WASHINGTON--Normal human beings--let's call them real Americans--cannot understand why, 10 months after President Obama's inauguration, Congress is still tied down in a procedural torture chamber trying to pass the health care bill Obama promised in his campaign.
Last year, the voters gave him the largest popular vote margin won by a presidential candidate in 20 years. They gave Democrats their largest Senate majority since 1976 and their largest House majority since 1992.
Obama didn't just offer bromides about hope and change. He made quite specific pledges. You'd think that the newly empowered Democrats would want to deliver quickly.
But what do real Americans see? On health care, they read about this or that Democratic senator prepared to bring action to a screeching halt out of displeasure with some aspect of the proposal. They first hear that a bill will pass by Thanksgiving, and then learn it might not get a final vote until after the New Year.
Is it any wonder that Congress has miserable approval ratings? Is it surprising that independents, who want their government to solve a few problems, are becoming impatient with the current majority?
Democrats in the Senate--the House is not the problem--need to have a long chat with themselves and decide whether they want to engage in an act of collective suicide.
But it's also time to start paying attention to how Republicans, with Machiavellian brilliance, have hit upon what might be called the Beltway-at-Rush-Hour Strategy, aimed at snarling legislative traffic to a standstill so Democrats have no hope of reaching the next exit.
We know what happens when drivers just sit there when they're supposed to be moving. They get grumpy, irascible and start turning on each other, which is exactly what Democrats are doing now.
Republicans know one other thing: Practically nobody is noticing their delay-to-kill strategy. Who wants to discuss legislative procedure when there's so much fun and profit in psychoanalyzing Sarah Palin?
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COMMENTS (3)
I remember in the 1960s when a filibuster required that a Senator actually hold the floor and speak. A filibuster was a last ditch effort to stop legislation and not an alternative method to table a motion. Senator Thurmond had to stand on the floor of the Senate and read his mother's receipes into the public record until he was to tired to stand up. When he yielded the floor, a cloture vote ended the filibuster. Somewhere someone changed the rules so nothing can get through the Senate without 60+ votes. Where in the Constitution does it say that? This is the U.S. Senate and not the California legislature.
I remember in the 1960s when a filibuster required that a Senator actually hold the floor and speak. A filibuster was a last ditch effort to stop legislation and not an alternative method to table a motion. Senator Thurmond had to stand on the floor of the Senate and read his mother's receipes into the public record until he was to tired to stand up. When he yielded the floor, a cloture vote ended the filibuster. Somewhere someone changed the rules so nothing can get through the Senate without 60+ votes. Where in the Constitution does it say that? This is the U.S. Senate and not the California legislature.
It only takes 51 votes to abolish the filibuster doesn't it.
It only takes 51 votes to abolish the filibuster doesn't it.
That's right. Rules of the senate are made and altered with simple majority votes. But why opt nuclear? The number of votes needed to break a filibuster has been changed in the past. How about fifty-seven? If that stops working, change it again.
The filibuster is not holy writ. Historically and now the filibuster has been and is a principal tool of Southern reaction. It's time to stop coddling the South.
That's right. Rules of the senate are made and altered with simple majority votes. But why opt nuclear? The number of votes needed to break a filibuster has been changed in the past. How about fifty-seven? If that stops working, change it again.
The filibuster is not holy writ. Historically and now the filibuster has been and is a principal tool of Southern reaction. It's time to stop coddling the South.