Proposing what can't be passed and not acting when you can.

I'm not, obviously, a politician and I'll never be one.  I don't have the temperament for it and even though, as a student of history, I commonly think of such things as "what would I have done" and "if I were in office, I'd do. . . ", and even though when I was younger I thought perhaps some day I'd run for the legislature, I'm not going to do so.  It just wouldn't be something I'd like doing and I'd come to regret it nearly immediately.

I'm saying that by way of an introduction to this item.

Barrasso looks to guide the first major reforms to the ESA in decades

Included in this article is this observation.

While a typical year in the 1990s and early 2000s may have seen roughly five attempts to amend the law, efforts to curtail its protections — from state governments, captains of industry and members of Congress — have begun to intensify. Between 2011 and 2015, the law faced 33 legislative attacks in Congress per year, according to research by Ohio State University. In the following two years, the effort had escalated, with nearly 150 attempts to reform or curtail the ESA.

All of those attempts have so far been unsuccessful.

The Tribune, however, goes on to note this:

The conversation in Washington, however, could be changing, ushered in by a strange amalgamation of bipartisanship in Congress, carefully crafted policy platforms introduced from the bottom up and the hand of one of the U.S. Senate’s most influential – and media-savvy – Republican voices on environmental policy: Sen. John Barrasso.

Hmmm. . . .

It may be because I'm  not a politician, but I just flat out don't believe that this will succeed.

Now, this isn't a comment on the ESA itself in any fashion whatsoever.  But the Republicans hold the Senate.  The Democrats hold the House.  In order to pass anything, both parties have to get on board, and right now they aren't agreeing on anything.

Indeed, this is the most left wing Democratic Party the nation has seen since the Watergate era, assuming that one wasn't closer to the center than this one, which it may be.  This may in fact be the most left wing Democratic Party since the 1930s. .  .or maybe ever.

I guess we'll see.  Odd things do happen in eras of great polarization.  People come together in odd spots.

But I have to wonder.  I've been hearing about changes to the ESA being proposed for decades.  If there are solid proposed changes to be made, why didn't the GOP propose them when it controlled both houses?

For that matter, why is this the case on so many other things that the GOP claimed it was going to act on if it took both houses and the White House?