SENATOR REID’S FILIBUSTER DECISION. DID HE REALLY HAVE A CHOICE?

 

…Minority Leader McConnell once again bet that he could push the Filibuster envelope just a bit too far.

Will the Dems eventually pay a high price for finally using the “Nuclear Option” against the Minority Leader?

 

I must say that I don’t often disagree with the Washington Post columnist, Dana Milbank, as his thinking and mine are usually very much in sync.  But regarding the latest senate filibuster decision, this time I must disagree.

Mr. Milbank said last week that Senator Harry Reid (D-NV), the Senate Majority Leader, had made a very big mistake in the latest drastic changes of the US Senate rules.  He said it was not a good idea to use the so called, “Nuclear Option” for getting rid of the 60 vote filibuster requirement for executive and judicial appointments.  He even went as far to say, “If it was possible to make things even worse in Washington, Reid just did it.”  He finally added, “If Congress wasn’t broken before, it certainly is now.”

Now, don’t get me wrong, I know that this was a big risk as the filibuster “shoe” will someday be on the other foot, if and when, the GOP finally gets to run the Senate.

But today, the nation is finally coming out of the Great Recession and many things have to get done.  With the continuing of the current GOP obstructionism. this president’s goals and endeavors would be dead in the water for the next three years.

And that is exactly what the Republicans have been trying to do to this president. 

As an example, when Nancy Pelosi was the Speaker of the House, she sent over 100 major bills to the Senate that dealt with jobs, infrastructure, raising the minimum wage and other keys issue for the American middle class.   Every one of those bills is still sitting in the Senate due to the previous 60 vote filibuster rule.  These bills deserve an up or down vote. 

 

We must remember that after Senator McConnell’s party had failed to make the president a “one term president”, the next choice was to make sure that the Republicans in congress were against anything that the president was for.  And that means, even if an issue was originally a Republican idea, if President Obama was later for it, they must then be against it.  (Just as the Obamacare concept was originally a Republican idea.)

Of the past judicial filibusters over the total history of the US Senate, almost half of them have now occurred during the Obama administration.

Yes, this latest decision does now allow the Democrats that now run the Senate to run it like the Republicans are currently running the House.  That being, making decisions on a totally partisan basis. 

 

Over the last two Congresses, there have only been a handful of bills that have passed in the House and the Senate on a bi-partisan basis.  As it is, if a Republican in the House actually voted with a Democrat on a bill, it was probably because to vote against the bill would have been too big of an embarrassment for even Republicans to vote against.  (If it’s ever possible today to embarrass a Republican House member.)

Just look at the president’s cabinet, agency and judge nominees.  Over the course of all the previous 43 US presidents, only 86 presidential nominees were filibustered.  Under Obama, 82 of his nominees have all been filibustered.  So, Mr. Milbank, what in the hell were Senator Reid and the president supposed to do for the next 3 years?  Just keep letting the Republicans abuse the filibuster as they stop the Senate from doing Obama’s and the people’s business during such a fragile economic period? 

In the recent past, many of those in the Congress, and in the nation, were in total disagreement with the actions of President George W. Bush.  But even though he may go down as one of the worst president’s in history, even those Democrats in congress agreed that each duly elected president deserved to have their own team members.  And the Democrats in congress allowed this Republican President to nominate his team choices and they voted on his agency heads and judge appointments. 

The Republicans are not allowing the current president the same courtesy. 

 

In fact, the opposition party is doing everything they can to disrespect this president.  And, for the very first time, they are now disrespecting the actual office of the presidency.  This individual was legally elected “twice”, and they weren’t close elections.  But the Republicans are still disrespecting both the man, and the office.

Back when Obama was Senator Obama, when the Republican Senator’s had threatened the “Nuclear Option” for getting rid of the filibuster, Senator Obama was totally against it.  But that was when the number of senate filibusters was in the tens, not the tens of tens.  It also wasn’t when the Democrats were saying that their #1 goal was to get rid of the opposition president and his Health Care Act.  But this president soundly won his re-election, and that win was mainly based on the nation keeping the Affordable Care Act (ACA) commonly referred to as, “Obamacare”.  And the GOP has never offered a replacement for getting rid of the ACA.

Instead of Mr. Milbank saying “If Congress wasn’t broken before, it certainly is now,” I would instead say to the Senate Minority Leader McConnell, what the Daily Kos wrote about the Senate GOP.  The Kos wrote: “Senate GOP Blows Itself Up”.  Yes, they also went on to say that the GOP will someday take over the Senate. But that this time they had gone too far in pushing the Majority Leader Reid and the other Democratic Senators to where nothing was getting done for the people that really mattered. 

The Republicans today are not doing anything that supports their own constituents.  They have instead shown that they are only concerned about supporting those individuals and corporations that donate the millions to their election campaign coffers. 

In addition, due to the GOP’s on-going obstructionism, the president has not been able to get his team in place for the Americans that need all of the nation's critical government agencies. 

In the Senate, the “Nuclear Option” was the only obvious choice.  Either that or wait until there were 60 Democratic senators in the Senate, and the chance of that is slim to none.

So Mr. Milbank, I ask you.  What were the Democratic Senator’s choices if this president is going to have a 2^nd term that allows him to do some things that actually supports the people that voted for him?

The Majority Leader and a majority of the Senate agreed that it was time for the “Nuclear Option”, and I agree with them.

Copyright, G.Ater  2013