluate bills. Long sought by Republicans, dynamic scoring takes into account the economic effects of policies such as tax cuts, which theoretically should make bills easier to pass. Dynamic scoring helped the Senate pass the immigration legalization bill in 2013.
Democrats said the change paves the way for budget-busting tax cuts that would benefit the wealthy.
“Republicans are trying to rig the rules of the system … against the middle class, and they’re rigging congressional rules to help them do it,” said Sen. Charles E. Schumer, New York Democrat.
Republicans countered that dynamic scoring gives a more accurate accounting about the effects of tax cuts.
The rules package also reauthorized the House’s special select committee investigation into the 2012 terrorist attack on the U.S. diplomatic mission in Benghazi, Libya. Democrats had asked for a separate vote on the Benghazi committee, but Republicans rejected it.
Republicans now control 54 seats in the Senate, a net gain of nine from the previous Congress. The other members are 44 Democrats and two independents who caucus with the Democrats.
Republicans hold 245 seats in the House, about a dozen more than the 113th Congress. Michael Grimm, a Republican who pleaded guilty to a federal tax evasion charge last month, resigned his seat Monday before he was sworn in.
Mr. Boehner needed the extra cushion of his expanded majority to help him win re-election as speaker after 24 Republicans defected and voted for an alternate candidate. Another simply voted “present.”
“This is the day the Lord has made, let us rejoice and be glad,” Mr. Boehner said as he took the gavel and vowed to make the economy the top priority. He said first up will be bills that cleared the House in the previous Congress with bipartisan support but died for lack of action in the Democrat-led Senate.
The Republican rebellion — the largest in more than a century — signaled that conservative dissatisfaction, which dogged Mr. Boehner for most of the past two years, remains high.
Still, Mr. Boehner earned 216 votes, 11 more than needed to win given the quorum present.
Rep. Daniel Webster, a Florida Republican, earned 12 votes for speaker, marking the highest total for a third candidate since 1925.
Rep. Louie Gohmert of Texas earned three votes, Reps. Jim Jordan of Ohio and Ted S. Yoho of Florida each earned two. A handful of other Republicans each earned a single protest vote.
“A fresh start often requires change, and I believe that change should start with the election of a new speaker,” said Rep. Jeff Duncan, a South Carolina Republican who voted for Rep. Trey Gowdy, also from South Carolina.
Rep. Mick Mulvaney of South Carolina, who was part of the failed 2013 coup attempt against Mr. Boehner, said it was a futile effort, and he voted for Mr. Boehner this time.
“The truth is, there was no conservative who could beat John Boehner. Period. People can ignore that, or they can wish it away, but that is reality,” Mr. Mulvaney said in a lengthy statement defending his vote. “I understand people’s frustration and anger over what is happening in Washington. And I also acknowledge that John Boehner may be partly to blame. But this was a fool’s errand. I am all for fighting, but I am more interested in fighting and winning than I am fighting an unwinnable battle.”
While Mr. Boehner’s problem came from his right flank, his Democratic counterpart, Rep. Nancy Pelosi of California, had no such problems with her liberal wing.
Instead, she lost support from a handful of centrist Democrats. Four of them voted for candidates other than Mrs. Pelosi, including Rep. Jim Cooper, a Tennessee Democrat who voted for former Secretary of State Colin L. Powell to be speaker.
Mrs. Pelosi, speaking just before Mr. Boehner, said Democrats would pursue tax increases on the wealthy and businesses and try to shift resources to the middle class instead. She also said Democrats will focus on voting rights.
“We invite our Republican colleagues to join us,” she said, drawing scattered applause from her Democratic colleagues, who seemed to sense that their agenda had little chance of advancing in the GOP-led Congress.
• Stephen Dinan can be reached at sdinan@washingtontimes.com.
• S.A. Miller can be reached at smiller@washingtontimes.com.
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