Mayfield: Cantwell must not obstruct full Senate from debating TikTok’s future

MAGA Republican from Ohio Rep. Jim Jordan and San Francisco Liberal Democrat Rep. Nancy Pelosi agree on almost nothing these days. Yet, last week, both joined together with 350 other Democrats and Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives to pass a bill that could lead to a ban on social media app TikTok in the U.S.

That bill was so lopsided in its passage, just 65 members of the house voted against it. That’s a level of bipartisanship we just don’t see in American politics today.

And yet, that bill, which President Joe Biden has said he would sign if it gets to his desk, has an uncertain future in the Senate.

Why?

Washington Democratic Sen. Maria Cantwell.

It’s not a party loyalty thing. Republicans and Democrats in the Senate support the bill. Just ask Sen. Mark Warner, D-Virginia, and Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Florida. Both support the bill along with Arkansas Republican Sen. Tom Cotton and Connecticut Democrat Sen. Richard Blumenthal. And minds are shifting on the issue as well. Hawaii Democrat Sen. Brian Schatz attended a classified intelligence briefing Wednesday on the risks Chinese owned social media app poses to American security and, according to The Washington Post, is no longer undecided and that, “We need to go through with this.”

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So where is Washington’s junior senator in all this? Cantwell chairs the Commerce Committee, the committee this bill would fall under the purvey of and her support remains unclear. In fact, traditional beltway wisdom says any such bill referred to her committee has historically been dead on arrival.

Punchbowl News reported that the president’s commerce secretary made a person phone call to Cantwell earlier this week to push her on this bill. We know Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-New York, is mulling whether its possible to bypass Cantwell’s committee at all.

For her part, Cantwell is now saying next steps need to be “something more public” according to The Washington Post. That could mean a joint hearing with the Senate Intelligence Committee. But one thing it doesn’t mean is action immediately. What it could mean is process and discussion and grandstanding and muddy waters until the issue loses momentum and quietly dies out of the headlines.

So what’s going on here? Is Liberal Cantwell really lining up on the side of former President Donald Trump – who has come out against the current bill – or is something else going on here?

Look deeper and you’ll see that the former deputy chief of staff and acting legislative director for Cantwell has gone to work as a lobbyist. One of her top clients? TikTok.

Now, when asked by Politico, Cantwell said she had no idea about the connection. But one does have to wonder about who has been talking to whom and back channeling where. If we take Cantwell’s denial at face value and just believe her, that still doesn’t preclude her former top trusted aid from talking to every other person in her former office, many of whom have daily face time with the senator and help shape her policy positions.

I’m not arguing for or against this particular bill, but I am asking that it get a fair debate in the U.S. Senate. Let’s not slow this process down or kill it via a thousand paper cuts. With the kind of bipartisan and landslide support it has right now, it deserves the Senate’s full focus. Then it deserves a full Senate vote.

Do you like democracy or not? The choice couldn’t be more stark, Mayfield writes.

If that doesn’t happen because the bill never makes it out of one Washington senator’s committee, that’s a problem. It’s a problem not just for this bill, but for the credibility of one of just two Senators who represent you and me in all matters of federal lawmaking.

Travis Mayfield is a longtime Seattle media personality and a fill-in host for KIRO Newsradio.

Listen to Seattle’s Morning News with Dave Ross and Colleen O’Brien weekday mornings from 5-9 a.m. on KIRO Newsradio, 97.3 FM. Subscribe to the podcast here.