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Happy Friday morning from Detroit. We’re here this morning for a live interview with Sen. Gary Peters (D-Mich.), the first installment in our 2022 “Road to Recovery” series. Tune in to watch virtually here.

The Senate adjourned last night after six weeks straight in session, one of the longest such stretches during this Congress. Some huge news broke during this period – Russia’s invasion of Ukraine; President Joe Biden delivered his first State of the Union address; Congress passed a $1.5 trillion spending package to keep federal agencies open through September; the Jan. 6 select committee accused former President Donald Trump of engaging in a “criminal conspiracy” to overturn the 2020 election; a new wave of Covid cases hit Capitol Hill, including Speaker Nancy Pelosi; and Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson was confirmed to the Supreme Court, the first time in American history that a Black woman will be seated on that august panel.

Both Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and Minority Leader Mitch McConnell faced some difficult challenges during this time, so let’s look at how they did. It’s an exercise we undertake regularly at Punchbowl News.

Chuck Schumer

Schumer got a win Thursday on the biggest issue facing the Senate and the Senate Democratic Caucus so far this year – the confirmation of Ketanji Brown Jackson to the Supreme Court.

For the Senate, Supreme Court nominations are about as consequential as it gets. The pressure and scrutiny is intense, each statement and comment is examined, parsed and pulled apart endlessly.

Jackson’s ascension to the Supreme Court won’t change the ideological balance on the panel. Conservatives still have a solid 6-3 majority, which took some of the pressure off the Senate in this instance.

Yet the historic nature of Jackson’s nomination – combined with a fragile 50-50 Senate and a nearly 12-year drought in confirming a Democratic Supreme Court pick – still made for a tense few weeks. Sen. Ben Ray Lujan (D-N.M.) also returned from a stroke long before Jackson’s nomination came to the floor, removing any question of a delay.

Jackson was the ideal candidate for Schumer, Judiciary Committee Chair Dick Durbin and Senate Democrats – extraordinarily well qualified and thoroughly vetted, having already been confirmed by the Senate three times, including her appointment last summer to the Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. Although there were some ugly moments during her confirmation hearings in the Judiciary Committee – and we guarantee those won’t be forgotten by Democrats anytime soon – the whole process went smoothly overall. Schumer and the White House wanted no surprises, and there weren’t any.

It was just six weeks from the time Biden formally nominated Jackson to Thursday’s vote. That’s very fast for a Supreme Court confirmation by historical standards.

Schumer also gets credit for helping to shepherd the massive FY 2022 spending bill to completion. The collapse of the Democrats’ Build Back Better Act in mid-December created an opportunity for a broad spending deal. The process was further aided by tens of billions of dollars in new spending. More money for guns and butter. But it happened on Schumer’s watch, so he gets the W.

The same dynamic occurred with the nearly $14 billion military and humanitarian aid package for Ukraine. McConnell pressed for additional money here, making this an easy political move for both parties.

Other wins for Schumer included passage of an anti-lynching bill, legislation that eluded Congress for decades; reauthorization of the Violence Against Woman Act; postal service reform; and a bipartisan ocean shipping reform bill.

Now let’s get to the not-so-good news. Schumer’s setbacks included the failure to pass a $10 billion Covid preparedness package. Schumer isn’t alone on this one; everyone in Congress in both parties owns a piece of this debacle, which comes as there’s been an uptick in new cases nationally.

In Schumer’s defense, when Speaker Nancy Pelosi was forced to pull the Covid prep money from the omnibus package last month, it made passing this new funding exponentially harder. That’s despite an agreement between Schumer and Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah) to offset the full cost of the package.

Schumer also wasn’t helped by the fact that the White House announced it will end the use of Title 42 public health authority to block asylum claims at the U.S.-Mexico border. With federal officials warning there could be a record-breaking surge of migrants trying to cross the border in coming months, this has become a serious political problem for Senate Democrats up for reelection in 2022. Republicans threatened to offer a Title 42 amendment to the Covid package, and that doomed the legislation for now.

Other setbacks included the failure to move Sarah Bloom Raskin’s nomination for the Federal Reserve out of the Banking Committee due to GOP opposition, as well as the defeat of Labor Department nominee David Weil on the Senate floor. This is the first time Biden has lost a nomination vote outright. It came after Democratic Sens. Kyrsten Sinema (Ariz.), Mark Kelly (Ariz.) and Joe Manchin (W.Va.) crossed the aisle to vote with Republicans. Sinema was the key figure here. Personal lobbying from Labor Secretary Marty Walsh and others failed to sway her to back Weil.

Overall, Schumer has been forced to deal with a 50-50 Senate for far longer than any majority leader in history, but he’s been able to amass a robust legislative record. There’s criticism of the way he runs the floor at times, as well as the “Schumer style” of just throwing everything at the wall legislatively and seeing what sticks, as it were.

But as he moves toward reelection this November to a fifth term in the Senate, the 71-year-old Schumer remains in firm control of his caucus. His members trust his judgment and follow his lead. He will still be Democratic leader whether his party is in the majority or minority next January.

Mitch McConnell

We’ve watched McConnell for a long time. He first came to the Senate GOP leadership table 25 years ago, if you count his two terms running the National Republican Senatorial Committee during the 1998 and 2000 cycles – and we do. Then there were four years as GOP whip, and – of course – another 15-plus years as Senate Republican leader.

McConnell has honed several traits to a high degree, as any longtime congressional leader must. These include vote counting (obviously), reading members (harder to do but critical) and ignoring what McConnell considers distractions from his ultimate political goals (see any of Trump’s latest pronouncements).

McConnell also knows how to pick his spots. There were several such instances during this recent Senate period that are vintage McConnell. They include the debate over the Ukraine aid package, and McConnell’s clash with Sen. Rick Scott of Florida, the NRSC chair, over a potential GOP agenda if they win back the majority.

On Ukraine aid, McConnell stepped in to insist on an even costlier package than what had been floated. This fit in with McConnell’s view on how to respond to the Russian invasion. It also was a message to the White House to be more aggressive on the aid front. And it served as a signal to the traditional pro-NATO, pro-muscular foreign policy wing of the GOP that it was time to act, despite pro-Putin comments from Trump and some conservative pundits.

The other high-profile episode was McConnell’s harsh response to Scott’s decision to float his own policy agenda. Scott’s plan includes tax hikes and votes to reauthorize Social Security and Medicare. Democrats continue to bash Republican candidates on the Scott proposal.

McConnell called out Scott in private, and then did so in public too. “If we’re fortunate enough to have the majority next year, I’ll be the majority leader,” McConnell said at a March 1 press conference. “I’ll decide, in consultation with my members, what to put on the floor.” Scott was at the press conference, but he walked away before McConnell’s comments.

McConnell was channeling the anger of some of his own senators, who were upset with Scott’s decision to release a policy agenda. Scott hasn’t backed down, though. He ran a TV commercial talking up his plan and defended it in a Wall Street Journal op-ed.

McConnell didn’t pressure his colleagues to oppose Ketanji Brown Jackson’s nomination either. Sens. Susan Collins (R-Maine), Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) and Mitt Romney (R-Utah) all ended up voting for the Supreme Court nominee, despite some complaints from GOP hardliners.

McConnell has repeatedly said he’s pleased where the party is heading into the midterm elections. He wants to make the election a referendum on Biden and the “all-Democratic government.” Soaring inflation and high gas prices, rising crime, a migrant wave at the U.S.-Mexico border, clashes over cultural issues, Biden’s handling of Ukraine, Afghanistan, Iran and other foreign policy issues – McConnell keeps saying he’s very comfortable fighting the election out over these topics.

However, in several key Senate races, there have been notable Republican recruiting failures, including Arizona and New Hampshire. These failures could let vulnerable Democratic incumbents off the hook.

At this point, McConnell seems comfortable with Herschel Walker if the former football star emerges as the GOP Senate candidate in Georgia, but there are tough Republican primaries going on in Missouri, Ohio and Pennsylvania where the outcome is in doubt.

In Missouri, former GOP Gov. Eric Greitens faces calls to drop out following horrific new abuse allegations by his ex-wife. Greitens blames McConnell and Karl Rove for his troubles.

McConnell has so far refused to weigh in on this controversy, but we asked McConnell during a recent Punchbowl News interview whether he’d get involved in a GOP primary.

Picking. Your. Spot.

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