Ben Sasse

The long wait for Vice President Kamala Harris’s policy platform is over... well, at least on the economic front. Harris released her economic plan on Friday after weeks of running at the top of the ticket for the Democratic Party. The rollout, however, was less than stellar, as Harris proposed a mix of Soviet-style price controls with more popular policies pilfered from former president Donald Trump’s speeches and policy platforms.Harris said in the past week that she would end taxes on tips for service workers, which Trump promised back in June to do. The plan also runs counter to policies the Biden-Harris administration implemented that empowered the IRS to go after serviceworkers’ tips. Today, reports said Harris also intended to increase the child tax credit to $6,000.

The 2022 midterm elections are less than a month away. And while the focus will be on the winners and losers, perhaps the more important story will be about the lawmakers who dodged the ballot entirely. Already this cycle, we’ve seen a remarkable number of retirements. Republican Senators Roy Blunt (Missouri), Rob Portman (Ohio), Richard Burr (North Carolina), and Pat Toomey (Pennsylvania) have all announced they will not seek reelection. Those familiar with the Senate will recognize these as some of its more bipartisan members. Earlier this month, another senator joined them: Ben Sasse from Nebraska. Yet his move is more provocative: he has four years left in his six-year term.

Senate carpool dad Ben Sasse recently made headlines when he went on a rant against installing TV cameras inside the Supreme Court. "A huge part of why this institution doesn’t work well is because we have cameras everywhere," Sasse said of Congress. He warned that televising the Supreme Court might cause it to go the same way, that it might incentivize, as he delicately characterized Congress's conduct, "jackassery." There's an entire anthology waiting to be written on Sasse's use of creative swearing in the Senate (after the January 6 riot, he waxed poetic about "kicking Hitler's ass and going to the moon"). Yet the senator from Nebraska is absolutely right.

Will a Republican senator from Nebraska be the man who hands Joe Biden the White House? Ben Sasse has tried his best to do that. Sasse easily won reelection in the safe red state of Nebraska on Tuesday, leading his Democratic opponent by nearly 30 points with 85 percent of the vote in. But President Trump has not fared so well; in fact, he lost the vote in Nebraska’s Second Congressional district. Since Nebraska, like Maine, divides its Electoral College votes by district, that means Joe Biden gets an elector from Nebraska. And for that, Biden can thank Sasse, who next to Mitt Romney is the sitting Republican senator who has been most outspokenly critical of President Trump.

In the summer before an election year, a Midwestern Republican announcing he’s running for reelection to the Senate shouldn’t be particularly newsworthy. But then there’s Nebraska senator Ben Sasse. A sample Twitter reaction to his reelection announcement this week: ‘In the annals of absolute uselessness, whole chapters will be devoted to the political career of Ben Sasse.’ Indeed, the Harvard-educated Sasse had become a sort of folk hero for the Acela corridor. He was the one member of the Senate who wouldn’t just respond to your tweets, he’d clap back. He wrote books that weren’t about politics.

I have friends, both liberal and conservative, who loathe Donald Trump. Aware of my general support (and past work) for Sen. Rand Paul and his libertarian politics, a few have let me know over the last few years they are disgusted with the senator’s ongoing personal friendship with the president. Actually, I’m being nice. Their rhetoric is much harsher than what I’m describing. I tell them they are entitled to their opinion, but always point out that Paul allies with the president where they agree on the senator’s libertarian issues, and part ways respectfully where they disagree. It’s never personal between the two. I also note that no other Republican senator votes against Trump’s agenda more than Rand Paul.