{"id":13898,"date":"2007-12-12T12:48:29","date_gmt":"2007-12-12T17:48:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com\/archives\/13898.html"},"modified":"2007-12-12T12:48:29","modified_gmt":"2007-12-12T17:48:29","slug":"grand-obstructionist-party-takes-to-blocking-its-own-bills","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/grand-obstructionist-party-takes-to-blocking-its-own-bills\/","title":{"rendered":"Grand Obstructionist Party takes to blocking its own bills"},"content":{"rendered":"

The story is familiar enough to be mind-numbing: Congress takes up an important policy issue; the House passes a popular bill, a majority of the Senate wants to pass the bill but Republicans won’t let the legislation come to the floor. The bill gets pulled, Congress’ approval ratings fall a little further, and everyone wonders how a measure that enjoys the support of a majority of the House, Senate, and electorate can’t reach the president’s desk. Rinse, repeat.<\/p>\n

The NYT noted today<\/a> that Senate Republicans have become so reflexive in filibustering everything that moves that when Dems finally agreed to GOP demands on a bill to repair the alternative minimum tax last week, Republicans filibustered anyway — out of habit<\/i>.<\/p>\n

This isn’t going to get any better<\/a> anytime soon.<\/p>\n

Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the Republican leader, operates with near-robotic efficiency when it comes to negotiating budget figures in public, consistently refusing to answer questions that would ever commit him to a specific number at the bargaining table.<\/p>\n

So it was more than a little telling when Mr. McConnell laid down his mark in the current budget fight on Tuesday, informing the Capitol Hill press corps that he was ready to offer Democrats a deal, $70 billion in war financing with no strings attached and a total budget identical to President Bush’s proposal.<\/p>\n

In other words, the Republicans should get virtually everything they want. And he was not kidding.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The Senate minority is effectively holding the chamber hostage — give the GOP what it wants, or nothing will pass. It’s led to a Senate in which the Republicans have just about broken the two-year record<\/a> for filibusters in less than one year.<\/p>\n

Desperate times call for desperate measures.
\n
\nI was, earlier this year, reluctant to see Democrats force Republicans to actually<\/i> filibuster, in large part because I know it would destroy any shred of comity that might still exist in the chamber.<\/p>\n

But the status quo is untenable, and it’s not going to change over the next year. Dems don’t want to go into next November’s election cycle with a to-do list filled with very few check marks alongside key pieces of legislation. It’ll be Republicans’ fault, of course, but that may not matter to voters who are easily misled.<\/p>\n

If you’re just joining us, Republicans aren’t literally<\/i> talking bills to death. They threaten<\/i> a filibuster, the chamber holds a cloture vote, and by a gentleman’s agreement that’s been in place for a generation, the majority pulls the bill from consideration. The suggestion on the table is for Dems to end the gentleman’s agreement, and force Republicans who want to block bills to take to the floor and start talking.<\/p>\n

I don’t doubt that the Senate leadership would consider this a radical move. I agree; it’s a little extreme. But therein lies the point: Republicans have forced the Senate’s hands by embracing an extreme tactic: blocking practically everything that moves. That’s<\/i> radical.<\/p>\n

The alternative is to wait and see if voters are willing to punish Republicans for their obstructionism. It’s a risky move — most Americans aren’t familiar with cloture votes, filibusters, and Senate procedures. All they know is that Congress isn’t passing bills.<\/p>\n

Tell you what — try<\/i> forcing the minority to literally filibuster and see what happens. I suspect Republicans would start letting bills reach the floor for up-or-down votes, but if not, we can go back to the gentleman’s agreement.<\/p>\n

What do Dems have to lose?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The story is familiar enough to be mind-numbing: Congress takes up an important policy issue; the House passes a popular bill, a majority of the Senate wants to pass the bill but Republicans won’t let the legislation come to the floor. The bill gets pulled, Congress’ approval ratings fall a little further, and everyone wonders […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[617],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13898","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13898","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13898"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13898\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13898"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13898"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13898"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}