Summer blues

Politics | Back from recess, Senate Republicans have a very bad week | Clint Rainey

If Senate Republicans missed the signs that their first week back since the Memorial Day recess might not be their finest, they weren't watching Sen. Sam Brownback.

On Monday around 4 p.m.—two hours after the chamber reconvened to debate the Marriage Protection Amendment (MPA)—Mr. Brownback, conspicuously without his contagious schoolboy grin, was on the floor with a stack of blue and white foam-board posters in tow looking like he'd shown up for a high-school presentation he wasn't quite prepared to give. The scene presaged a hard, week-long battle, and as the senator's restive pre-speech demeanor betrayed, one he knew he'd likely lose.

That's the sort of week it was: a week of lost and squandered opportunities for the Senate Republican leadership. Not only did the second attempt in two years at a marriage amendment fail, but so did a vote on a bill to end the so-called "death tax" on inherited wealth, a tax fiscal conservatives have had in their crosshairs for a decade.