Leading Democrats are hinting at the possibility of changing the rules in light of the victory of Scott Brown in Massachusetts — possibly doing away with the long-protected right to filibuster. Rep. Barney Frank has called for the Senate to change its rules while Vice President Joe Biden has decried the use of the rule by Republicans.
Putting aside the value and history of the rule, the Democrats appear to be doing precisely what they accused the Republicans of doing when the GOP was in power: manipulating the rules in raw power plays in Congress. Many Democrats are seeking to push through legislation before Brown arrives despite that fact that he was elected primarily on the basis of his promise to oppose the health care bill. Sen. Jim Webb has cautioned against such a move, here. House dems have already indicated that they are not interested in the suggestion from some in the Administration that they simply adopt the Senate bill to avoid any vote with Brown, here.
By any measure, the GOP winning Ted Kennedy’s seat is a seismic event — particularly given the focus on opposing the national health care legislation. In light of the election, the use of interim Senator Paul Kirk to push through legislation would be unseemly when he was never elected and clearly does not represent the wishes of the people of Massachusetts.
Changing the rules when you cannot win elections (even the bluest seat in the bluest state) is equally unseemly. Yet, that is what Frank appears to be suggesting:
“It is time to shut it down. God didn’t create the filibuster, it’s part of the Senate rules. . . .We have a serious constitutional problem. There has been a de facto amendment of the U.S. Constitution in an anti-small-D democratic direction. . . . It is outrageous. It tends to be, in many cases, the senators from those smaller states that aggregate to get up to be the 40.” Less populous states, he argued, end up with a disproportionate amount of power.
Biden also seems to have such a change in mind when he said the following on Sunday:
“As long as I have served … I’ve never seen, as my uncle once said, the constitution stood on its head as they’ve done. This is the first time every single solitary decisions has required 60 senators,” Biden said. “No democracy has survived needing a supermajority.”
Biden did not seem bothered by the filibuster rules when he was in the Senate in the minority.
The use of the filibuster can be traced back as early as Roman senator Cato the Younger. Both the House and Senate once had the filibuster rule. The house got rid of it in 1842. In 1917, a rule allowing a vote of cloture was passed to limit filibuster, but it still required 60 votes. Its use increased in the 1960s as segregationists opposed civil rights legislation.
Celebrated in the movie “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington,” the filibuster has often been heralded as forcing the Senate to reach compromises with large minority interests. If there are 41 members opposed to something like the national health care legislation, advocates insist that it is a good thing to force the majority to reach a reconciliation. The rule prevents a series of muscle votes by a slim majority.
Ironically, the health care bill may be an example of the value of the rule. Unlike the opposition to the civil rights legislation, there are credible concerns over the health care bill from both the left and the right. One could argue that such an important and historic bill should pass with at least 60 Senators or be rewritten to achieve greater consensus.
I have always shared some misgivings about the filibuster rule and Frank certainly has some good points to make. However, I do not like changing rules when it suits an election-challenged majority. This is simply not the time for such a debate – which will appear pathetically opportunistic and cynical. I think it would be a mistake to try to force through the legislation by slowing down the addition of Brown to the Senate or changing the rules to suit the majority. The insistence of the Democrats to pass something (or anything) labeled health care reform has led to a series of compromises and contradictions in the legislation. From the outset, the White House made so many compromises with the drug companies and other lobbies that it undermined its own credibility. Now, many liberals do not like it. Many conservatives hate it. Yet, the Democrats politically feel that they have to pass something at any cost.
I have to agree with Webb, who is being attacked by some commentators. If the Democrats can pass legislation with the new make-up of Congress, so be it. However, they should not tarnish their credibility or that of the final bill, by changing the rules or circumventing Brown.
I worked for Ted Kennedy in his 1980 presidential run and I am saddened that his seat was lost on this basis to the GOP. This was Kennedy’s legacy and the driving force of his final years in the Senate. However, the people of Massachusetts have a right to be heard on the question. Regardless of all of the effort to spin this loss, it was not simply a bad campaign (though Coakley was pretty weak in the campaign). This was a campaign that focused on national health care and the status quo in Washington.
I have long been a critic of this Administration and the Democrats in their utter abandonment of principle on issues like torture and civil liberties. While there are many good Democratic members who want to see a return to core values of the party, the party leadership has adopted, in my view, a pretty cynical approach to such issues. Instead, they have tried to be everything to everyone and have pleased no one but themselves. For that reason, many disillusioned liberals (including those who stayed home in the election) believe that they deserve this loss. Instead of changing the rules, how about looking at changing the Democratic position on the host of abandoned issues and values?
Maybe . . . just maybe . . . a few Democrats will now feel that they might as well give principle a chance since hypocrisy has not worked out for them. The Administration adopted many of the same positions as the Bush Administration on issues like privacy and failed to deliver on issues from gay rights to ending corruption in Congress. Democrats caved to lobbyists and engaged in openly corrupt practices that range from tax-funded vacations to obscene pork barrel politics. They has spent money with utter abandon and little concern for waste. After allowing lobbyists to cut up the current bill, there is no serious insurance reform, prescription drug reforms, or other needed elements.
Yet, the Democrats now just can’t understand why people are so unhappy with the Democrats. They have now lost Ted Kennedy’s seat and can only think of clever parliamentary tricks to avoid the result. The problem is much more fundamental and, if they do not understand that, they will not be in the majority for long.
As a life-long Republican who voted for Mr. Obama and many State Democrats, this voting upset is more about Obama’s lying, hypocritical, fraudulent character than anything else. Many Independents and like-minded Republicans voted for Obama and his Democrats because we were honest enough to want to condemn and demand recompense for all Republicans after the Bush debacle. We were willing to see our Republican leaders go to jail for war crimes and continuing to take away our freedoms to ‘protect’ us, supposedly so.
I have now learned a hard lesson that most Democrats are as bad as or worse than most Republicans are and I will never make another voting blunder as I did for Obama—except that; if he and other Democrats understand what is occurring and then get their act together immediately, I might reconsider my vote—if not, I am most likely through voting for liars, hypocrites, and crooks.
The conservatives/teabaggers didn’t win, the Democrats, particularly progressives, stayed home. The talk about big government is a false argument. The problem isn’t that there’s too much change or too much government, the problem is not enough change. The bankers and Wall Street and the previous administration’s State and Defense Dept thugs have all gone unpunished. The people of Mass. strongly supported a public option to control the insurance industry–that change didn’t happen either. The reason Progressives stayed home is disappointment that this administration is not willing to fight the fight for the people and is instead coddling the Republicans and their financial masters who together brought about the disater we live in.
If the Dems wanted to pass this legislation alls they need to do is attach/tie bar it to the DOD/DOJ budget. Bush did it and when election year comes up you paint those who voted against it as soft on crime or voted against funding for the military.
I think this is about a government that is out of control, both parties are imperious and think we work for them and all of their petty schemes.
It is about over reaching government and out of control spending. People are sick and tired of being told what to do and how to do it. We used to be a free people we are not anymore and we want our freedoms back.
Simply put, if I want to cut down a f. . . ing tree in my backyard I sure as hell don’t want to have to ask the local government for permission. It is my tree and my yard. Basically this is what this is all about. People are tired of relentless overbearing government doing stupid things with our money to what end? So they (congress) can throw us a bone and be reelected and live a god-like life style on Mount Capital Hill.
Enough of this crap, they should work about 3 months a year and be paid about 15,000 a month for the time there and they should not have a staff of more than 1 person to answer their phone. And K street should be eliminated, let those bastards [congress] write their own laws based on our input not GE, Mobile, Brown and Root, Pizza Hut, Wendy’s, Wal-Mart and other corporate entities.
That is what this is all about, there have been too many bridges to nowhere for the purpose of re-election.
Farm subsidies and corporate welfare and too big to fail-they should all go as well.
Our country might have had a decent plan for universal healthcare coverage if the Republicans, Blue Dog Democrats, and Joe Lieberman truly cared about the welfare of the American people. I’m not happy with the Democrats constantly making compromises to try to win bipartisan support–but I’m completely disgusted with the Republicans who have no plan other than to stonewall any kind of progress in working on plans to provide a program of affordable health insurance for all.
Massachusetts has healthcare and 97% of the people are pleased with it.
Just because they are pleased with it is not the question. The question is, is it working.
The Institute of Medicine, part of the National Academy of Sciences, has defined five criteria for healthcare reform. Coverage should be: universal, not tied to a job, affordable for individuals and families, affordable for society, and it should provide access to high-quality care for everyone.
The state’s plan flunks on all counts.
“Working with.” Love the euphemism.
And Tiger Woods likes to “work with” cocktail waitresses!
You *honestly* defend a special tax that applies to all Americans except union members?
If so that completely explains why you are so shocked this morning.
Elaine I think you are right about Howard Dean. I said that to my husband last night. I am a fan of Dean.
Caokley took a 9 day vacation in December. She was complacent. I compare it to a team that goes undefeated all year thinking that they can’t loose. 38 years undefeated is a great record but it doesn’t mean you can’t get beat on any given sunday.
Wayne–
Right….we wouldn’t want any political party working with organizations that represent working people.
jawoodard: there is no need to whip up populism. It’s already whipped up to a frenzy. You have just had your head in the sand and dismissed it as racism.
And it pretty effing hilarious for the democrats to talk about justice and principles the week after the democrats threw both out the window to fellate Big Labor.
Good stuff.
Swarthmore mom–
Brown got tons of money in recent weeks from people with deep pockets. The Chamber of Commerce also did a bunch of TV ads for him. Coakley was complacent–but where was the DNC and the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee? I wonder if the DNC would have been more aggressive with the Coakley campaign if Howard Dean had been running things.
One thing I know for sure: If Coakley had appeared as a nude centerfold in a magazine when she was in college, her political career would have been destroyed. Rules are different for men. So it is with the old double standard.
A big government republican loses in a bedrock republican district 3 months ago. Now the democrats have it handed to them in Massachusetts. The time has come to stop deluding yourselves. These aren’t “astro-votes”! Voters really **believe in** all this small government garbage. And they are actually fire up about it.
And its not all racists, yokels, and rednecks. The major parties have now lost in New York and Massachusetts. And it going to keep happening.
And why shouldn’t the Democrats play by the same rules as the Republicans? Why should the progressives be forced to cling to right, reason, and responsibility, when the Republicans through all three to the side for their own profit? Why should the Democrats be the protectors of justice and American values, when the Republicans destroyed both in the tenure? Maybe it is time for a bit of revenge. Maybe it is time to take up the reins of leadership, whip the steeds of American populism, and crush the Republican power machine.
It was impossible to get a compromise with the republicans on healthcare. The dems wasted months trying to compromise with a few republicans especially Olympia Snowe. No republican voted for the bill. The government can’t function with the filibuster. Nothing gets done.
Massachusetts has healthcare and 97% of the people are pleased with it. I don’t think it was about healthcare either, Elaine. Coakley was not a good campaigner and the democrats did not turn out.
Elaine I’m sorry for your loss, but your loss is my gain.
It is their staple, can’t win by the rules, bend the rules or make new one’s up.
I am sooooooo disappointed in my state. I’m not sure Brown’s win was primarily about healthcare. I think there were many reasons. I’d bet thousands and thousands of people who voted for Brown didn’t have a clue about where he really stands on a multitude of issues. As fed up as I am with the Democrats–I’d NEVER vote for someone like him. It would be like cutting off my nose to spite my face.
And he got elected in Massachusetts–the only state that didn’t go for Nixon in 1972! I feel a migraine coming on.
Only when it suits me do I have to abide by the rules. I like that. Is it not what was complained of to start with.