Her travel back to Washington follows a conversation last week with Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, in which she said she could return as soon as this week. It is not yet clear if Feinstein will participate in Tuesday night’s floor votes.
“I’m glad that my friend Dianne is back in the Senate and ready to roll up her sleeves and get to work. After talking with her multiple times over the past few weeks, it’s clear she’s back where she wants to be and ready to deliver for California,” Schumer said in a statement Tuesday.
Feinstein’s return will put two nominees in the spotlight, in part because Feinstein’s absence is not the only vote holding them up. Senate Democrats will now have to grapple with the nomination of Michael Delaney for the First Circuit, which has been held over in Judiciary for weeks and could face further problems on the floor. Delaney faces criticism, even from some Democrats, over his representation of a school in a sexual assault case.
Feinstein’s vote could also be critical for Julie Su, President Joe Biden’s pick for Secretary of Labor. A handful of moderate Democrats, including Sens. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) and Jon Tester (D-Mont.) have declined to say whether they will support her on the floor. Any Democratic defections would make Feinstein’s vote even more critical in the 51-49 Senate.
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“They’re related for sure,” Thune said of the debt limit talks and farm bill. “For better or worse, pretty much everything that we’re going to do subsequent to the debt limit discussion depends on how all that plays out.”
Fresh in Senate GOP leaders’ minds: The 2011 sequestration fight, which resulted in steep spending cuts to farm safety net programs popular among Republicans. One Senate GOP aide, who was granted anonymity to discuss internal discussions, warned that any “across-the-board cuts [included in legislation to raise the debt limit], may effectively reduce the investments we are able to make in the farm safety net, trade, research, and other priorities.” The person added that “debt ceiling negotiators need to use a scalpel, not an ax.”
Thune and Sen. Joni Ernst of Iowa, the No. 4 Republican in the upper chamber, are now among the handful of GOP leaders navigating the debt talks with the White House and the upcoming budget negotiations while trying to protect key farm bill funding. Ernst acknowledged the three legislative efforts are becoming increasingly entangled. As a result, the farm bill timeline could slip.
“We anticipate it’s going to take a while to get the farm bill done. Sooner is better than later, but it could take a little bit longer,” Ernst said.
GOP senators are largely supportive of their House colleagues’ demand for cuts to nutrition spending, which ballooned during the pandemic. But they’re less enthusiastic about the idea of slashing key farm safety net programs they’ve long tried to protect.
Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) said that he expects Senate Republican leaders will likely need to step in to protect certain pots of farm bill funding from House GOP cuts given “the importance of agriculture to our entire economy.”
While Senate GOP leaders haven’t drawn any redlines, Thune has noted the importance of the farm bill to the rural voters his party relies on. “I think the [House Republican] leadership … understands even though on their right they’ve been getting a lot of pressure to cut, cut, cut in different areas, there are also a lot of members from agricultural states who need a farm bill,” said Thune. That includes his own state, South Dakota, where agriculture is the largest industry.
And, he pointed out, “If you look at our map in 2024, we got a lot of rural state Republicans who are up.”
Up to this point, McConnell and Senate Republicans have deferred to House Republicans in the debt limit negotiations with the White House, even as the U.S. inches closer to the June 1 date when the nation could hit its debt limit, according to Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen. But McConnell will be attending a White House meeting Tuesday with Biden, House Speaker Kevin McCarthy and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, which members of both parties are hoping could help begin to break the logjam.
Democrats, meanwhile, are warning that House Republicans’ proposals to slash spending as part of the debt limit deal threaten the viability of the traditionally bipartisan farm bill on Capitol Hill. Democrats are particularly incensed by the GOP push to expand work requirements for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program — the nation’s leading anti-hunger program for low-income Americans, which accounts for approximately 80 percent of farm bill funding.
Senate Agriculture Chair Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.), who is also a member of Democratic Senate leadership, has warned the proposed spending cuts in the House GOP debt legislation would also hit key parts of the farm bill — including critical risk management programs for crop farmers that are still being impacted by the 2011 spending cuts.
“If the Republicans want to tank a farm bill that’s up to them,” Stabenow said in an interview. “This is the most important rural economic development and farmer safety net in our country.”
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Once that date hits, “really that’s it,” Yellen said on “This Week.” “We have been using extraordinary measures for several months now, and our ability to do that is running out.”
The debate over the debt limit has left Democrats and Republicans in a deadlock, and so far neither side seems ready to budge. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries said Sunday on NBC’s “Meet the Press” that Democrats are in “lockstep” with Biden, who has called for passing a clean debt ceiling, not tied to any of the spending cuts House Republicans proposed in the bill they passed last month.
Speaking on Fox News’ “Sunday Morning Futures With Maria Bartiromo,” Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) said a letter had been sent to Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer saying 43 Republicans backed House Republicans in saying they would not consent to passing a debt ceiling increase without “spending cuts and structural budget reform.” He said he expects Senate Republicans to stay united on the issue.
“As Kevin McCarthy, speaker of the House, meets with the White House, it’s imperative that he arrive in a position of negotiating power,” Lee said.
Should Congress fail to come to an agreement before the X date, some analysts have suggested that Biden could invoke the 14th Amendment, which confirms “the validity of the public debt,” to raise the ceiling unilaterally. Legal scholar Laurence H. Tribe wrote of that option in the New York Times on Sunday: “For a president to pick the lesser of two evils when no other option exists is the essence of constitutional leadership, not the action of a tyrant.”
But it’s an option Yellen doesn’t want to White House to have to consider.
“Look, all I want to say is that it’s Congress’s job to do this,” she said. “If they fail to do it, we will have an economic and financial catastrophe that will be of our own making and there is no action that President Biden and the U.S. Treasury can take to prevent that catastrophe.”
If Congress does fail to find common ground, “there are simply no good options,” Yellen said.
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Some Republicans — particularly House conservatives — see that as a win for Democrats and Biden, who have been pushing to lift to the debt ceiling with no strings attached as the GOP calls for significant cuts to federal spending in exchange. So they’re not looking to open that particular escape hatch, at least not yet.
“No,” said Senate GOP Whip John Thune (R-S.D.). “I just think that this needs to get done and delay, delay, delay doesn’t solve anything.”
“I can tell you a short-term extension and clean debt ceiling is not going to pass Congress,” echoed Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas). “That is a solution that the White House has fever dreams of, but it’s not going to pass Congress. Nor should it.”
Plus, Republicans feel they have the upper hand in negotiations with the White House after Speaker Kevin McCarthy successfully passed his debt ceiling package last week, which would lift the nation’s borrowing cap by $1.5 trillion or through March 2024, whichever comes first, while slashing $130 billion in government funding.
A short-term extension is a “bad idea in part because House Republicans have already passed a debt ceiling deal,” said Sen. J.D. Vance (R-Ohio). “I think if there was no deal out there and we had no real solution on the table, it would be a different story. But we do have an offer on the table.”
Rep. Dan Bishop (R-N.C.), a member of the House Freedom Caucus, said a clean debt ceiling increase of “any duration” is a “no-go,” even if it means negotiating with the White House on spending.
“Republicans have to break a long-standing habit of thinking that giving in to reckless Democrats gradually constitutes victory,” he said.
Democrats, meanwhile, aren’t willing to negotiate on the debt — and several more months bought by a temporary extension could mean they’re conceding to do just that. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer roundly rejected the idea of a temporary debt hike this week, saying Congress should pursue a two-year extension through the 2024 election.
Many lawmakers are waiting to see what happens when congressional leaders meet with Biden on Tuesday, hoping for some signs of movement in a debt stalemate that has dragged on for months.
Not everyone is opposed to the idea of a stopgap bill, admitting it might ultimately become the only path to avoid default. While lawmakers technically have just under a month to negotiate, the reality of the congressional calendar means lawmakers will have even less time to strike a deal. There are only about eight legislative days left in May that the House and Senate are simultaneously in session, and both chambers will need time to pass the legislation.
“I could be supportive of that, but the question is, whether House Republicans would be supportive of that,” said Sen. Mike Crapo (R-Idaho), when asked whether he would back a short-term lift of the debt ceiling if it meant serious negotiations with Democrats on government funding in the coming months.
If Republicans and the White House can’t work it out in the next couple weeks, “then the idea of giving us the time is a good idea,” Crapo said.
When asked whether there’s a chance the debt stalemate ends with a temporary extension in the coming weeks, Sen. Jon Tester (D-Mont.) said, “for sure,” though he stressed that’s not his preferred outcome. Both sides should be able to reach a deal, he said.
Adding to the complications of a temporary hike: it would likely coincide with government funding talks slated to happen over the summer, with a shutdown deadline on Sept. 30.
There’s plenty of precedent that suggests Congress and the White House could successfully hammer out a debt ceiling deal alongside government funding. In 2019, then-President Donald Trump deployed Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin to negotiate with Speaker Nancy Pelosi, resulting in a two-year budget deal that also waived the debt ceiling through July 2021.
And some Republicans aren’t feeling particularly urgent, doubting that Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen’s early June deadline is anything more than a political ploy. Some GOP members think the real deadline would hit sometime over the summer.
“Nobody believes her. I don’t believe her,” said Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.). “I’m not saying she’s a liar. I’m just saying that Janet Yellen is no longer an economist and a professor, she’s a politician. And I don’t believe June 1 is anything other than a date that she either set or was told to set through a political lens.”
Sen. Shelley Moore Capito, a top appropriator who’s a member of Senate Republican leadership, said she expects more clarity on how the standoff might pan out after the White House meeting on Tuesday.
“We’ll have to see,” she said. “I think that the president has finally come to the table and is going to be talking with the four leaders.”
Capito said she would prefer that the impasse is resolved in the coming weeks, “but I don’t want to default, nobody else wants to either.”
Olivia Beavers, Jordain Carney, Daniella Diaz and Katherine Tully-McManus contributed to this report.
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Bengaluru: Reacting sharply to Congress leader Siddaramaiah claiming that his party would increase the reservation limit in Karnataka from 50 per cent to 75 per cent if voted to power in the upcoming Assembly elections, former chief minister BS Yediyurappa on Wednesday said the “poll promise” would never be met as the prinicipal opposition party in the state was headed for defeat.
Speaking to ANI on Wednesday, the veteran Ligayat leader said, “Since he [Siddaramaiah] is going to lose miserably, the question of increasing the reservation limit in the state does not arise.”
“We [BJP] are going to do everything in our power to form the government,” he added.
Siddaramaiah, also a former chief minister who is eyeing a fresh term in post after the May 10 Assembly polls, had tweeted, “The Congress party is committed to increasing the reservation limit from 50 per cent to 75 per cent and extend reservation to all castes based on their population.”
Earlier on Wednesday, Yediyurappa came down hard on BJP turncoats Jagdish Shettar and Laxman Savadi, who recently switched over to the Congress, saying that they will pay for betraying the ruling party in the upcoming Assembly polls.
Shettar, a former chief minister, and Savadi, who formerly served as the deputy CM, belong to the Lingayat community which is believed to hold sway over electoral outcomes in the state.
Hitting out at both the BJP deserters, Yediyurappa said, “I call on the people not to cast a single vote for Laxman Savadi and Jagdish Shettar, as they betrayed the BJP despite being entrusted with key portfolios in the government.”
“I am 100 per cent certain that both these leaders would lose this election. There is no doubt about it,” Yediyurappa told ANI.
The 224-seat Assembly polls are slated to take place in a single phase on May 10 and results will be declared on May 13.
Still, the speaker can only lose four Republicans and still pass his debt limit legislation. Most House Republicans are on board, but McCarthy’s leadership team remains short of the 218 votes it needs for passage. Conversations continued over the weekend to try and bring stragglers into the “yes” camp.
Even if McCarthy is able to push his debt limit bill to House approval, the legislation is dead-on-arrival in the Democratic-controlled Senate. Instead, the GOP debt bill is effectively a messaging tool for Republicans in their push for talks with President Joe Biden, who has thus far insisted on a no-strings-attached increase of the debt limit.
The Treasury Department has already been using “extraordinary measures” for months to hold off a default while an unclear “X-date” looms. But there could be more clarity soon: The Congressional Budget office and the Bipartisan Policy Center are planning to release updated projections the second week of May.
Agitation for changes to the legislation began almost as soon as the bill text was released last week, including a higher bar for work requirements for Medicaid and food assistance programs and a sooner start date. As written, the measure would require Medicaid recipients to work 80 hours per month, or 20 hours per week.
“Work Requirements in the House debt limit bill must begin in 2024, not 2025 (as is currently drafted). The reason we demanded 72 hours to review legislation is so we could identify and fix issues with specifics precisely like this. Let’s Get to Work!” Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) wrote on Twitter over the weekend.
Gaetz was in a meeting last Thursday with McCarthy’s leadership team, Budget Chair Jodey Arrington (R-Texas), Ways and Means Chair Jason Smith (R-Mo.) and leaders of different factions of the conference, discussing both work requirements and the general temperature across the conference.
The elimination of certain tax credits, from ethanol to biofuels, is another source of stress for some members, but confidence that those wouldn’t survive any White House deal has dialed down the concerns.
Other bill components include the claw-back of upsent pandemic funds and IRS funding for customer service and finding tax cheats, a cap on spending to levels from fiscal year 2022, a roll back energy tax credits from Inflation Reduction Act and tighter work requirements for recipients of food stamps and Medicaid benefits. As written, it would raise the debt limit through March of 2024 or until the debt grows to $32.9 trillion, whichever comes first.
The House Rules Committee takes up the bill Tuesday afternoon, a precursor to a floor vote. Should McCarthy need more time to whip votes, the House, which does not return from its weekend recess until Tuesday, is scheduled to be in on Friday.
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How Wall Street investors react to a possible default is crucial because they’re the ones who finance the country’s enormous debt by buying the securities that Treasury sells to fund the government. If they shy away from the market, interest rates could skyrocket, squeezing the government, businesses and consumers.
That’s why their level of confidence can serve as the strongest force to drive Washington partisans to make a deal.
For most of this year, many on Wall Street assumed that lessons learned from the 2011 crisis — including voters furious over declines in their retirement accounts as stocks plunged — would prevent such an event from happening again. That faith is starting to fade.
“Debt ceiling negotiations are essentially nowhere,” Brian Gardner, chief Washington policy strategist at investment bank Stifel, wrote in a note to clients. Gardner added that while a last-minute deal could certainly emerge, “the GOP’s narrow majority and the Speaker’s tenuous political position make the pathway to an agreement more uncertain than usual.”
To be clear, it’s nowhere near all-out panic. The government has until the summer to strike a deal, when the Treasury Department is likely to run out of room to keep paying the nation’s bills and servicing its existing debt.
But signs of stress are piling up, especially after House Speaker Kevin McCarthy came to the New York Stock Exchange on April 17 to make the GOP case that any hike in the borrowing limit must come with significant spending cuts. That’s something the White House and congressional Democrats say they won’t consider.
The shift from general nonchalance to rising concern can be seen in an obscure corner of the markets: the soaring cost of insuring against exposure to U.S. debt through instruments called credit default swaps, which mitigate risk for large holders of Treasury securities.
The cost of insuring against a U.S. default rose to its highest level in over a decade on Thursday as JPMorgan analysts said there was a “non-trivial risk” of at least a technical default on the government’s debt in which the nation runs out of borrowing ability for even a short period before a deal is reached.
Darrell Cronk, chief investment officer of Wells Fargo’s wealth and investment management division, said his biggest worry is that the “X-Date” — the moment when emergency moves to forestall default are exhausted — gets pulled forward to early-to-mid June with 2022 tax receipts likely weak after a brutal year for markets.
Goldman Sachs researchers said they also expect a much shorter timeline due to a steep reduction in capital gains revenue. And McCarthy’s hardline position — as well as questions about whether he can unify House Republicans over any strategy at all — have amped up alarms. “People seem to be dug in a little bit more in the trenches,” Cronk said.
Some bank executives said they are growing more concerned about the state of play in Washington but remain unsure how to inject themselves into the debate. Speaking out would be unlikely to sway hard-line conservatives, they fear, given that such calls would probably be dismissed as special pleading by rich Wall Streeters.
So for now, they are mostly issuing anodyne statements arguing for the importance of not allowing the U.S. to default, in a bid to nudge the two sides toward a solution.
Following McCarthy’s address, congressional Republicans urged bankers to press Biden to engage with the GOP.
“Obviously, people [on Wall Street] are worried,” Sen. J.D. Vance of Ohio said in an interview. “We’ll just say, ‘Look, it’s a two-party system. And Kevin McCarthy gets to make the first shot across the bow, but they need to put pressure on Joe Biden, to the extent they’re able to, to actually come to the negotiating table.’”
Rep. Warren Davidson of Ohio said he’s telling bankers that “the only way that we’re going to not default later is if we start taking corrective action now.”
“Joe Biden’s plan is to not take corrective action now,” said Davidson, a member of the House Freedom Caucus. “That’s a nonstarter. We’re not going to move his ‘no action now’ bill,” he said, referring to Democrats’ hopes of passing a “clean” debt limit hike with no spending cuts.
Democrats expressed frustration that the financial world hasn’t exerted more pressure on Republicans.
“Wall Street and business need to start getting energized and put pressure on Republicans to do what we’ve done all these years, which is pay for the debt that we incurred and not hold the American people hostage,” said Rep. Pramila Jayapal of Washington, who chairs the Congressional Progressive Caucus.
Senate Banking Chair Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) said he was confident Wall Street would eventually speak up. “But I think that it’s telling that McCarthy went to Wall Street to talk about all this because he’s Wall Street’s guy,” Brown added. “So we’ll see.”
Meanwhile, concerns over the impact that a nasty fight over the debt limit could have on the economy are showing up on bank earnings calls.
Goldman CEO David Solomon identified uncertainty over the debt limit as a potential source of volatility during the bank’s call on Tuesday. An hour earlier, responding to a question from POLITICO, Bank of America CFO Alastair Borthwick told reporters he didn’t have much to say on the status of non-existent negotiations between the White House and McCarthy.
“Obviously, we’re all hoping that gets resolved successfully,” he added.
Citi CEO Jane Fraser said her bank believes it’s “now more likely that the U.S. will enter into a shallow recession” later this year. “The biggest unknown,” she told analysts on the bank’s recent earnings call, is “how the debt ceiling plays out.”
BlackRock Vice Chair Philipp Hildebrand warned at the Bloomberg New Economy Gateway Europe Forum on Thursday that default would undermine “a basic anchor” of the world’s financial system and “must not happen.”
“All we can do is to pray that everyone in the United States understands how important the sanctity of the sovereign signature of the leading currency, of the leading bond market, of the leading economy in the world is,” Hildebrand said.
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Republicans, led by House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, can point to polls showing only tepid backing for raising the debt ceiling and preference for spending cuts over tax increases to bring down the budget deficit. On President Joe Biden and the Democrats’ side: overwhelming support for lifting the cap once poll respondents are told breaching it could lead to a default.
That’s a mixed bag of public opinion: 54 percent of Americans opposed raising the debt ceiling in a new CBS News/YouGov poll this week, but that number dropped to only 30 percent when respondents were asked if they would let the U.S. default. But in Washington, polling uncertainty about the political fallout can have serious consequences. In the debt limit fight, it’s emboldening both sides.
Biden is in an especially precarious position, as he reportedly prepares to roll out his reelection campaign as soon as next week. He’s entering this fight with lower approval ratings than Obama’s ahead of the 2011 crisis, and voters remain worried about inflation and the economy — which, along with government dysfunction, could supplant more Democratic-friendly issues like abortion in the news in the coming weeks.
A POLITICO/Morning Consult poll from late February underscored the volatility of the situation — and the current disincentive for either party to cave: Asked whom they would blame if the U.S. defaulted, a plurality of voters, 37 percent, said they’d hold both parties equally responsible. Another 30 percent said Democrats would be most to blame, while 24 percent said the GOP would be.
It’s a different climate from 12 years ago. A Washington Post/Pew Research Center poll from mid-June of 2011 — about six weeks before the crisis was ultimately resolved — found more Americans said they would blame Republicans (42 percent) than Obama (33 percent) if the debt limit wasn’t raised.
In that debate, Obama and Democrats were generally seen as more in line with public opinion, backing a combination of spending reductions and tax increases on the wealthy — a generally popular plank — in exchange for raising the debt ceiling, compared with Republicans’ more drastic budget cuts.
That combination hasn’t been floated this year, given Republicans’ aversion to new taxes and Biden’s lack of engagement with McCarthy so far. Broadly, Americans are split when asked to choose between the two: tax hikes or spending cuts, with a slight preference to trimming spending.
A NPR/PBS Newshour/Marist College poll in February found that half of voters, 50 percent, thought in order to close the national debt the government should “mostly cut programs and services,” while 47 percent said it should “mostly increase taxes and fees.”
In that poll, 52 percent of voters favored raising the debt ceiling “to deal with the federal budget deficit” — slightly different wording than the CBS News poll that yielded slightly stronger support. But only 26 percent of Republicans supported raising the debt ceiling, even as McCarthy seeks support for his plan in the House next week among a bloc of members who even opposed hiking it under then-President Donald Trump.
What could make 2023 different from 2011, Republicans say, is inflation.
“There is one really important change that’s occurred,” said David Winston, a Republican pollster and adviser to former House Speakers Newt Gingrich and John Boehner. “When you go back to prior discussions [about the debt ceiling], the national debt is still an abstraction.”
But now, Winston said, “There is a clear connection that the electorate has between spending and inflation.”
The GOP catered much of its 2022 midterm economic message around trying to connect government spending with the rapid increase in prices over the past few years.
There’s some evidence that’s worked, to a degree: A YouGov poll from last October, just weeks before the midterms, found that 53 percent of Americans assigned “a lot” of blame for inflation to “spending from the federal government” — though that was fewer than blamed “the price of foreign oil” (60 percent) and roughly equal to those who held “large corporations trying to maximize profits” (52 percent).
For Biden and Democrats searching for the upper hand, there are some encouraging signals in the polling. An ABC News/Washington Post poll from late January and early February asked Americans if Congress should only raise the debt ceiling if Biden agrees to spending cuts, or if “the issues of debt payment and federal spending” should “be handled separately?”
The public took Biden’s side on the strategic question: Only 26 percent said Congress should only raise the debt limit if Biden cut spending, while 65 percent said the debt payments and spending should be separate.
Moreover, while reducing spending might be broadly popular, there’s the issue of what to cut. In this week’s CBS News/YouGov poll, not only do seven-in-10 respondents want the country to avoid a default, but majorities actually support increasing spending on Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid as part of the budget notifications. Even on defense spending, more Americans want to see it increased (41 percent) than decreased (26 percent). A third, 33 percent, want it to remain the same.
But Biden is also less popular than Obama — who was still enjoying a bounce in his poll numbers after the killing of Osama bin Laden entering the final three months of the 2011 debt crisis — at this point in the process. Biden’s average approval rating is 42 percent, according to FiveThirtyEight, while Obama in May 2011 was sitting on majority approval. And even Obama’s approval rating slipped as the country approached the debt ceiling that summer — a potential preview of what’s to come.
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The legislation would also bar the Biden administration from moving forward with a new income-driven repayment plan that cuts monthly payments for most borrowers and shortens the timeline to loan forgiveness for some borrowers.
In addition, the GOP plan would permanently prohibit the Education Department from issuing any significant regulation or executive action that would increase the long-term cost to the government of operating the federal student loan programs.
Such a sweeping prohibition would imperil efforts by the administration to provide additional relief or benefits to student loan borrowers. That would include any backup option for canceling large amounts of student debt if the Supreme Court rejects Biden’s student debt relief plan in the coming months.
Key context: The provisions are among dozens of policy changes and spending caps that House Republicans included in their 320-page legislation to raise the debt limit by $1.5 trillion or until March of next year, whichever comes first.
Republicans have argued that they want concessions from the administration that lower the federal deficit and reduce spending in exchange for their votes to raise the nation’s borrowing limit.
McCarthy said he hopes to pass it in the House next week. But the proposal stands no chance of passing the Democrat-controlled Senate.
Biden swiftly dismissed McCarthy’s proposal as a nonstarter. “That’s the MAGA economic agenda: spending cuts for working and middle class folks,” Biden said of the plan on Wednesday. “It’s not about fiscal discipline, it’s about cutting benefits for folks that they don’t seem to care much about.”
Thiruvananthapuram: Joint action against Governors’ moves that curtail State governments’ functioning and threaten federal principles is imperative, Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan said on Tuesday.
Vijayan said his government will consider with “utmost seriousness” Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M K Stalin’s proposal for States to pass Assembly resolutions seeking time frame for Governor to clear State Bills.
Responding to a letter written by Stalin, who had proposed to pass a resolution in the Kerala Assembly similar to that passed by the Tamil Nadu Legislature to fix the time limit for Governors to approve the bills, Vijayan said as defenders of the federal spirit of our Constitution, “we have to cooperate in every effort to prevent the curtailing of the functioning of elected state governments.”
“Even though the time period for giving assent to the bills is not specifically mentioned in the Constitution, it has to be a reasonable one,” he said.
A week after the Tamil Nadu Assembly adopted a resolution in this regard, Vijayan said going by the experience of many States, the Justice M N Venkatachaliah Commission to review the working of the Constitution and the Justice M M Punchi Commission on Union-State Relations has recommended mentioning a time limit, within which the Governor has to take a decision on giving assent to bills, in Article 200.
“In this matter, we are ready to extend wholehearted cooperation to you and will consider the proposal in your letter with utmost seriousness,” the Kerala Chief Minister said in the letter, offering full support to the Tamil Nadu Chief Minister for future actions.
In his April 11 letter to Vijayan, Stalin explained the circumstances that forced the Tamil Nadu Assembly to pass a resolution to fix a time limit for the Governors to approve bills passed by the respective legislatures and requested the Kerala CM to extend his support in this regard to uphold the sovereignty and self-respect of the State governments and the legislatures by passing a similar resolution in the Kerala Assembly.
Fully appreciating the views expressed by the Tamil Nadu Chief Minister in the letter, Vijayan said they were in consonance with “the stand taken by us” in Kerala.
“As you have rightly stated, presently elected governments in many states are facing this issue. In Kerala too, certain bills passed by the State Assembly after due deliberation have been kept pending by the Governor for an unduly long time, some for more than a year. This despite the fact that the ministers and officials have personally visited and given the clarifications sought by the Governor,” he said.
The Kerala Chief Minister said putting a halt, that too for an inordinately long time, to the legislative measures passed by the State Assemblies which represent the will of the electorate tantamounts to nothing short of negation of democratic rights of the people.
Vijayan alleged that the time-tested convention of parliamentary democracy that the Governor has to act in accordance with the aid and advice of the Council of Ministers is being violated through the act of holding back assent to the bills passed by the legislature.
He said the Constitutional discretion of the Governor operates in narrow confines of the Articles, where there is explicit mention of the word discretion and in extreme situation of invoking Article 356, which was expected to remain a dead letter, as agreed to by the eminent Constitution maker Dr B R Ambedkar in Constituent Assembly Debates.
“Article 356, instead of remaining a dead letter has been put to oft-repeated use (many times misuse) to oust State governments enjoying majority support in the Assemblies. The examples are the dismissal of the Communist government headed by Shri E M S Namboodiripad in Kerala in 1959 and the DMK Government headed by Thiru M Karunanidhi in Tamil Nadu in 1976 and 1991”, Vijayan said.
Later, in a tweet, Vijayan said, “Joint action against Governors’ moves that curtail State Govts’ functioning and threaten our federal principles is imperative. Thiru @mkstalin’s proposal for coordinated efforts in this regard is highly appreciated.”
Stalin thanked Vijayan for his prompt response to his letter.
“Thank you Hon @PinarayiVijayan for your prompt response to my letter & extending full support. TN & Kerala have traditionally stood as a bulwark against any attempt to erode state autonomy. We will win in our crusade against the gubernatorial overreach too,” the Tamil Nadu Chief Minister tweeted.
The Tamil Nadu Assembly on April 10 adopted a resolution urging the Centre and President to fix a timeframe for State Governors to approve Bills adopted by the House, indicating increasing dissension between the DMK government and Governor R N Ravi.
Chief Minister Stalin who piloted the resolution fired sharp barbs at Ravi accusing him of being more faithful to the BJP leadership than the Constitution of India.
“I will not say that the Governor doesn’t know the Constitution. But, his political allegiance has swallowed his loyalty to the Constitution,” Stalin had said and cautioned that he would not remain idle if the Governor continued to target his government for political reasons.
