One man is keeping Ex-Im closed

 As you read and hear stories about the US Export-Import Bank’s continued lack of authorization, let there be no mistake about what’s now happening: A single man is keeping the bank closed.

By margins of 313-118 in the US House of Representatives and 64-29 in the US Senate, members of Congress have voted to reauthorize Ex-Im, which has been unable to extend export loans since its authority lapsed June 30. President Barack Obama is waiting and willing to sign a reauthorization bill.

But Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell (R-Kentucky) is hiding behind legislative technicalities to keep Ex-Im shut down. The Senate voted to authorize Ex-Im earlier this year as an attachment to an unrelated highway bill. The House voted to authorize Ex-Im this week on a standalone basis (after pro Ex-Im members resorted to an extraordinary legislative tactic to force a floor vote). Only when identical bills are passed by both chambers does the legislation go to the president for his signature.

McConnell could allow that standalone Ex-Im bill to go to a floor vote in the Senate at any time. Presumably, the same 64 senators who voted for reauthorization last time will do so again, sending the bill to Obama for his signature and reopening Ex-Im. But McConnell refuses to do that.

After more than eight decades of largely noncontroversial operation in which the bank extended loan guarantees to help finance sales of US-made aircraft and other exports, Ex-Im this year became a cause-célèbre of hardline conservative Republicans, particularly those with talk radio shows and online media platforms. To them, Ex-Im represents appalling government corruption. Shutting it down has become a moral crusade. That Ex-Im ultimately costs taxpayers little-to-no money or is very similar to dozens of export credit agencies around the world that have become a routine part of international business matters little.

This week’s vote in the House shows that this burn-down-Ex-Im position is a decidedly minority view. Forget the overall 313-118 spread; Republican House members voted 127-117 to reauthorize the bank.

McConnell has been caught up in the frenzy of anti-Ex-Im sentiment. That’s fine and he’s free to oppose Ex-Im all he wants. He could allow it to come up for a floor vote in the Senate, and then give a thunderous speech about why he is opposing Ex-Im reauthorization and why his Senate colleagues should do the same. He or another anti-Ex-Im senator could even filibuster the bill, which would require 60 rather than 51 votes to gain passage.

But he knows he won’t persuade enough colleagues to join him in voting nay, and that Ex-Im will likely be reauthorized by a filibuster-proof majority. So he says Ex-Im needs to be handled via the highway bill (which makes no sense; Ex-Im has nothing to do with domestic transportation funding). But conflating it with the highway bill does give the power to stop reauthorization back to a few players in the House, such as Financial Services Committee chairman Jeb Hensarling (R-Texas) and new speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wisconsin), both of whom have come out decidedly against Ex-Im.

This is absurdly antidemocratic in the extreme. A small group of lawmakers wanting to shut down an 81-year-old government institution should not be able to do so unless they can convince a majority of members of Congress that it is the right thing to do. But not even a majority of House Republicans have been convinced of this, let alone a majority of Congress. Right now, despite wide majorities in both chambers of Congress casting votes to reauthorize Ex-Im, it remains closed. Because one man, Senator McConnell, wants it that way.