Senate Folly

Broken Senate

September 28, 2010 By mario piperni

Any chances of the Senate resembling a functioning body of government are just about nil.

Sen. Jim DeMint warned his colleagues Monday night that he would place a hold on all legislation that has not been “hot-lined” by the chamber or has not been cleared by his office before the close of business Tuesday. Although the South Carolina Republican has objected for years to the hot-lining of legislation until his staff at the Republican Steering Committee has reviewed it, DeMint’s threat to essentially shut down legislation in the chamber is remarkable. [...]

[I]n a terse e-mail sent to all 100 Senate chiefs of staff Monday evening, Steering Committee Chief of Staff Bret Bernhardt warned that DeMint would place a hold on any legislation that had not been hot-lined or been cleared by his office before the close of business Tuesday. [...]

Democratic and Republican aides alike were stunned, arguing that DeMint had essentially made a unilateral decision to end legislative activity in the Senate.

Here is why DeMint can get away with his stunt.

Unless all 100 senators agree to begin and end debate on a bill without objection, the dissenting senators can force up to 60 hours of uninterrupted debate before a final vote can take place. As a new CAP issue brief explains, by wasting 60 hours of the Senate’s limited time just to pass a single bill, a small number of senators can grind the Senate to a near-complete halt.

As of last August, 372 bills had passed the House, many of them unanimously, but have yet to receive a vote in the Senate. At 60 hours per bill, it would require over two and a half years to vote on these bills, and that’s assuming the Senate works around the clock and on weekdays, weekends and holidays. In other words, there is simply not enough time to get more than a fraction of the Senate’s business done if a minority is determined to do everything they can to block progress.

I would love to see Harry Reid challenge DeMint and have the Senate debate each of those bills for the allotted 60 hours…but it’s not about to happen. Obviously, the Senate is broken but there is no clear path to getting it fixed. It would require agreement from both parties to change the Senate’s rules and that’s about as likely to happen as having Jim DeMint admit he’s an asshole.

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Filed Under: Republican Dicks, Senate Folly Tagged With: broken senate, filibuster, Jim DeMint, political issues

Legislative Productivity Ground To A Halt

September 13, 2010 By mario piperni

With Congress back in session today, here’s the sad reality.

Since Republicans have thrived politically with their strategy of consistent, unified, and aggressive opposition, there is no reason to expect that to change in the weeks ahead. The Senate filibuster has proven the indispensable weapon in killing, weakening, slowing, or discrediting virtually every element of the Obama agenda.

[...]

Virtually all of the 372 bills passed by the House but not taken up in the Senate will die with the end of the 111th Congress. The relatively brief (albeit painful and ugly) period of legislative productivity has largely ground to a halt.

Republicans win. Country loses.

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Filed Under: Senate Folly Tagged With: congress, political issues, Republicans, senate

Reason Prevails, Bunning Backs Down

March 3, 2010 By mario piperni

The Bunning circus act is over.

As supporters and critics yelled at each other outside his Lexington office, he capitulated from the well of the Senate on Tuesday night.

Relentless attacks from Democrats and withering support from Republicans, worried that the Hall of Fame pitcher was turning the party’s message of principled objection to raging obstructionism, ended Bunning’s stand. He had forced about 2,000 federal employees into furloughs and imperiled jobless benefits for millions.

And he had forced some in his own caucus to distance themselves. Early next year, Bunning will conclude a Senate career studded with impolitic comments, and he appears long past taking any direction or advice from GOP leaders.

“Principled objection”? They’ve got to be kidding. Bunning was not responsible for “turning the party’s message of principled objection to raging obstructionism.“ He was only responsible for turning Republican’s raging obstructionism into more raging obstructionism. In any event, in nine months one of the worst Senators in Congress will be history. I’m sure that day cannot come fast enough for GOP leaders long embarrassed by Bunning who even by Republican’s pathetically low standards, was an A-1 idiot.

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Filed Under: Idiots, Senate Folly Tagged With: jim bunning, political issues, politics, senate

The Olympic Gold For Filibustering Goes To…

March 1, 2010 By mario piperni

Not a surprise that Republicans are on a record setting pace for obstructionism.

The frequency of filibusters — plus threats to use them — are measured by the number of times the upper chamber votes on cloture. Such votes test the majority’s ability to hold together 60 members to break a filibuster.

Last year, the first of the 111th Congress, there were a record 112 cloture votes. In the first two months of 2010, the number already exceeds 40.

That means, with 10 months left to run in the 111th Congress, Republicans have turned to the filibuster or threatened its use at a pace that will more than triple the old record. The 104th Congress in 1995-96 — when Republicans held a 53-47 majority — required 50 cloture votes.

Reconciliation sounds more justified by the day, don’t you think?

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Filed Under: Senate Folly Tagged With: filibuster, political issues, politics, Republicans, senate

Reconciliation – For Republican Use Only

March 1, 2010 By mario piperni

Republican Senator Lamar Alexander explaining why reconciliation is a no-no.

The reconciliation procedure is a little-used legislative procedure — 19 times, it’s been used. It’s for the purpose of taxing, spending, and reducing deficits. But the difference here is, that there’s never been anything of this size and magnitude and complexity run through the Senate in this way. There are a lot of technical problems with it, which we could discuss. It would turn the Senate, it would really be the end of the Senate as a protector of minority rights, the place where you have to get consensus, instead of just a partisan majority.

End of the Senate? Not really. ThinkProgress explains…

If using reconciliation were really “the end of the Senate,” the Senate would have died a long time ago, and Lamar Alexander would have been complicit in its death.

Reconciliation has been used to pass at least 19 bills, including major pieces of health care reform legislation like the Children’s Health Insurance Program and the Medicare Advantage Program. Fourteen of the times reconciliation was employed it was used to advance Republican interests.

Furthermore, Alexander himself has personally voted for reconciliation at least four times

It never ends with these guys.

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