MOTHER JONES | March 5, 2010 |
THIS WEEK IN THE BLOGOSPHERE
Our Nihilistic Senate
Earlier this week, Barbara Keenan was approved by the Senate as a judge on the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals. The vote was 99-0, but it came only after her floor vote had been delayed 124 days due an anonymous hold. Whose hold was it? After all, every single senator voted to confirm her. No one knows.
This came at the same time that Kentucky Sen. Jim Bunning (R) managed to hold up an emergency extension of unemployment benefits for over a week by—well, let's not mince words. He did it by throwing a temper tantrum. When the bill finally made it to the floor, it passed 78-19.
Then there was last year's unemployment bill, which Republicans filibustered three separate times, forcing the Senate to take five weeks to pass it. On the fourth and final vote, it passed 98-0.
Filibusters and holds, once occasional tools used only against major legislation or especially noxious nominees, have become routine during Barack Obama's presidency. Republicans filibuster virtually every bill, no matter how small, and hold up nearly every nominee, often for the pettiest of reasons. There was, for example, no surgeon general in place during the H1N1 pandemic because of a Republican hold. Chuck Grassley, the senator from the corn state of Iowa, put a hold on Obama's ambassador to Brazil, because he was annoyed over a comment about tariffs on sugar-based ethanol. Richard Shelby of Alabama put a blanket hold on all Obama nominees in a fit of pique over the handling of a couple of federal contracts in his state. He eventually relented, but then Bunning did the same thing during the fight over unemployment benefits.
In an Atlantic article about America's future, written after he had spent three years in China, James Fallows concluded that we are, to a large extent, still the envy of the world. With one exception: "One thing I've never heard in my time overseas is 'I wish we had a Senate like yours.'" And it's no wonder. It's not just that passing health care reform is next to impossible; that was always to be expected. But we also can't make progress on climate change. We can't pass financial reform—even after an economic meltdown unrivaled since the Great Depression. And we were only barely able to pass a small, watered-down stimulus bill last year, even as unemployment was rising toward 10 percent.
The plain fact is that the US Senate is broken. A small minority can—and does—obstruct every single bill introduced. A single person can—and does—prevent entire cabinet departments from being staffed. And even in the rare cases when something is allowed to pass, it takes weeks or months, thanks to these now-routine delaying tactics. The Republican Party has decided to raze Congress and then tap into populist rage over the fact that Congress can't get anything done. It's a cynical, almost nihilistic strategy, and not one that a great nation should allow.
The Senate needs to be reformed. It needs to work again. The only question is: how?
This came at the same time that Kentucky Sen. Jim Bunning (R) managed to hold up an emergency extension of unemployment benefits for over a week by—well, let's not mince words. He did it by throwing a temper tantrum. When the bill finally made it to the floor, it passed 78-19.
Then there was last year's unemployment bill, which Republicans filibustered three separate times, forcing the Senate to take five weeks to pass it. On the fourth and final vote, it passed 98-0.
Filibusters and holds, once occasional tools used only against major legislation or especially noxious nominees, have become routine during Barack Obama's presidency. Republicans filibuster virtually every bill, no matter how small, and hold up nearly every nominee, often for the pettiest of reasons. There was, for example, no surgeon general in place during the H1N1 pandemic because of a Republican hold. Chuck Grassley, the senator from the corn state of Iowa, put a hold on Obama's ambassador to Brazil, because he was annoyed over a comment about tariffs on sugar-based ethanol. Richard Shelby of Alabama put a blanket hold on all Obama nominees in a fit of pique over the handling of a couple of federal contracts in his state. He eventually relented, but then Bunning did the same thing during the fight over unemployment benefits.
In an Atlantic article about America's future, written after he had spent three years in China, James Fallows concluded that we are, to a large extent, still the envy of the world. With one exception: "One thing I've never heard in my time overseas is 'I wish we had a Senate like yours.'" And it's no wonder. It's not just that passing health care reform is next to impossible; that was always to be expected. But we also can't make progress on climate change. We can't pass financial reform—even after an economic meltdown unrivaled since the Great Depression. And we were only barely able to pass a small, watered-down stimulus bill last year, even as unemployment was rising toward 10 percent.
The plain fact is that the US Senate is broken. A small minority can—and does—obstruct every single bill introduced. A single person can—and does—prevent entire cabinet departments from being staffed. And even in the rare cases when something is allowed to pass, it takes weeks or months, thanks to these now-routine delaying tactics. The Republican Party has decided to raze Congress and then tap into populist rage over the fact that Congress can't get anything done. It's a cynical, almost nihilistic strategy, and not one that a great nation should allow.
The Senate needs to be reformed. It needs to work again. The only question is: how?
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