How Schumer's messy style delivers for Dems: 'I persist'

WASHINGTON (AP) — Shoes off, an almost-empty container of leftovers, an unfinished glass of wine -- this was the exhausted portrait of one of the most powerful Democrats in Washington after Senate passage of President Joe Biden's sweeping health, climate and economic package.

New York's Chuck Schumer effectively moved from minority to majority leader of the U.S. Senate on the morning of the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol insurrection, and he has helmed the chamber through a tumultuous, messy and yet surprisingly productive run with the longest evenly split 50-50 Senate in the nation's history.

Methodical he is not, as the crumbs scattered on the senatorial carpet in his office off the Senate floor attest.

But with a willingness to broker politically unpleasant compromises and a New Yorker's drive to keep pestering his colleagues, Schumer is using his party's fragile congrol of the Senate to substantive, sizable accomplishments unseen in recent years.

“Persistence. I persist,” Schumer said in an interview late Sunday evening after the round-the-clock session and Senate passage of Biden's bill.

The $740 billion package, less than once envisioned but still huge, would be a big legislative win for any president and his party. For Biden and the Democrats, it builds on long-running aspirations of lowering health care costs, taxing big corporations that skip paying their share and launching the nation’s largest investment, some $375 billion, to fight climate change. With revenue raised from corporate taxes and allowing the federal government to negotiate some prescription drug costs with pharmaceutical companies, the remaining $300 billion goes to deficit reduction.

Not everyone is cheering Schumer.

Republicans deride the Democrats' effort as “yet another reckless taxing-and-spending spree,” as Senate GOP leader...