The Senate – be careful what you wish for
As of this writing the Democrats have a clear 54-seat majority in the Senate with 4 seats as-yet undecided (and two sorta independents). There has been a lot of talk about the fillibuster-proof 60 seat magic number, but this ignores the fact that reaching sixty (and not, say, 61) means that a single Democratic senator can wield an awful lot of power over all others, merely by threatening not to show up to break a fillibuster.
So be careful what you wish for.
The four elections still in question are Alaska, Georgia, Minnesota, and Oregon. In Alaska, Ted Stevens may very well be forced to resign even if he does win so the whole thing will go to a special election. Georgia may end up going to a runoff vote, and Oregon and Minnesota will probably have to go through a recount. In the unlikely scenario that the Dems end up taking all these four, they’ll still be short two votes.
Vermont’s Bernie Sanders is technically an independent, but in reality, he’s even farther to the left than most Democrats, so you can effectively put him in the Dem column. So that’s 59. The pivotal 60th vote, once again, would then go to — you ready for it — Joe Lieberman.
So be careful what you wish for.
Somewhere along the night, it looks like Senate leadership looked at the tea-leaves and decided given where those four races stood, that the chances of reaching 60 are slim. So it’s with great delight that we read this morning that Harry Reid is going to meet with Lieberman this week — hopefully to drop-kick him out of the Democratic Caucus and relegate him to the scrap-heap of backbench irrelevancy where he belongs.
Given that returning GOP minority leader Mitch McConnell was responsible for so much of the fillibuster action this last session and that many of the GOP seats lost were moderates, we can expect a great deal of legislative gridlock.
No big surprises there. But at least, we won’t be seeing the whole Senate being held hostage again by a single petulant (Lieberman) back-stabbing (Lieberman) self-involved (Lieberman) Senator, which is a Good Thing.
Stumble it!
November 5th, 2008 at 11:41 am
Totally agree with you on Loserman – he should be tossed out of the Caucus (and uninvited from any social events to rub salt on the slug).
However, I think the problem is Reid and the Dem leadership, not Loserman at this point. We need a strong Senate Majority leader, not the Quisling ‘go along to get along’ that is Reid. A strong leader could bust some balls on both sides of the aisle and get shit done.
Also keep in mind the filibuster isn’t written into the Constitution, it’s a Senate rule – and as such, it can be modified (to say 54 votes) or eliminated altogether. You want to teach the Repugs a lesson? Take away their earmarks and bring back the ‘nuclear option.”
But the key to success is strong, ruthless leadership, because even without a filibuster threat, it appears to be a challenge to get that bunch of Dems to even vote as a party on anything!
November 5th, 2008 at 12:47 pm
[...] the Right Thing, Harry, and let my Joey [...]