The ‘Grand Obstructionist Party’

June 27, 2007

Does it seem as if every time the Senate is poised to consider an important measure, Republicans launch a filibuster? That the party that whined incessantly about Democratic “obstructionism” for the last several years is blocking everything that moves, hypocrisy be damned?

I knew it was bad; I didn’t know it was this bad.

* Senate Republicans have obstructed almost every bill in the Senate — even ones with wide bipartisan support.

* So far, in the first half of the first session of the 110th Congress, there have been THIRTEEN cloture votes on motions to proceed — each one wasting days of Senate time. (110th Congress, Roll Call Votes #44, 51, 53, 74, 129, 132, 133, 162, 173, 207, 208, 227, and 228)

* In comparison, in the first sessions of the 108th and 109th Congresses combined, there were a total of FOUR cloture votes on motions to proceed.

For literally years, Republicans, with a 55-seat majority, cried like young children if Dems even considered a procedural hurdle. They said voters would punish obstructionists. They said it was borderline unconstitutional. They said to stand in the way of majority rule was to undermine a basic principle of our democratic system.

And wouldn’t you know it; the shameless hypocrites didn’t mean a word of it.

Why hasn’t the Democratic Congress had greater success passing legislation in its first six months? Because 239 separate pieces of legislation have passed the House, only to find Senate Republicans “objecting to just about every major piece of legislation” that Harry Reid has tried to bring to the floor.

It’s not only shameless, it’s cynical. Republicans expect to get away with this nonsense because they assume most Americans don’t even know what a filibuster is. They figure, the more they obstruct, the worse Congress looks — and with a Democratic majority, that means the GOP will blame Dems for the Republicans’ delay tactics.

Indeed, it’s quite a vicious cycle. Dems bring up a bill … Republicans block the bill … Dems tell voters to be patient … Republicans blame Dems for failing to deliver on their policy agenda. And if Americans aren’t paying attention, they fall for the con.

It’s quite a record the Senate minority has assembled.

EIGHT times Republican obstruction tactics slowed critical legislation

* Fulfilling the 9/11 Commission Recommendations (Passed 97-0, Roll Call Vote #53)
* Improving security at our courts (Passed 93-3, Roll Call Vote #133)
* Water Resources Development Act (Passed 89-7, Roll Call Vote #162)
* A joint resolution to revise U.S. policy in Iraq (Passed 89-9, Roll Call Vote, #74)
* Comprehensive Immigration Reform (Passed 69-23, Roll Call Vote #173)
* Comprehensive Immigration Reform (Passed 64-35, Roll Call Vote #228)
* CLEAN Energy Act (Passed 91-0, Roll Call Vote #208)
* Funding for the Intelligence Community (Passed 94-3, Roll Call Vote #129)

FOUR times Republicans blocked legislation from being debated

* Senate Republicans blocked raising the minimum wage. (Rejected 54-43, Roll Call Vote #23)
* Senate Republicans blocked ethics reforms (Rejected 51-46, Roll Call Vote #16)
* Senate Republicans blocked comprehensive immigration reform (Rejected 45-50, Roll Call Vote #206)
* Senate Republicans blocked funding for renewable energy (Rejected 57-36, Roll Call Vote #223)

FOUR times Republicans stopped bills from reaching a vote

* Senate Republicans blocked funding for the intelligence community. (Rejected 41-40, Roll Call Vote #130)
* Senate Republicans blocked raising the minimum wage. (54-43, Roll Call Vote #23)
* Senate Republicans blocked ethics reforms (Rejected 51-46, Roll Call Vote #16)
* Senate Republicans blocked funding for renewable energy (Rejected 57-36, Roll Call Vote #223)

TWICE Republicans blocked bills from going to conference

* Senate Republicans blocked appointing conferees on the 9/11 Commission Recommendations (6/26/07)
* Senate Republicans blocked appointing conferees on ethics reform (6/26/07)

I have only one question: if the shoe were on the other foot, and 49 Senate Dems had blocked this many popular pieces of legislation, what do you suppose Senate Republicans would do about it?

That’s not a rhetoric question; I’m genuinely curious. The GOP is awful at governing, but they’re great at whining. This report from Senate Dems documenting the problem is excellent, but if the circumstances were reversed, I can guarantee the Senate Republicans would do more than just issue a detailed report.

There was a time when I would have welcomed gridlock in Congress. But there is so much damage to be repaired now. We actually need Congress to act.

  • harry reid should tell the republicans to put up or shut up. if they want to filibuster, let them filibuster. but the have to ACTUALLY FILIBUSTER. even the dumbest american would realize what is going on if all we see on the teevee news is shots of idiot republicans reading aloud from newspapers in an empty chamber for hour after hour.

  • I’d be fine with all of this ut the Dems have made no moves to codify the minority’s right to filibuster.

    They need to disarm the GOP’s “nuclear option” so that if Diebold decides to put them in the minority again, they might have the tools needed to delay the Goosteppers who would legalize wiretaps and first night with young brides and such.

    The Dems are allowing this worthwhile tactic, but not insisting they get to keep it if they need it later.

    The level of sloppiness boggles the mind.

  • I couldn’t have said it better, Steve. The GOP is indeed horrendous at governing, but great at whining, and at shirking responsibiity.

  • It’s time that Harry Reid, Nancy Pelosi, and Howard Dean took the case to the American people.

    How? By spending some of the campaign money that they have raise for the 2008 election cycle. The Democratic Party should take to the airwaves and expose the obstructionism of Senate Republicans. Approval ratings are so low for Congress now that the Democratic have little or nothing to lose. It also would be very interesting to see if the Fox networks reject their advertising dollars. Republicans understand PR (and propaganda); why can’t the Democrats?

  • The modern incarnation of the GOP – commencing with Clinton’s first term is all about lose-lose and win-lose, they are never about win-win. They have been engineering votes specifically to put Dems on the record with politically divisive issues: For example; A Flag Burning Amendment isn’t intended to pass (lose), however the vote is designed to get Progressives and First Amendment defenders on record burning the Flag (lose). GOPers blather about Free-Markets, however, when the free market should kill (win)companies distributing contaminated food (lose), up jumps the FDA, and the Dept of Agriculture to prohibit (lose) widespread testing.

    Fortunately for the Republican Party the MSM is owned, operated and commercially sponsored by the same corporate interests that corrupt Congress. It’s really really hard to get Brian Williams and Katie Couric to mention what is now getting in the way of the Peoples Business.

  • In comparison, in the first sessions of the 108th and 109th Congresses combined, there were a total of FOUR cloture votes on motions to proceed.

    Hey… we don’t call em Dimocrats for nothing.

    Dimocrats: The party of apathy.
    Repugs: The party of anger.

    Q: Who is gonna win in the long run?
    A: If I told you once… I told you a 110 times… if you don’t fight these bastards with an aim to slit their throats: You lose.

    To all the Dennis the Menances out there: You want a Department of Peace?
    Then war like you never warred before with the Ann Coulter’s of the World.

    Want to know how to begin:
    Cut Cheney’s funding.
    Push it with a passion.

    You know about passion… right?

  • just bill (re #2)
    It wouldn’t happen. Period.
    There’s no way that the corporate owned media is going to make the Repub thugs look bad. We would never see the scenes that you describe.

    Mr. CB thanks for running this. I was thinking just a couple of days ago, whatever happened to the good old “up or down vote”?
    I guess that talking point is “no longer operational.”

  • Dems need to figure out how to govern in the majority and more importantly, call out the GOP’s bull shit here. Whining that nobody would notice or that “the corporate owned media is going to make the Repub thugs look bad” is complete nonesense and indeed a cop out.

  • Welcome back, JRS Jr.

    OK, I’ll bite.
    If the statement ” “the corporate owned media is going to make the Repub thugs look bad” is complete nonesense and indeed a cop out. ” is true, then why is George W. Bush, the man that presided over the following events:
    Lies that took us into war against Iraq, after
    Ignoring numerous critical warnings about an impending attack (remember 9/11?)
    rove indictment, nsa scandal, goss resignation, hayden nomination, libby indictment/conviction, flectcher indictment, hookergate, cunningham conviction, Ney, Noe, Lewis, Alphonso Jackson shakedown, Tobin sentencing, ryan conviction, coingate, delay indictment, delay resignation, hunting accident, downing steet memos, swift boats, missing reconstruction money, polictical purge of the CIA, nine-fingers, foggo, turture memo, secret prisons, illegal rendition, waterboarding, gannon, abramoff, chalabi, signing statements, unitary executive, pre-emptive war, tactical first-strike, unceilinged debt, polictical purge of the Justice Department, war, war, war.

    Why is he (or any Republican) still in office, after Bill Clinton was impeached for a personal matter?

  • JRS Jr.,

    call out the GOP’s bull shit here. Whining that nobody would notice or that “the corporate owned media is going to make the Repub thugs look bad” is complete nonesense and indeed a cop out.

    How is it a cop out if none of the news outlets will talk about the report the Dems just put out? How is it a cop out if the MSM won’t air advertisements that point out this hypocrisy and cynicism of the GOP? Do you really think Murdoch would allow Fox News to air such an advertisment?

    If so, you clearly aren’t a member of the reality-based community. Or you have a poor memory as this site discussed several occassions where left-supporting ads were rejected by major news outlets that accepted similar right-supporting ads.

  • Dems need to figure out how to govern in the majority and more importantly, call out the GOP’s bull shit here.

    Yep. Especially the latter. The Greedy Old Pachyderms have no trouble touting out and out lies to smear the Dems, the Dems don’t even need to go to the trouble of making shit up. If they can’t get on TV there’s this nifty new-fangled invention called the internons. The ReThugs don’t fully understand how it works.

    And here’s a novel idea: They could hold real Town Hall meetings with their employers (the people they represent, even the ones who didn’t vote for them.) They could [gasp!] answer unscripted questions.

    It might not make national news but it will certainly make local news and if, by chance, the local news outlet is in the clutches of some Friend of GOP, the people who attended the event will be able to spot any lies.

  • Harry needs to call the chamber into session, and then refuse to adjourn. Every time the damned ReThugs try to bail, issue a quorum call, and drag their sorry asses back into chambers. Take that “secret hold” thing and ram it down the ReThugs’ collective throats—spilling the name of any Senator cowardly enough to bog down meaningful legislation for self-serving ends to every newspaper, network, and radio station on the planet.

    Let ’em whine to the moon and stars for all I care—and along the way they can become an embarrassment to every MSM quisling who ever dared to defend “the Rape of the Good Government….”

  • Didn’t they also recently block the Employee Free Choice Act as well? Roll Call No. 227, 6/26/07

  • It’s the predictable return of the Rubberstamp Republicians as the Roadblock Republicans.

    Dems need to push this news out to the people and get the Repubs VOTED OUT. And they need to do it NOW, before the Repubs finally abandon Bush and try to become “heros of the Republic” or whatever crap they spin. These people have dragged our country down into a DEEP, DEEP hole and they have no idea how to fix the problems they have caused.

    VOTE THEM OUT.

  • The answer to your question is this: the Republican party is happiest “frothing,” whereas the Democratic party shuns even the whiff of that label. In a environment of partisanship, the Republicans always win because they are most willing to ratchet up the “shril-o-meter”. Democrats on the other hand are more prone to deliberation and compromise.

    If you know the other guy will “knuckle under”, then why do anything more than raise holy hell until you get what you want?

  • After the Dem landslide in 2008, winning control of both Congress and the White House, it is imperative that there be a rules change in the Senate to abolish “unlimited debate” (unless of course the Dem’s secure the supermajority of 67 Senators and then it’s a non-issue). There are not the votes now, of course, to make the rules change to abolish it, and the certainty of Bush’s veto-ing any progressive legislation makes the change moot, anyway.

    I believe that unlimited debate – the filibuster, debate without cloture…whatever you want to call it – is no longer working to the Dem’s favor (meanwhile the Repubs use it indiscriminately). Yes, the filibuster was indispensable in the past, but I think there needs to be a debate now whether it will actually help or hinder a progressive agenda in the future.

    There are enormous challenges ahead in the years after Bush – a failed foreign policy, a failed health care system, global warming, a hollowed out economy, to mention a few – and the nation cannot afford the luxury of Repub obstructionism in the next decade.

    To make the progress needed (and I brought this up the other day) we’ll need to pack the Supreme Court to secure a progressive majority there, and we need to abolish unlimited debate in the Senate. With a secure Democrat majority (and only with it) the more our federal government proceeds with Parliamentarian dispatch in the upcoming decade, the better off we’ll all be – and frankly, the American public (the same frustrated public that doesn’t have a clue that it some genteel legacy from the 18th century of “unlimited debate” that is gumming up the wheels of the Senate) will reward the Dem’s for finally moving forward.

  • I have said it before:

    They’re not shameless. They’re Republicans.

    In order to be shamed you actually have to have something you love or respect (other than money). Republicans don’t care about anything except serving their corporate owners (for money or power). Their owners will toss them aside and the gravy train ends if they Repubs don’t give their owners what they want.

    Republicans know fear and know how to use it. If Americans follow the words of FDR then the Repubs would be effectively neutered,

    While I’d like to see a lot of them actually neutered, I’ll settle for getting our country back.

  • They’re just acting out. It’s not like Bush was going to sign any of that stuff into law anyway — with the exception of the minimum wage increase, which Dem’s extracted as a concession for letting the supplemental spending bill for Iraq and Afghanistan go through. Anyway, if you don’t have the votes to force cloture, you don’t have the votes to override a veto.

    If Senate Repub’s were smart though, they’d be letting this stuff go to Bush to veto, rather than keeping the blame for holding it all up focused squarely upon themselves. Bush is going away after next year anyway but a bunch of Republican Senators have to run for reelection and right they’re just writing the Democrats’ campaign ads for them.

    This has got to be killing Trent Lott. He may be evil but unlike their current leadership, he is bright enough to pour piss out of a boot. Two of the biggest favors Republicans have done the Democrats in recent years were ousting Lott and and targeting Tom Dashle.

  • A correction if I may. There has not been a single GOP filibuster since the Dems took over. Not a one. What you are calling filibusters are actually faux filibusters because at no time is anyone standing at a mic talking and talking and talking. In fact, the GOP merely indicates (with an extended finger by the minority leader?) that they intend to “filibuster” and Reid immediately checks to see if they have votes for cloture.

    That is NOT a filibuster. It is time for Reid to change this (and for you and me to encourage him to change this). I have sent an email asking Reid to reinstate TRUE filibusters. A requirement that if the GOP wishes to stall/stop a bill, then they cannot simply stick up their finger indicating a theoretical filibuster (after which they go to lunch, the golf course, out to a bar with their closest butt-boy/girl lobbyist, etc), they actually have to put physical people up, 24/7, nonstop, to speak into a mic. The MOMENT they fail to have someone at the mic to continue the REAL filibuster, then that is equal to a cloture vote and the bill in question goes to the floor.

    This is as it should be. These idiot obstructionists should actually FEEL a filibuster. They should actually have to expend physical and mental effort to sustain a REAL filibuster. Let’s see how good they are at having people there on the floor at a mic at 3:00 am for a week or so.

    Write/fax/call Reid and ask for a return of the filibuster in a form our Founders would actually recognize and approve of.

  • Reed has to understand that the way to stop a fillibuster is to expose it for what it is. He spends too much time and effort rounding up votes he doesn’t have, and then complaining that Republicans are being obstructionists. What he needs to do – and get every other Democrat in Congress to do as well – is to latch onto a particualr bill and never let go. Their blocking of the 9-11 Commision recommendations is a perfect example: Every Democrat should be out there declaring every day “Republicans are helping the terrorists! They are blocking efforts to make the US safer.” Likewise on ethics reform, “Republicans are still in league with corruption.” Until Republicans start paying a political price for what they are doing they will keep on doing the same. And making them pay a price doesn’t mean explaining to the American people the history and subtlies of the fillibister. It means speaking directly and loudly on the issues that they care most about.

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