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Hey Dems! Don't 'Sell Reconciliation' -- Just Push Good Policies
Pelosi Makes The Case For Reconciliation And Reforming Senate Rules
In an interview with Roll Call, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi made the case for reforming the Senate rules and using reconciliation.
(L-R)House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, House Minority leader John Boehner and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi listen as US President Barack Obama speaks. In an interview with Roll Call, Pelosi made the case for reforming the Senate rules and using reconciliation. It's the policies, however, not the policy that matters, argues Jon Walker. (AFP/Mandel Ngan) "A constitutional majority is 51
votes," Pelosi said in an interview Tuesday with Roll Call. "If in fact
the Republicans are going to say nothing can be done except by 60
percent, then maybe we all should be elected with 60 percent. It isn't
legitimate in terms of passing legislation."
On this point, Pelosi is completely right. A 3/5 threshold in the Senate appears nowhere in the Constitution, and super-majority requirements for every action in the Senate makes a mockery of the idea of democracy. If a popularly elected majority is unable perform even the most basic functions of governing, are you even a Democracy any more?
In her interview with Roll Call, Pelosi stopped short of saying the filibuster should be done away with altogether, but she used some of her bluntest language yet to defend the use of reconciliation as something that has been used with regularity by Republican and Democratic presidents alike.
"We have set the stage for that. It's important for us to remind the American people of the inconsistency that the Republicans have in saying this is unusual. No, five times President Bush used it. ... This is what the Republicans did to pass their bills, their tax cuts for the rich," Pelosi said.
After the loss of the Massachusetts Senate seat, it appears the only path forward for health care reform is through use of reconciliation, either with a new reconciliation bill or a reconciliation fix to the current Senate bill. If Democrats want to pass health care reform, they are going to need to follow Pelosi's lead by defending the use of reconciliation. It was a serious mistake for Democrats to spend months downplaying the option. Pointing out that Republicans have repeatedly used reconciliation is a good talking point, but explaining reconciliation to the American people is going to be difficult. Most people don't even know this 60-vote threshold even exists in the Senate.
It would seem the smarter way to sell using reconciliation is to sell what is in the reconciliation measure, and not defending the procedure by talking about its history. If it looks like Democrats are using reconciliation to add very popular ideas like a public option, Medicare buy-in, drug re-importation, eliminating the excise tax, then I don't think the American people will care about the process used to enact them. On the other hand, if Democrats try to use reconciliation to move very unpopular things, like more special deals and carve outs for special interests, it will be very bad politically for Democrats.
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21 Comments so far
Show AllMs Impeachment's Off The Table is not the person to look for any sort of leadership, nor are any of the crew in the posted photo. If they were really serious about Change, they would all resign.
... or jump off a cliff like the lemmings that they are. God, this is agonizing! How can we even consider closing Guantanamo when we subject our own citizens to THIS torture? For Christ's sake, watching this interminable debate has got to be worse than waterboarding!!!
The majority of voters won't know how the legislation is crafted or passed nor will they care. They just want their health care and they know the insurance companies are screwing them now.
Make the system work better and voters will reward the Democrats on election day. Make it worse and they will punish them. See how that works guys? OK now fix it!
Dems dont want what the PEOPLE want and need so this article is just another plea for them to do the "right thing" is a waste.If they get reconcilliation going my guess is that it will make it easier for them to screw the people and that is what they want.Tony
If they have to explain "reconciliation" they are losing.
Just do it... but 2000 pages is a lot to reconcile and may take a long long time and what comes out might be worse than nothing without cost control and with fining people who don't want it.
The corporations will buy them all out before the next vote anyway.
QUIT the BS (Bush Shadow)! OR RECONCILE yourselves to the ash heap of history, DEM youse!
This is another bit of theatre. It is designed for an appearance of action without actual action.
The Democratic Party does not want to represent its constituency. It wants instead to appear to be about to represent its constituency.
Based on the actual record of the last 3 years, this is exactly true.
The Pelosi/Obama Dems are decidedly NOT going to use reconciliation to pass a public option, a Medicare buy-in, drug re-importation or anything else that conflicts with insurance companies' bottom lines. They just want to get their giveaway to Big Insurance passed so they can say they passed "health care reform," which wouldn't even take effect until 2013 when they're out of office anyway. Reconciliation is just another way to distract the public from the Big Ripoff they've planned from Day One. Abolish the Senate! That would be at least a good start. And of course that's no more possible than water skiing in Death Valley.
Dems are just being coy, so they can rake in money from lobbyists. If they wanted real reform, we had all of Obama's first year in office. Can you say 'supermajority'?
Lewis Carroll said it all. They are nothing but a pack of cards...
Or, Option B -
With a vote of 50 % plus one eliminate or vary the filibuster to 55 votes.
Bottom line: We need to get off our asses and start pressuring our state governments to open State-Owned Banks where "We The Taxpayers" can benefit from profits and not the big corporations that have our federal government in their back pockets.
In a global economic meltdown where our federal government representatives are always concerned with "political capital", we can no longer rely on them or place our energy on their every move. We must take back what is "Constitutionally" and rightfully ours!
It's time to call or write to your State representatives and tell them you are sick and tired of the games being played on Capitol Hill and want them to stop feeding the corruption. If they don't, you won't vote for them the next time around. It's that simple.
I agree that we need to take back what is constitutionally rightfully ours. You offer two avenues to accomplish this:
1. Call your state representative.
2. Write your state representative.
I live in Arizona. My state representative was elected by an overwhelming majority of people who think the earth is flat, and I'm sure the majority of their mail and phone calls are from those same people. He is not very afraid of me.
So let's assume, for the sake of discussion, that my letters and phone calls fail to change the thinking of my state representative. Where do we go from there? What is the next step? Do we shoot our state representative? Do we work for better education, so that in twenty or thirty years the electorate is better informed and more critical of partisan BS? Do we move to the country and grow raspberries? Or what?
Rule by 41 senators is not democracy. A minority vote in the senate can outlaw a bill honoring motherhood or feeding starving children. If the Democrats have spine they will defeat Republican obstructionism any way possible e.g. reconciliation.
The Republicans have taken over control of the Senate with a 41-59 majority.
So let's all vote Republican in the next election. When the scales tip to the Republicans, the Democrats will be in control.
How marvelously Orwellian!
Accomplishing anything is "off the table"
It's the politics of mutually assured destruction.
Neither party should be reelected.
Voting for these fools is like saying I want a sack of quarters...but only heads, no tails.
Hey Dems! You've been sleepwalking for the last 10 years! We'll support anyone who doesn't back down anytime they see a shadow.
There are with very few exceptions, no democrats or republicans only a gaggle of corrupt attorneys for: Big Pharma; the corportocracy; Wall Street; the war contractors ect. Obomba and the dems are still conning the American sheeple. The latest ploy: using bi-partisanship as an excuse not to accomplish anything as this lets the corrupt dems off the hook. One might look at it this way, from the dems point of view: We are innocent because the GOP is obstructionist and that is the way we like it! As long as we keep selling reconciliation and bi-partisanship we are the good guys.Pelosi is corrupt to the core, and her statement about reforming the Senate rules is nothing but a punic, red herring.
Why not make the failure to pass real Health Care Reform an issue about the obstructionist rules of the Senate. Why try to go around it with reconciliation? Anwer--Because passing real Health Care Reform is not as important as preserving these rules. I think Health Care Reform should force the issue of Senate Reform. If Real Health Care reform cannot pass this year because of Senate rules then Senators who are running for office should have to defend those rules on the campaign trail. But that won't happen because it's not about us and what we need-- it's about them and how they can defend their privileges and personal power. I can't begin to express the contempt I feel for the US Senate as an institution and the members who defend it.