Obstruction

What Is So Nuclear About Majority Rule?

Isaiah J. Poole — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 12:07:44 -0800

Conservative Unemployment Roadblock Will Cost States Millions

Isaiah J. Poole — Fri, 26 Feb 2010 11:17:03 -0800

The latest bit of obstruction being staged by a Senate conservative, done in the name of limiting federal spending, is going to end up costing cash-strapped states millions of dollars as well as potentially causing millions of workers to lose their unemployment benefits.

Sen. Jim Bunning, R-Ky., earlier today continued his blockage of an extension of federal unemployment insurance benefits that are due to expire this weekend. Meanwhile, the Senate has adjourned until Monday, with no votes scheduled until Tuesday.

That means that states will now start cutting off payments to people receiving federally funded extended unemployment benefits, paid to people who have exhausted their standard 26 weeks of unemployment benefits. A total of about 5 million people depend on those benefits today. They won't all be cut off at once, but several hundred thousand stand to lose benefits effective this weekend, according to the National Association of State Workforce Agencies—the trade group for state unemployment offices—and that number will grow each week that Bunning and his conservative allies in the Senate succeed in blocking action on a benefit extension.

Unemployed people will also lose a $25-a-week add-on to their unemployment checks that was authorized under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act stimulus bill.

The human cost is obvious: People who have been searching for work unsuccessfully for six months or more are suddenly going to lose their only means of income. And that's going to be a lot of people in a state like Bunning's Kentucky, where the unemployment rate is 10.7 percent, compared to 9.7 percent nationally. Nationally, 6.3 million people have been out of work for more than 27 weeks, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

But there are significant costs to cash-strapped states, which are going to have to start sending out notices Monday to many of the people who will lose eligibility under these programs. The National Association of State Workforce Agencies doesn't have a solid estimate on those administrative costs, but "it's certainly millions," said spokesman Ben Fendler, and "the magnitude of the problem will increase significantly if the programs are not reenacted immediately," because new people will lose their eligibility for extended benefits at the rate of 150,000 a week.

There is an ignominious bit of history here, according to Judy Conti at the National Employment Law Project:

For the first time since the enactment of the unemployment insurance system during the Great Depression, there will be no federal extensions when the unemployment rate was above 8 percent. This is a catastrophe and tragedy of epic proportion. While a debate and discussion about the deficit may be an appropriate exercise for the Senate, it should not be done at the expense of 1.2 million unemployed workers, especially when, as Mr. Bunning admitted on the floor, he knows he will lose the debate and he knows that these benefits are likely to be extended sooner rather than later. His misguided and cruel stunt on the floor last night will end up having NO impact at all on the federal deficit, whereas it may push unemployed workers all over the country over a financial ledge from which they cannot recover. And the cost to state governments, which will have to expend considerable overtime taking down their programs, and even more to put them back in place, will be staggering at a time when they can least afford it. So Mr. Bunning accomplished nothing for the federal deficit, but certainly added to the deficit of his own state’s coffers as well as its unemployed workers.

Bunning's complaint is that the $10 billion cost of the benefit extension should be paid out of federal stimulus funds. Bunning and other Senate conservatives opposed the Recovery Act from the very beginning, so they are looking for any opening to shut it down. To do so would be self-defeating; every Recovery Act dollar Congress appropriated last year that is not already being drained away in tax relief needs to be deployed in job-creating projects. The more money spent on job creation, the less of a problem unemployment insurance becomes. Plus, that would never fly in the House, where progressives and members of the Congressional Black Caucus are bristling at the Senate-passed $15 billion tax and spending package, arguing it is not a "jobs bill" as the Senate leadership is characterizing it. The House has already passed a far more robust, $154 billion bill.

The real shame is that in the face of what is certainly an emergency for people who are about to lose their ability to pay their housing bill or buy groceries, the Senate leadership decided to adjourn for the weekend rather than force a showdown on this issue. David Waldman at Daily Kos was justifiably furious:

A one-man filibuster is the kind a concerted effort to "make them filibuster" is most likely to break. But instead, no one's even trying anymore. ... the Senate appears to have adjourned for the weekend. Bunning has won for the day, and [Sen. Richard] Durbin's threat [to force regular votes on a motion to break the filibuster] has shockingly failed to materialize at all. The extent of Bunning's punishment: he missed prime time TeeVee last night.

TAKE ACTION
TrueMajority has launched an email campaign to press the Senate to act on an unemployment insurance extension. Use this link to participate in the TrueMajority campaign.

What a way to reinforce the narrative that Washington can't get anything done and is tone deaf to the needs of working people. But let's not lose sight of the fundamental issue: Senate conservatives would rather see Bunning grandstand over federal spending, even if that grandstanding results in more taxpayer spending and more human suffering, than casting a simple vote in favor of a measure even Bunning says he does not oppose.

It's obstruction for the sake of obstruction, and the rage that will build among unemployed people whose lifelines will begin to be cut this weekend should be directed first at Bunning and the Party of No.

Who Gets Hurt By The ConservaDem Courtship With Obstructionists

Isaiah J. Poole — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 08:19:27 -0800

In the states represented by the four senators in the Democratic caucus who are threatening progress on health care reform, there are almost 2 million people without health insurance, according to state-by-state health care reform impact reports released by the Department of Health and Human Services.

These states, and the senators who represent them, are Arkansas (Blanche Lincoln), Connecticut (Joe Lieberman, an independent who caucuses with the Democrats), Louisiana (Mary Landrieu), and Nebraska (Ben Nelson).

Hundreds of thousands more residents in these states are saddled with expensive individual insurance policies and desperately need the market reforms that would be initiated under a robust reform plan.

The reports are a reminder, as the health care reform debate resumes this week, of who is getting hurt by the continuing resistance of a small minority of conservative Democrats who are effectively siding with Republican obstructionists against the best interest of the residents they represent.

For example:

In Landrieu's Louisiana, more than one in 10 residents are diabetic and three in 10 have high-blood pressure, conditions that would usually be considered grounds for denying insurance coverage outside of employer-based plans.
In Nelson's Nebraska, 25 percent of women over 50 have not had a mammogram within the past two years. For them, the recent debate over how frequently women over 50 should get mammograms is moot since without insurance coverage breast-cancer screenings of any frequency are out of reach.
In Lincoln's Arkansas, almost half of the residents have never had a colorectal cancer screening. That's the fourth most common form of cancer, and people over the age of 50 as well as people whose family have a history of colorectal cancer should be screened so they can take advantage of prevention and treatment options.
In Lieberman's Connecticut, more then 97,000 seniors hit the dreaded Medicare Part D "doughnut hole," the period each year when seniors have to pay full price for their prescription drugs. That drug-coverage gap costs seniors in Connecticut an average of $4,080 a year. Meaningful health care reform would at least narrow that gap.

As the reports state, "The health care status quo is not an option for our states. If we do nothing, by 2019 the number of uninsured people will grow by more than 30 percent in 29 states and by at least 10 percent in every state. The amount of uncompensated care provided will more than double in 45 states. Businesses in 27 states will see their premiums more than double. And fewer people will have coverage through an employer. The time for health insurance reform is now."

It is tragic enough that one party has chosen to brand itself as the defenders of the health care status quo, the lawmakers who when pressed will make a show of supporting incremental change as long as it leaves the health insurance industry even more free to rake the profits in. It is quite another matter for members of a Senate Democratic majority that was given that majority in order to change the health care system to side with those who have no real solutions for the people in their states who can't get insurance, can't afford medications, or forgo potentially live-saving medical screenings.

Take a moment today to look at the statistics in your state—especially if you live in Arkansas, Connecticut, Louisiana and Nebraska—and tell your senator that it's not the health insurance industry that they need to worry about; the insurers will find a way to survive in a world with a robust public option and regulations that assure patients actually get the medical coverage they pay for. (And it's not the right-wing spin machine, either, which is as poised to trash a severely watered-down health-care plan as it is to trash a unrepentantly progressive one.) It's the millions of people who might not survive without health insurance and access to care that they need to fight for.

Republican Flip-Flop on Filibusters

Rebecca Lehrman — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 07:51:59 -0800

Just four years ago, Republicans used every opportunity to decry filibusters as an unconstitutional procedure that they would never use. They even threatened to use the “nuclear option” to eliminate filibustering altogether. They were resentful of the small number of Democrat-led filibusters of extreme right-wing judicial nominees submitted by President W. Bush, most of whom were ultimately appointed. One phrase was every Republican senatorial lip: all the nominees deserved a fair up-or-down vote.

Sen. Christopher "Kit" Bond (R-Missouri):
"It is a perversion of the intent of the Constitution and, if its use in this manner is not abandoned, then we must take steps to wipe it from the books. . . . A 60-vote standard is contrary to the Constitution."

Sen. James Inhofe (R-Oklahoma):
This outrageous grab for power by the Senate minority is wrong and contrary to our oath to support and defend the Constitution."

Yet, now that the tables have turned, Republicans can’t seem to stop gumming up the works. The number of Democratic filibusters can be considered nothing more than modest relative to Republican overuse now.

Source: TPMDC

The GOP is a party of obstruction. In fact, the current 111th Congress may break the record number of filibusters for a two-year session by the end of the first term. Less than a year in, fifty-eight cloture motions have been filed so far.

The filibuster has metastasized from a procedure that was infrequently invoked to almost a de facto course of action for any legislation. Cloture motions have practically become the only way to further legislation, so that 60 has become the new 51. They have gone from renouncing the filibuster, to embracing it as their handy tool. The minority has stubbornly placed itself in front of legislation, both controversial and uncontroversial. Republicans are abusing the system and are obstructing the passage of important legislation that the majority of the American people support. Congress has somehow found itself in the middle of a tyranny of the minority.

One prominent example is the current debate over health care. The House’s Affordable Health Care for America Act passed by a majority vote of 220-215. But a majority vote in the Senate is not enough as 60 has become the standard. Debate has yet to begin for the Senate bill, and the general statement that the ruling will be made by Christmas is tentative and hopeful. We can be sure to expect Republicans to push for as many delays as possible, and some people say we can expect as many as three cloture votes. Senator Lieberman has already threatened to support a filibuster to prevent any public option from reaching debate.

Republican senators who once condemned the filibuster now use it more than ever before. They called for its abolishment, but now call on it excessively. It is a despicable practice that is obstructing legislation that the majority of Congress and the American people support. Congress must end their excessive use of the filibuster so that America can stop being stalled and move forward

The Republican Party Is a Party of ‘NO’

Rebecca Lehrman — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 11:52:07 -0800

The Republicans in Congress are at it again, stonewalling everything. Last time we called it “block and blame.” Stop everything, then blame the Democrats for getting nothing done.

Republicans last year in the 110th Congress filibustered more legislation, and required more cloture votes to break those filibusters, than any Congress in history. The tactic was used to stall and halt key legislation, and give Congress the stigma of a “do-nothing Congress.” As former Republican Sen. Trent Lott remarked, “The strategy of being obstructionist can work or fail...and so far it's working for us.”

Now there is a new form of obstructionism in the Senate. Senate Republicans have been blocking the confirmation of a large number of the Obama administration’s nominees, and it’s not because of past scandal or competency worries, but mainly because of egregious holds that have little to do with their politics or suitability for the position.

Holds on nominations are certainly not, on their own, an audacious tactic. Used reasonably, they allow Congress time to more comprehensively question a nominee’s legitimacy. But the current practice by Republicans of extensive use for uncertain duration for even the most qualified and uncontroversial of Obama’s nominees is pure obstructionism.

Sen. Arlen Specter (D-Pa.) chastised his former party on Fox News Sunday morning, saying there's no working with the GOP.

"On the Republican side, it is no, no, no. A party of obstructionism," he said.

In years past, uncontroversial nominees who received bipartisan support made it easily through Senate confirmation. But nowadays uncontroversial nominees are simply pawns in the larger war against Obama’s agenda. By preventing the confirmation of almost all nominees, Republicans are forcing Sen. Reid to negotiate or waste floor time on each unreasonable count of obstructionism.

During President Bush’s time, only a handful of partisan nominees received opposition, and the filibuster was used as an extreme of last resort. By Sen. Reid’s count, the Senate has confirmed 366 Obama nominees. In contrast, by their first term, Bush had 421 nominees in place, Clinton had 379 nominees, and 480 of President Regan’s nominees had been confirmed. 53 of Obama’s nominees are still waiting for a full Senate vote, and another 175 are pending in committee. Furthermore, since its conception in 1949, cloture votes have been forced on only 24 nominees, but in the first nine months of the Obama administration there have been 5 such cloture votes.

Sen. Reid spoke on the floor last week:

"I would try to explain the Republican reason for their refusal, but as with so many other things they oppose, a rationale simply doesn’t exist. Senate Republicans are simply so opposed to everything – absolutely everything – that they even oppose putting people in some of the most important positions in our government.

Democrats, on the other hand, believe that those who have chosen to serve our country must be able to get to work without delay.

M. President, perhaps those watching and listening think this is how the Senate always operates. It is not."

Last week, Obama declared a national emergency after the flu outbreak, and yet the Senate has yet to confirm Dr. Regina Benjamin as the surgeon general. Well-qualified nominees who receive bipartisan support should be able to be rewarded with a smooth Senate confirmation process. The unchecked use of “block and blame” methods poses precarious consequences. These obstructionary tactics are unprecedented for both parties and the practice needs to stop. The Republicans need to stop furthering their political interests and begin to concern themselves with American interests. Obstruction hinders progress; well-qualified candidates should be supported and not tied up in encumbering red-tape while our country continues to suffer.

Succeeding at Failure: Republicans Drag Down Congress

Eric Lotke — Thu, 03 Sep 2009 20:33:53 -0700

The Republican strategy of obstruction is working. The latest Pew poll shows Congressional Favorability Falls to 24-Year Low

Former Senate Republican Whip Trent Lott, R-Miss, didn’t hide his goals. "The strategy of being obstructionist can work or fail...and so far it's working for us," he told Roll Call in April of 2007.

We call the technique “block and blame.” Obstruct all progress, and blame Democrats for getting nothing done. We documented it carefully in the previous (110th) session of Congress. Republicans set a new record for filibusters.

Bob Borosage called it “knee-capping the postman and then complaining that the mail is late.” (July 30, 2008).

He predicted, “They’ll bring down the temple in the hope that both parties will be equally discredited in the rubble.” (August 2, 2007)

Sadly, his prediction is proving true. People still agree with Democrats on most issues, but they don’t parse the partisan bickering. It just looks like dysfunction in Congress, and the Democrats are in charge. As Pew puts it, “this could take a toll on the Democrats in the 2010 midterm elections.”

Busting The Filibuster

OurFuture.org Staff — Thu, 30 Apr 2009 07:35:27 -0700

The Electoral College is provided for in the United States Constitution. The filibuster is not. In fact, the word doesn’t appear in any of our founding documents. Its derivation is from the Spanish filibustero, meaning “pirate” or “freebooter.” In the legislative context, a filibuster is the use of delaying tactics to block legislation.[i] It is a mechanism available only in the Senate. As political scientist Jean Edward Smith has pointed out, “It is now possible for the senators representing 34 million people who live in the 21 least populous states – a little more than 11 percent of the nation’s population – to nullify the wishes of the representatives of the remaining 88 percent of Americans.”[ii]

The right to extended debate came about quite by accident. In 1789, the first U.S. Senate adopted rules allowing the body to “move the previous question,” thereby ending debate and proceeding to a vote. In 1806, outgoing Vice President Aaron Burr argued that the previous question motion had been used so sparingly up to then that it should be eliminated. The Senate agreed, and so the potential for a filibuster came into being. Without a previous question motion, the Senate left itself with no way to limit debate short of gaining unanimous consent.

One of the Senate’s earliest filibusters took place in 1841 when the Democratic minority tried to prevent the Senate taking up a bank bill authored by Henry Clay. After a long and protracted debate, Clay threatened to change the Senate rules to allow the majority to act. But Thomas Hart Benton and John C. Calhoun denounced the attempt by Clay to stifle debate. Clay ultimately conceded defeat.[iii]

It was not until 1917 that the Senate developed a way of shutting down dilatory tactics of an obstreperous minority. It is called the cloture rule. During the closing days of the session that year, a group of isolationist senators who opposed the entry of the United States into World War I filibustered a bill which would have allowed President Wilson to arm U.S. merchant ships. The President denounced them as a “little group of willful men” and called on the Senate to change its rules.[iv]

During the floor debate which followed, Sen. Thomas J. Walsh, D-Mont., opined that the Senate, like the House, had no rules to govern it at the start of each session and must adopt new rules pursuant to Article I, Section 5 of the Constitution. That section provides that the Senate has the power to “…determine the Rules of its Proceedings.” In an environment where nobody could predict what would happen next and both sides fearing the worst outcome, the parties got together to negotiate a cloture rule which was embodied in Rule XXII of the Standing Rules of the Senate. It provided that a two-thirds vote of all senators could cut off debate.

From the late 1920s to the late 1960s, the filibuster became associated almost entirely with the struggle over civil rights. Defeated during that time were anti-lynching bills, anti-poll tax bills, and anti-discrimination bills—all aimed to protect and provide equality to blacks in the South. In fact, the longest filibuster ever delivered was in opposition to the Civil Rights Act of 1959 by Strom Thurmond, D-S.C. It lasted 24 hours and 18 minutes and would have gone on longer had Thurmond’s doctors not forced him to quit out of concern for kidney damage. [v] In an attempt to end that debate, majority leader Lyndon Johnson, D-Texas, brokered a compromise with Sen. Richard Russell, D-Ga., which resulted in the following two changes to Rule XXII:

Cloture would be possible on the vote of two-thirds of members present and voting; and
The rules would include a statement that the rules of the Senate shall continue in force, at all times, except as amended by the Senate.[vi]

Most would agree in hindsight that Russell got the better deal. By agreeing to the second point, Johnson had in effect conceded the argument made by Sen. Walsh 42 years earlier.

In 1975, the filibuster issue was revived by post-Watergate Democrats who became frustrated by their seeming inability to enact meaningful campaign finance laws. Sen. James Allen, D-Ala., blocked these efforts with a series of filibusters. Sen. Walter Mondale, D-Minn., urged his colleagues to eliminate the cloture rule. He and other Democrats were able to break Allen’s filibuster with a little help from an unlikely source—Vice President Nelson Rockefeller (who was presiding officer at the time). He sided with the Democrats, who had moved that Allen was out of order. When Allen appealed the ruling to the full Senate, the majority voted him down. Nervous Senate leaders, aware they were in the midst of debate about the “nuclear option,” offered up a compromise. On March 7, 1975, the Senate voted 56-27 to amend Rule XXII to provide for cloture by three-fifths of all members from the previous two-thirds of members present and voting.[vii] Thus came about the 60-member threshold that exists to this day.

The story took a turn for the worse when, in the early 1970s, Senate Majority Leader Mike Mansfield—intending to dilute the power of the minority—inadvertently made filibustering easier.

The extended speechifying made famous by Strom Thurmond and Huey Long before him has been replaced by what legal scholars Erwin Chemerinsky and Catherine Fisk have dubbed the “stealth” filibuster.[viii] Its genesis was the early 1970s, when it became apparent to then majority leader Mike Mansfield, D-Mont., that delaying tactics such as objections to unanimous consent motions; forcing the previous day’s journal to be read aloud in its entirety; suggesting the absence of a quorum; and, of course, extended periods of time holding the floor were causing the Senate to fall behind in doing the people’s business. (Contrary to popular legend, the workload of the modern-day Senate is substantial. Most members could make a convincing argument for the proposition that they really don’t have time to wait out a filibuster.[ix]) In response, Mansfield devised a “two-track” system where the mornings were devoted to filibustering and the afternoons to pressing business. With liberal Democrats taking the floor to argue against further funding of the Vietnam War and in favor of stripping right-to-work provisions out of federal labor laws, there was bipartisan support for his efforts. While this dual system may have solved Mansfield’s problems over the short term, over the long term it has proved to be disastrous. An explanation for this statement is in order.

Rather than dividing mornings and afternoons between filibustered bills and other matters, over time the Senate has come to a point in time where it seldom takes up legislation unless the majority leadership has counted 60 votes. In other words, a credible threat that 41 senators won’t vote for cloture is enough to keep a bill off the floor on most occasions. Boston College historian Julian Zeliger puts it this way: “Mansfield’s measure, which was intended to promote efficiency, inadvertently encouraged filibusters by making them politically costless and painless.”[x]

One way for a senator to let her colleagues know that she intends to pursue a filibuster is to place a “hold” on a bill, thereby letting her colleagues know she will not accede to unanimous consent. Congressional scholar Norman Ornstein has noted that in the modern Senate holds “are routinely employed—often anonymously—against bills or people the senator has nothing against, but wants to take as hostages for leverage on something utterly unrelated to the hold itself.”[xi]

If members actually had to hold the floor as in the days of Senators Long and Thurmond, most filibusters would end quickly. The reason is that we live in an age where this public disgust over partisan gridlock. Public airing of the old-fashioned filibuster on C-Span and elsewhere would not be something most Senators would want the public to see. In the current climate, it would be sound political strategy for Senate Majority leader Harry Reid to force the Republicans to engage in extended debate on a major issue such as health care reform. Best of all, no change in Senate rules would be required.

Few screen images are more memorable than the filibuster waged by Jimmy Stewart in Mr. Smith Goes to Washington. The image of the naïve newcomer holding the Senate floor until he collapses in fatigue endures as a portrait of how government should work. In the process, he shames the compromised and corrupt majority into submission. But that is not the filibuster of today.

Famously, the U.S. Senate is called the more deliberative of the two national legislative bodies. But the filibuster as practiced today is not about deliberation. Deliberation is a good thing. Instead, the modern silent filibuster fosters legislative paralysis. Even bills that have overwhelming support are often slowed down by extended debate. It encourages rampant individualism and obstructionism and has impaired the Senate’s ability to meet its constitutional responsibilities.

In the Senate’s most recent session, 112 filibusters were mounted. Fifty-one were successful.[xii] And who were they mounted by? The very same folks who are now telling us that health care reform shouldn’t be achieved through the budget reconciliation process (which would lower the threshold for passage to 51 votes, thereby circumventing the filibuster). Sen. Judd Gregg, R-N.H., in particular, worries that it will constitute “an act of violence” on senate collegiality and comity. Mr. Gregg and some of his Republican colleagues have short memories. When they controlled the Senate earlier in the decade, they had no problem using this very same process to enact George Bush’s tax cuts in 2001 and 2003. And it was Mr. Gregg who led the charge.

(Of course, with the recent defection of Pennsylvania Sen. Arlen Specter into the ranks of the Democrats, only the seating of Al Franken is holding up the attainment of that magic number: 60. Specter will join other centrist Democrats such as Ben Nelson of Nebraska, Blanche Lincoln of Arkansas, and Kent Conrad of North Dakota. One or more of them may not see eye to eye with their more liberal colleagues. So, having the ability to cut off debate doesn’t mean that on all issues and votes the Senate will be filibuster-proof. Unlike the House of Representatives, independence in the Senate is an honored tradition.)

Should Franken be seated soon, as seems likely, it will be truly historic because achieving cloture has been a difficult proposition. Since the rule was created in 1917, it was only during seven of the twelve years of the Roosevelt Administration that the Senate had more than 67 senators, enough to cut off debate. And that, of course, was at the height of the New Deal. Only once since the 60-vote cloture threshold was set in 1975 have Senate Democrats attained that majority. That was in 1977-78.[xiii]

In the past, both Republicans and Democrats have opposed ending the filibuster completely, but an opportunity to significantly change Senate Rule XII may be in the offing, perhaps by reducing the threshold for cloture to 60 percent of those present and voting.Whether real reform comes about will depend on the importance of the particular issue under consideration and the public outcry that accompanies the Senate’s failure to act. At least, that’s what history tells us.

[i] Sarah A. Binder and Steven S. Smith, Politics or Principle: Filibustering in the United States Senate (Brookings Institution Press, 1997), 3

[ii] Jean Edward Smith, “Filibusters: The Senate’s Self-Inflicted Wound,” New York Times (March 2, 2009) A16

[iii] John J. Patrick, Richard M. Pious, and Donald A. Richie, The Oxford Guide to the United States Government (Oxford University Press, 2001), 213

[iv] Ibid. at 286

[v] Martin Gold and Dimple Dupta, “The Constitutional Option to Change Senate Rules and Procedures: A Majoritarian Means to Overcome the Filibuster” (Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy, 2004) 205

[vi] 86 Cong. Rec. 493 (1959)

[vii] William Greider, “Stop Senator No,” The Nation, (December 29, 2008), 17; 121 Cong. Rec. 5651-52 (1975)

[viii] Catherine Fisk and Erwin Chemerinsky, “The Filibuster,” 49 Stanford Law Review 181 (1997), 201

[ix] Much of the Senate’s work is done in committees. If Senators had to be on the floor for extended periods of time, there would be less time available to mark up bills, hold hearings, and negotiate both the content and scheduling of legislation.

[x] Quoted by Scott Shane, “Henry Clay Hated It. So Does Bill Frist.” New York Times, Week in Review, (November 24, 2004), E1

[xi] Norman Ornstein, “Our Broken Senate,” The Journal of the American Enterprise Institute (March-April 2008), 18

[xii] Jean Edward Smith, “Filibusters: The Senate’s Self-Inflicted Wound,” New York Times (March 2, 2009) A16

[xiii] Email from Sarah Binder, Senior Fellow, Brookings Institution and Professor of political science, George Washington University (March 3, 2009)

Hoover Time

Robert Borosage — Fri, 12 Dec 2008 07:45:55 -0800

In their last obstruction, Mitch “Dr. No” McConnell’s Senate Republicans blocked a bridge loan for the auto companies, unwilling even to sustain them long enough for a new administration to sculpt a responsible response to their crisis.

What was the sticking point? It wasn’t getting rid of the CEOs that drove the companies into the ditch. It wasn’t forcing the creditors to cut their loans in exchange for stock, giving them a stake in the future. It wasn’t accepting an auto czar to enforce the agreement and drive a transition to fuel efficient cars. That was agreed to.

No. Led by benighted Tennessee Senator Bob Corker – known previously solely for his “call me” race-bait campaign ad that helped him win his 2006 election – Republicans wanted to break the union and punish the workers.

They insisted that the United Auto Workers agree to cutting workers wages and benefits immediately to match the average hourly compensation paid by non-union foreign auto companies based in the South. This would entail cuts in pay by about 50 percent within the next months. For Republicans, the problem wasn’t the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression. It wasn’t wrong-headed management that was skewered when soaring gas prices wiped out their SUV cash cows. It wasn’t the Wall Street dominated trade policies that sacrificed US manufacturing behind a high dollar that made it profitable to move plants and production abroad and benefited foreign competitors.

No. For the Republican senators, the bailout was a chance for a little class warfare. Why should an autoworker make $50,000-$60,000 a year, plus health care? The workers should accept half that and be happy. Autoworkers have agreed to wage givebacks and benefit cuts over the last years. They pledged even deeper cuts in relation to the agreement. But their sacrifices weren’t great enough nor the cuts fast enough for Corker and the Republicans.

Now imagine telling a family that lives on from $50,000 to $60,000 a year that they will make one-half that in six months. They’ve got mortgages, kids in school and credit-card debts just like the rest of us. Outside of the Wall Street bankers who the administration has succored without asking them to slash their wages in half, how many Americans could survive a cut of half their paycheck in a few months, without going bankrupt? How many senators who pay themselves six-figure incomes with lavish pensions and health care could manage an immediate 50 percent reduction in their salaries? (Most of them, come to think of it, since the Senate is a millionaires’ club).

Forget about the deepening recession. The Senate Republican position was essentially that the price of bailing out GM and Chrysler was to insure that the union was broken and the workers went bankrupt.

It was, of all people, Vice President Dick Cheney who reportedly warned the Republican caucus that failure to pass the bill would lead to an even worse economic downturn, that it would be “Herbert Hoover time” if the bill didn’t pass. And after the Republicans torpedoed the bill, the Asian and European stock markets plummeted, with Wall Street about to follow.

There are defining moments in politics. Here Republicans defined themselves. They are not free-market conservatives, for they were willing to do the bailout. They don’t object to nationalizing the banks or micromanaging the auto industry on the fly. They are class warriors, willing to risk a worse global economic calamity in order to break a union and force workers into bankruptcy. "Herbert Hoover time." Let’s not forget this last ignoble obstruction, committed just as the Senators went home for the holidays.

THE RIGHT-WING BLOCK-AND-BLAME STRATEGY IS THE REAL STORY OF THE 110TH CONGRESS, REPORT SAYS

Toby Chaudhuri — Tue, 29 Jul 2008 21:00:00 -0700

WASHINGTON – Republicans in Congress, working in concert with the White House, organized a deliberate political strategy to sabotage the Democratic majority in Congress as it responded to a mandate to solve major problems facing the nation, according to a new report released today by the Campaign for America’s Future. With the American public registering overwhelming disapproval of the job Congress is doing, the facts in today’s report show that Republicans are to blame.

Campaign for America’s Future co-director Robert Borosage said that the reputation of the Congress would be very different had the Republican minority and President Bush not orchestrated a systematic campaign of obstruction to bottle up any progress.

“Now this is sort of like knee-capping the postman and then complaining that the mail is late,” said Borosage. “As Republicans posture about the do-nothing Congress, it's worth remembering that much would have gotten done had they not been in the way.”

The report shows that the Republican strategy forced a record number of cloture votes — 94 so far — that require a super-majority of sixty votes to end filibusters. This was reinforced by more than 119 veto threats by President Bush, essentially repealing majority rule. Never before has an ideological minority obstructed so many important measures from becoming law.

If Republicans had not adopted this strategy, majorities in both the House and the Senate favored passage of the following:

--WAR IN IRAQ: Setting a date certain to bring the occupation of Iraq to an end, freeing up the $12 billion a month in direct costs (almost a half-billion dollars a day) for vital needs here at home, and insuring that soldiers are guaranteed adequate rest and recovery between deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan;

--ENERGY: Investing billions in renewable energy sources and energy efficiency, creating green-collar jobs, and paying for it by repealing subsidies for oil companies already pocketing the greatest profits in recorded history;

--HEALTH CARE: Providing health care for millions of children of working and poor families, giving them with a chance for a healthy start to life, and saving seniors tens of billions of dollars in prescription drug prices by empowering Medicare to negotiate bulk purchase discounts.

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**NOTE: An electronic copy of the report is available at www.ourfuture.org/obstruction.**

Bush's Obstruction Binge

Isaiah J. Poole — Thu, 19 Jun 2008 19:45:41 -0700

After having issued 10 veto threats in May, President Bush has issued another nine in the first three weeks of June, obstructing bills that would help fight global warming, help the long-term unemployed, continue passenger rail funding and provide a comprehensive set of remedies to the subprime mortgage crisis. Our updated "Presidential Veto Watch" chronicles the continuing fits of obstinance and petulance coming out of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue..

The latest in the obstruction binge was Thursday, when the White House told the Senate that it would reject the mortgage crisis bill because, "The Federal Government must not prolong necessary corrections in the housing market, bail out lenders, or subsidize irresponsible borrowing and lending, at the expense of hard-working people who have played by the rules."

The message came as consideration of the bill on the Senate floor was beginning, and it left even some Senate conservatives aghast. The Washington Post quoted Sen. Mel Martinez, R-Fla., as calling the bill a "good-faith, bipartisan effort to address this ongoing crisis." Sen. Richard Shelby, R-Ala., the ranking member of the Senate Banking Committee, released a joint statement with chairman Sen. Christopher Dodd, D-Conn., that said, "We believe this legislation represents a compromise that will bring relief to hundreds of thousands of homeowners and the housing markets without putting the American taxpayer at risk."

With that, the Senate on late Thursday rejected efforts by right-wing senators to weaken the bill—but not before the right-wing spin machine joined the administration in trying to paint its opposition to the bill in populist garb. FreedomWorks, the group headed by former congressman Dick Armey, has a statement that says passage of the bill will mean that taxpayers will end up owning "an overpriced house in Las Vegas." They are also calling it a "Dodd-Countrywide housing bailout," seizing on the politically problematic deal that Dodd did get on his own Countrywide mortgage.

The bottom line is this: The administration does not only want to leave high and dry the people who tried to game the system when housing prices were accelerating upward and hucksters were inviting everyone to a non-stop party. They would also leave high and dry those "hard-working people who have played by the rules," and the communities they live in, for the sake of free-market ideological purity. As conservatives pontificate on the moral hazards of helping the people they encouraged to jump into the pool of deregulated financial excess, they overlook their own hazardous morality.

The White House and the Dick Armeys of the world have no real answer for the ripple effects record levels of foreclosures have on communities. That includes, according to the U.S. Conference of Mayors, projected economic losses of $166 billion for 361 metropolitan areas, as well as increased crime and decay in the neighborhoods where foreclosures hit hardest. This is what the Bush administration calls "necessary corrections."

The range of veto threats show that the administration continues to be out of touch with the will of the majority of voters, even as it feigns concern about the issues, such as global climate change, that the bills intend to address. Thursday's votes on the mortgage bill are the latest signs that some Senate Republicans are feeling the heat for following the path of blind obstruction their conservative leadership set at the beginning of the session.