They say that the greatest trick the Devil ever pulled was convincing the world that he didn’t exist. In 2026, the same applies to Midwestern Democrats.
It’s understandable why. Even in today’s political environment, there are few brands more toxic than “Democrat.” It is synonymous with open borders, defunded police, trans insanity, and high taxes. That’s why Democrats in Washington have recruited supposed “independents” in Republican states: to challenge incumbent Senators without voters having to see the word “Democrat” on their ballots.
Of course this is all a charade. “Independents” like Dan Osborn, Seth Bodnar, and Brian Bengs are just Democrats who will dutifully fall in line behind the Washington party bosses who recruited them once they arrive in the Capitol. In 2024, Majority Leader Chuck Schumer only had 47 Democrats in his caucus — compared to 49 members of the Republican Conference — but he was still majority leader because four “independents” gave him their support.
One of those independents, Senator Kyrsten Sinema, attempted to go “fully” independent, but she learned that doing so would cause her to lose her committee assignments. A senator without committees is like a pilot without a plane. What’s the point?
This is why any proposed schemes or pledges to be truly “independent” are scams, plain and simple. They do not reflect the actual workings of the Senate under its rules and its centuries of precedent.
Unlike the House of Representatives, which is elected in its entirety every two years and elects, in turn, a new Speaker and a new set of rules every Congress, the Senate maintains at least two-thirds of its membership each time a new Congress gavels in. This makes it what courts have called a “continuing body.” That’s why its rules and precedents persist over the centuries, because it never ceases to be.
Under Senate precedent, its day-to-day operations are conducted by a floor leader, whose powers under this precedent derive from his ability to speak first on the Senate floor. This allows him to control the business of the Senate. According to precedent, the floor leader is the leader of the majority party in the Senate.
But what if there isn’t a majority party because of, say, an “independent caucus” that keeps both parties under 50 votes? Precedent has no provision for that. Indeed, the officers of the Senate — like the President Pro Tempore and the Secretary — require actual majority votes, so it’s likely the same would apply to the Floor Leader. The result would be chaos unless the independents threw their support behind one of the two leaders. In other words, the idea of an “independent caucus” would take Washington’s unpopular dysfunction to unrecognizable levels until the “independents” chose a side among the two parties.
As the Senate continues across Congresses, so do its committees. Until a new organizing resolution is passed, the prior Congress’s committees remain in operation. (For most of January 2021, for example, the Judiciary Committee remained under the control of Chairman Lindsey Graham, for whom I worked at the time, even though the Senate was evenly divided.) Each Congress the Senate reorganizes its committees based on negotiations between the two parties, divvying up the seats according to the current ratio between the parties in the Senate as a whole. This is why independents like Bernie Sanders and Angus King caucus with the Democrats: it gets them committee assignments and even chairmanships as they accrue seniority.
There is no incentive for anyone to give independents committee seats unless those independents caucus with a party. That’s because the seats are divided between the two parties and assigned among the two parties under their respective party rules, with the final list of committee members typically being enacted in a resolution.
Because the parties don’t need the independents to get the resolution over the finish line, each party has no reason to give their committee seats to Senators who may vote with the other party. The only reason for either party to agree to give “independents” committee seats — at the expense of their own members — is because it expects them to be allies. If they won’t be allies, there’s just no point in doing it.
A historical example of this happened in 1953 when Senator Wayne Morse of Oregon tried to keep his seat on the Armed Services Committee after leaving the Republican Party to become an independent. Both the Republican and Democratic Leaders declined to give him one of their seats on the committee, and when Senator Morse forced a vote on the decision on the Floor, he lost, 81–7.
So the fix is in. No matter what the alleged “independent” candidates say, no matter what high-minded reform capers they present, no matter how sincere they sound today, if they want to get anything done in the Senate, they’ll be siding with Chuck Schumer and Bernie Sanders once they get to Washington. The problem is that they just don’t want you to know that they’re Democrats — yet.