Senate

Lame Duck or Red Herring?

By Jay Newton-Small | @JNSmall | July 28, 2010 | +

I have a time.com story out today about the much-anticipated lame duck session expected this December. For all the hoopla, very little is likely to happen this lame duck. But what all this hyperbole surrounding the lame duck does do is rile up the respective bases. Democrats: Dear outraged environmental groups, worry not we pass climate change in the lame duck! Republicans: Shock! Horror! The Democrats will pass crippling energy taxes in the lame duck! What neither side has said is where the magical 60th votes is going to come from between now and December. Certainly Democrats are not expecting to expand their Senate majority. Yes, there will surely be some kind of lame duck given the lethargic pace of appropriations this year but a continuing resolution on FY2011 funding is just about the only thing they’re likely to do in December.

Subscribe to Jay Newton-Small on Facebook
Related Topics: climate change, lame duck, 2012 Election, Budgets, Congress, Democratic Party, Republican Party, Senate

  • Latest on Swampland

    Barack Obama May 25, 2012

    Audacity of Dope: Tales of a Toking Teenage Obama

    We knew Barack Obama smoked weed in high school because he wrote about it in his books. What we didn’t know until Buzzfeed posted these choice nuggets (I’m so sorry) from David Maraniss’s new book on the President’s younger years, is the giggle-worthy details of his “Choom Gang” lifestyle, which are right out of a buddy stoner flick. Obama and his friends drove around the lush Hawaii countryside, hot-boxing their VW bus and re-upping with a long-haired pizza-tossing dealer named Ray, who Obama thanked in his yearbook “for all the good times.”

    From our Partners

    Lewis Eisenberg, Major Romney Donor, Accuses Obama Of Demonizing Wall StreetHuffPost Politics

    2012 Election May 25, 2012

    Obama Stumbles? Why the President’s Right to Talk About Bain

    The meme of the day in journo-world is that President Obama has stumbled at the outset of the general election campaign. The evidence for this? Well, uh, there isn’t very much, really–except that a few Democrats have criticized his campaign’s attacks on Mitt Romney’s record at Bain Capital and that Obama’s fundraising is merely humongous, instead of obscenely humongous. The two phenomena are linked, of course: Obama isn’t getting the usual haul from Wall Street because he has outrageously–outrageously!–tried to regulate the bankers who did so much to crash the economy in 2008. The handful of Democrats squawking are people who either (a) get money from private equity firms or (b) have retired and joined Mondo Casino. But there is another side to this story:

  • 53_3

    I’m torn…

  • http://www.twitter.com/jnsmall Jay Newton-Small

    Torn between?

  • 53_3

    Lame duck or red herring.
    .
    The solution might be that the lame duck eats the red herring…

  • 53_3

    More honestly, though, I agree that the Dems and GOP are mostly posturing.
    .
    We’ve gotten all we can out of this session except Kagan and other items that the GOP clearly isn’t anxious to grab the short end of the populist stick on…

  • 53_3

    What happened to the “me too…” comment I saw here a minute ago?

  • square1

    Dear JNS,

    Please allow me to explain how our political system works. There is no “magical 60th vote” necessary to pass legislation in the Senate. It is largely a fiction that is perpetuated by Democratic leadership to avoid the dilemma of wither passing legislation that they do not like or opposing legislation that is overwhelmingly supported by their constituents and political bases.

    If Democrats really want to pass controversial legislation, they have four options:

    1. They can load up any bill with provisions that would make it extremely difficult to vote against. (e.g. body armor for troops) Go make the opponents explain how they were for body armor before they were against it. Go ask John Kerry how well those explanations go.

    The idea that Democrats cannot put the screws to GOP Senators like Snowe, Collins, and Brown is a joke.

    2. Force an actual filibuster. Believe it or not, threatening to bring out the cots is actually highly effective in getting threats of filibusters withdrawn.

    3. Wait out a filibuster. Contrary to what most “journalists” claim (probably because they are too lazy or stupid to bother reading the actual rules of Congress), filibusters do not go on indefinitely. “Unlimited debate” is not to be taken literally. Democrats could set aside a filibuster week or two, let the GOP talk as long as they want, and then get an up or down vote on whatever legislation that they want. Since nothing else of importance will be getting done this session, there is nothing to lose.

    4. Change the filibuster rules to make it more difficult for the minority to use rules of debate to defeat the legislation.

    Democrats never employ these devices? Why? Because the Democrats DO NOT WANT TO PASS THE BILLS THAT THEY CLAIM TO SUPPORT.

    Journalists who perpetuate the lie that Democrats are stymied by the 60-vote requirement are either piss-poor at their jobs or deliberately lying to their readers to serve a centrist-corporatist agenda.

    Yours,

    square1

  • CP in FL

    Good analysis square1. I think the filibuster rules should be changed so that it does not require a super-majority to end the filibuster. Maybe make the first vote to end the filibuster require 60 votes, but then make it only require a simple majority after waiting one week. The senate should only require a majority to pass legislation. That is how the senate is supposed to work. The legislation that is produced when a super-majority is required is not even close to the best legislation that could be passed with a simple majority.

  • megatronrises

    Thanks for this, Square1.
    .
    All journalists beware!

  • artraveler

    Hell, make it interesting and actually make them filibuster a bill with the cots and their Coleman stoves for coffee.

blog comments powered by Disqus