Senate

This whole “seniority” thing in the Senate has always been a bunch of garbage and helped contribute to the “good ole’ boys” club mentality that surrounds the chamber. Now it looks like it could be coming to an end:

During a question-and-answer session with progressive media, video blogger Mike Stark asked lawmakers why the Democratic caucus hasn't yanked Sen. Blanche Lincoln's chairmanship of the Agriculture Committee, considering her opposition to Democratic legislative efforts. In Arkansas, her gavel is a top selling point as she battles a progressive primary challenge.

"We're going to elect committee chairs next year," said Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio). "The current chairs that are sitting there now understand that we'll be electing chairs next year," he added, saying the idea had been cleared with Senate leadership.

Under current rules, members of the caucus can weigh in by objecting to an overall Senate organizing resolution, but don't have an up-or-down vote on each chair.

That’s exactly how it should be. Take Lieberman as an example. The only reason he is still a Democrat is so that he can keep his seniority and have his Homeland Security chairmanship. It doesn’t matter if Jack Bauer himself became a senator, Lieberman would still be chair because of his seniority.

It’s practices like this that have made the Senate a laughing stock of the free world. I’m glad to see talk of ending it. If these people really think they should chair committees, then let them fight for it. It’s time for our senators to prove their worth.

Take a look at this story on CNN:

Barely a month in office, Sen. Scott Brown, R-Massachusetts, is putting some muscle behind his independent image by twice voting against his own party and questioning the use of the filibuster.

Brown took to the Senate floor Tuesday to announce he would vote for cloture, or to end a Republican filibuster, on a bill extending unemployment benefits and tax credits. This, despite the fact he opposes the bill and technically the filibuster helped his cause.

"I have very serious concerns about the overall cost of the bill," Brown told the chamber, "but my vote for cloture signals that I believe we need to keep the process moving." He also said, "there has been a week of debate and allowing this bill to receive an up-and-down vote, would be a step, I feel, in the right direction."

Nothing really bad in there, but then take a look at this part:

It is rare for a senator to vote for cloture, thus advancing a bill, while opposing the bill itself. Votes on filibusters are often defacto decisions on the content of the proposal.

Rare? Yes if we are talking about the past 2 years, but not when you look at the overall history of the Senate. Without saying it, the reporter is talking about a filibuster – a practice that’s use has risen exponentially these past couple of years. Before that it was common for Senators to allow a bill to proceed to a final vote, even if they disagreed with it. It’s called majority rule and something that is very common. Perhaps CNN should send their reporters back to 3rd grade social studies so that they can have a bit of a clue of how our government is supposed to work.

Just now breaking on MSNBC that a deal has been struck to end the filibuster by Jim Bunning.

John Cole reminds us of a harsh reality when it comes to the little $15 billion jobs bill:

What is fifteen billion? A couple weeks of unemployment benefits? Not to go all Everett Dirksen and everything, but we ***LOST*** almost that much in Iraq, and no one flinched. But $15 billion is going to remedy job losses of tens of thousands every month on top of millions of lost job over the past two years? Isn’t that less than California’s budget deficit? And the only way it was going to get substantially bigger was to lard it up with pointless tax cuts?

Democrats should be ashamed of putting forth such a small bill to handle such a huge problem, but even worse is the Republicans who voted against it. Many of these were the same ones defending the lost billions in Iraq by going “oh well”. They absolutely have no concern for the American people.

Without the help of Ben Nelson, Democrats were able to break the GOP filibuster on the jobs bill with the help of Kit Bond, George Voinovich, Susan Collins, Olympia Snowe and Scott Brown.

The final vote was 62-30, with Frank Lautenberg missing the vote because of his chemo.

As Aravosis points out, Conservatives are on fire going after Brown. It appears the honeymoon is officially over:

it wasn't just the people of MA who put you where you are. Next time you vote like that I expect to be kissed first!

Well, I guess we worked our tails off to get another RINO elected. I'm so disappointed in Scott Brown

Hey, Massachusetts! How do you like Scott Specter?

You dont understand - We Americans Had Drawn A Line In The Sand With @scottbrownma - Its All Gone Now. #traitor

Michael Savage totally called it... @SCOTTBROWNMA sucks!

Read more of the angry tweets at AmericaBLOG.

Adding…. This bill is mostly nothing but tax breaks for small business. Again we see a large number of Republicans voting against reducing taxes. What platform do they have now besides being the party of no?

Following up on yesterday’s post, the number of senators singing the letter to urge Harry Reid to put the public option back in play is now growing. Here’s where the list stands:

• Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.)
• Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio)
• Michael Bennet (D-Col.)
• Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.)
• Bernie Sanders (I-VT)
• Al Franken (D-Minn.)
• Pat Leahy (D-VT)
• Roland Burris (D-Ill.)
• John Kerry (D-Mass.)
• Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI).

These senators have not yet signed on but signaled strong support for the public option:

• Tom Harkin (D-Iowa)
• Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.)
• Ben Cardin (D-Md.)
• Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.)

This is an awesome momentum, with 14 senators now showing strong support for the public option. That’s almost 1/4 of the Democratic caucus, and the number seems to out shadow the number of blue dogs now. You better start listening Harry.

At least we have a few Democrats in Senate still wanting to see true reform:

Four Democratic senators, including two facing potentially challenging election campaigns this year, are asking Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid to use reconciliation, a procedural maneuver requiring only 51 votes, to push for a public health insurance option.

Sens. Michael Bennet (Colo.), Kirsten Gillibrand (N.Y.), Sherrod Brown (Ohio) and Jeff Merkley (Ore.) signed a letter to Reid saying they support this plan for four reasons: the cost savings the public option is estimated to achieve, continued public support for the public option, the need for increased competition in the insurance market and the Senate's history of using the reconciliation process for health care reform.

"Put simply, including a strong public option is one of the best, most fiscally responsible ways to reform our health insurance system," the letter says. "Although we strongly support the important reforms made by the Senate-passed health reform package, including a strong public option would improve both its substance and the public’s perception of it."

Of course Harry won’t listen to any of this. He seems to only care what conserva-dems want. Maybe it’s time for the more liberal members of the Senate to start playing those games and threaten filibusters to see what Harry does.

Another blue dog bites the dust:

Sen. Evan Bayh will not run for re-election, a decision that will shock Democrats and Republicans alike in Indiana.

In prepared remarks, Bayh, 54, cited excessive partisanship that makes progress on public policy difficult to achieve as the motivation for his decision.

“After all these years, my passion for service to my fellow citizens is undiminished, but my desire to do so in Congress has waned,” he said.

“My decision was not motivated by political concern,” he added. “Even in the current challenging environment, I am confident in my prospects for re-election.”

Last week news broke that Sen. Richard Shelby had placed a hold on almost all of President Obama’s nominees in lieu of getting funding for some of his pork projects. Now he has retreated:

Republican Sen. Richard Shelby of Alabama will stop blocking Senate confirmation of about 70 government appointees nominated by President Barack Obama, his office said.

Shelby had placed "holds" on most of Obama's nominees, delaying the Senate from acting on them, in a dispute over federal spending involving his state.

"The purpose of placing numerous holds was to get the White House's attention on two issues that are critical to our national security – the Air Force's aerial refueling tanker acquisition and the FBI's Terrorist Device Analytical Center," Shelby spokesman Jonathan Graffeo said in a statement Monday night.

The problem for Shelby is that he has now been exposed as a major hypocrite. How can he continue to call himself a conservative after going to such extraordinary measures to secure pork? Any challenger to Shelby’s seat will have a field day with this.

Yesterday it was Kit Bond, today we have Richard Shelby:

Sen. Richard Shelby (R-AL) has put an extraordinary "blanket hold" on at least 70 nominations President Obama has sent to the Senate, according to multiple reports this evening. The hold means no nominations can move forward unless Senate Democrats can secure a 60-member cloture vote to break it, or until Shelby lifts the hold.

So this is the Republican games being exposed? They will do what they can to really run up government spending, then blame it all on the Democrats. It’s time to stop trying to play nice with these assholes and go nuclear. President Obama should hold a prime time press conference and call these Republicans out by name for their games. The American people need to be made aware of what is going on and if the RNC and tea party want to support these assholes, then they also need called out. It’s time to fight back.

Now it looks like the Republicans have found a loophole that will let them block items in reconciliation:

Republicans say they have found a loophole in the budget reconciliation process that could allow them to offer an indefinite number of amendments.

Though it has never been done, Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.) says he’s prepared to test the Senate’s stamina to block the Democrats from using the process to expedite changes to the healthcare bill.

Experts on Senate procedural rules, from both parties, note that such a filibuster is possible. While reconciliation rules limit debate to 20 hours, senators lack similiar constraints on amendments and could conceivably continue offering them until 60 members agree to cut the process off.

The Republican platform – screw governing and do nothing but block, block, block. There is a way around this though:

Or  Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) could use a tactic similar to the so-called nuclear option to quash the GOP tactics.

Yeah like that would happen with King Useless the majority leader.

It really isn’t a lesson, but more of a reminder. Democrats suck at politics. To the Democrats out there acting shocked over the Brown win, all I can say is “wake up!”

We don’t need to turn back the pages of history more than a few months to remind us how bad Democrats are at politics. Last August they sat shell shocked as the tea bagger movement erupted. During the entire health care debate they were crap. They started negotiations low and just kept going lower. When someone like Lieberman threw a monkey wrench in the plans the leadership just blinked.

For the Democrats to remain a majority party they have to become the party people want, not the party that people resort to as the ‘they are better than the alternative” candidates. They need to remember what promises brought them to power in 2008 and deliver on them. Stop it with the dream of “bi-partisanship”. It isn’t going to happen. We are not going to pull this highly polarized country together over night. Hell we probably won’t be able to until some massive national disaster happens again, and a near depression wasn’t even enough for that.

Democrats also need to learn a thing called message control. This is something the Republicans excel at, while the Democrats fail every time. Health care is a perfect example of this. The Republicans had “death panels”, while the Democrats counter argument was “health exchanges”. Average Joe voter has no idea what a “health exchange” is and Democrats sure as hell didn’t try to explain it.

Things are not going to get better starting today. We now officially enter the mid-term cycle and Democrats have an uphill battle ahead of them. For Democrats to prevail they have to show their base that they are willing to fight for them. We need real leadership, especially in the Senate. Bill Frist never had a problem pushing through controversial legislation and the biggest majority he ever had was 55. Harry Reid needs to start standing up to the obstructionism. If Republicans want to filibuster, fine, make them do it, but by all means stop this pussy footing around and caving in.

Or maybe we should just listen to Mike Malloy, who last night reminded us that the Democratic Party is dead and has been dead since April 12, 1945 – the day FDR died.

Wow talk about amateur hour. It is going to be so much fun to watch this idiot over the next 2 years.

There has been a lot of focus on the Massachusetts Senate race to replace the late Ted Kennedy and some are trying to paint it as a repudiation of President Obama and health care reform. One of the key findings in the new PPP poll released last night was that those planning on voting oppose the health care bill 48% to 40%.

This morning on Morning Joe, Chris Matthews brought up a really interesting point about this. He said that maybe the people of Massachusetts feel like they are getting a double punch by health care reform. They already have their own reform in the state, which they pay for through taxes, so having a federal system to them would end up leaving them feeling they are paying for others. There really could be a lot of truth for this.

So is the opposition to health care and the reason Brown is doing so well in Massachusetts because they already have their own reform? I’m sure not all people of the state feel or believe this, but there is a really good chance that enough of them do to propel Brown ahead and maybe even deliver him to the Senate. If that’s the case it will be a crappy deal for the rest of America.

Just now tweeted by them.

Full details of the poll here. Sounds like a lot of troubling numbers coming in for Democrats.