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TechnoratiSubverting Majority Rule
The Republican obstruction campaign continues. Yesterday, the Republican minority in the Senate filibustered and blocked two measures that had majority support in the House, and bipartisan majority support in the Senate. Republicans continue to filibuster at a pace three times anything ever seen before, in a systematic effort to block popular reforms.
Fifty-six Senators, including six Republicans, supported the resolution offered by Sen. James Webb, D-Va., and Sen. Chuck Hagel, R-Neb., to guarantee the soldiers fighting in Iraq adequate home rotations. This sensible bill - vital to the mental health and readiness of the soldiers on the front line - was blocked because the remaining Republican senators lined up with their leadership to filibuster it.
Similarly, 56 Senators, including six Republicans, supported the legislation introduced by Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., and Sen. Arlen Spector, R-Pa., to restore the fundamental right of court review for those detained under suspicion of terrorism. Once more the will of the bipartisan majority was subverted by the filibuster strategy of a partisan minority.
Republicans are filibustering so many bills that the press has begun to cover this extreme tactic as business as usual. The front-page Washington Post story covering the Webb proposal is headlined "Senate bill short of sixty votes needed." The article says the proposal "failed on a 56 to 44 vote, with 60 votes needed for passage." The article never tells the reader that the reason majority rule was frustrated was because of a Republican filibuster that requires 60 votes to overcome.
The New York Times coverage - "GOP minority prevails" is the subtitle - was somewhat better. In its fourth paragraph, the article reports that the proposal "fell four votes short of the 60 needed to prevent a filibuster." In fact, the 60 votes are needed to overcome a filibuster, not prevent it. Both papers reported the filibuster correctly on the habeas corpus legislation.
It is vital that the press get this right - and that the media expose the extraordinary scope of the Republican strategy of obstruction. Mitch McConnell, the Senate Republican leader, has announced that Republicans will filibuster every "controversial measure." They are making majority rule the exception rather than the routine in the Senate. Never has any party been so brazen or systematic in using the filibuster to block the majority.
A partisan minority of Senators has used the filibuster to block efforts to bring the troops home from Iraq, to frustrate passage of clean energy legislation, to block giving Medicare the power to negotiate lower prices for prescription drugs, and much more.
Their strategy is clear - and very likely to work. The public expects the party in charge to get things done. Excuses are largely dismissed as political bickering. The Republican minority blocks popular reforms and then charges Democrats with running a "do-nothing Congress." For scandal-stained Republican legislators yoked to an unpopular president pursing an unpopular debacle in Iraq, this may be their best hope for survival.
It works, of course, only if the public doesn't learn of it. So how these stories are covered is critical. Citizens need to be told each time why the bipartisan majorities are frustrated, why the super-majority of 60 votes is needed, and who is responsible. Reporters should be reporting on the Republican strategy, and exposing the cynical calculation behind it.
These measures did not fail for lack of bipartisan, majority support. They have majority support in the House, the Senate and among the American people. They failed because they were blocked by a partisan minority pursing a partisan political strategy. The press should insure that Americans are told that story.
© 2007 TomPaine.com
7 Comments so far
Show AllThey failed because the Democratic leadership is so ineffectual and cowardly that it will not do what really has to be done. When the Democrats were in the minority and threatened the filibuster, the Republicans had no trouble denouncing them to the press and threatening to revise the filibuster rules. The Dems, on the other hand, are cowards and won't push back. Put impeachment on the table, stop funding for the war, and grow a spine!
The Republican strategy is brutally simple. Prevent the Dems from doing ANY good, then say that Dems presided over every catastrophe that has happened under Bush. It is a neat trick perfected by the Nazis. Prevent a government from accomplishing anything, then blame the government for not accomplishing anything. To the vast number of passive voters who are spoon fed MSM propaganda, they will get the impression than the Dems are just as responsible for all the current disasters bedeviling us as are the Bushies. Then they might just not vote, saying what is the use. It is a coy method of psycological voter suppression. Guess What! It just might work.
clyde paige____You said it right, we might still have a decent country if the Repugs did not exist. The problem with the Dumbocrats is that, while admirable, they keep trying to play fair and be honorable. It is not workable in the poisonous atmosphere that Bush and his crowd have created. The Repubs will stop at nothing to get what they want, no matter who may get ruined, or even killed, as our military. The Repubs seem to be able to turn any event to their advantage, while the Dumbs just watch it happen instead of giving it back. The robot Repugs do not care if it is right or wrong, just all get behind it and shove it along, while the Dumbs are always split up being good nonpartisons. No wonder we have such a disaster.
Mitch McConnell and the republicans don't give a damn about the troops or America--they are ignorant know it all(they think)bunch of hypocrits,remember when the republicans were in the majority and the democrats mentioned a filibuster the republican leader threatened to use the neuclear option to stop them?The republicans are against everything honest, moral and decent in fact this country and the world would be a better place if they didb't exist
There is a strategy at play. Hopefully. Force the GOPathologicals to filibuster bill after bill after bill. Allow the MSM to report "Republicans again stopped a bill aimed at Ending the Illegal Occupation, Giving the Troops Down Time," etc. Stay on the "high road" while the MSM reminds America exactly who "owns" the illegal occupation and who wants it to continue indefinitely. Use their own weapon to de-brainwash all but the deadenderloyalbushies via constant "no" vote coverage. Savvy.
And down the memory hole is the agreement Lindsay Graham et al so cleverly engineered in which Dems, in the same position as the Republicans now, agreed not to use the filibuster. Democrats keep trying to be civil and look like idiots, wimps or co-conspirators. And usually when the repugs get their way some predictable subset of democrats is helping them do it. But the progressive house leader took impeachment "off the table" in her opening salvo for power. Smart folks? Not. As jareilly notes, at least when it matters, you can wait out a filibuster. Back in the day, Thurmond's filibusters were annoying, but didn't stop civil rights legislation. The dems are making excuses every which way. And, btw, since they just went along with condemning move.on and have said nothing about the taser story, they are on record as opposing the Constitution. I unsubscribed from the democratic committee news today. Everyone here: please do same.
Number one: Why not just wait out the filibuster? If they Repubs can send their goons to read the phone book for a few days, surely the Dems can stay close to the room and keep their cell phones on and run back in when the Repubs fizzle and fall asleep.
Number two: this is a "do-nothing" Congress. Reid and Pelosi could have prevented the FISA bill, the idiotic and insulting anti-Moveon resolution, and many other authoritarian Repub measures from even coming to the floor. They didn't. You really can't blame the Repubs for being Repubs. It's like the story of the scorpion and the frog. Until the Dems actually differentiate themselves from the Repubs on anything significant, the voters won't be able to.