Dodd is Against “The idea that people are going to be reprimanded” for Breaking Party Discipline
Systems of party discipline differ from jurisdiction to jurisdiction, from party to party, and even from legislative body to legislative body. I seem to remember that at one point while I was in college the Massachusetts state assembly Democratic caucus had very ironclad discipline while the Senate caucus was laxer. Discipline in the United States is generally much laxer than discipline in Canada. At the federal level, discipline is tighter in the House than in the Senate, and the GOP versions of both houses are tighter than the Democratic versions. These things, in part, reflect differences in the constitutional/legal order. But in part they also reflect choices and path dependency. The extremely lax discipline among Senate Democrats is generally quite favorable to the interests of individual incumbent Democratic Senators even if it makes it difficult to advance a legislative agenda. So when it comes to getting recalcitrant Senators to fall into line, what’s needed are not only the potential tools of discipline, but the will to use them.
But Lieberman’s fellow Connecticut senator, Democrat Chris Dodd, who faces a tough reelection fight in 2010, dismissed the idea that Lieberman would incur any retribution.
“No, no, no. People are going to be all over the place,” he said when asked if Lieberman should be punished. “The idea that people are going to be reprimanded because somehow they have a different point of view than someone else is ridiculous. That isn’t going to happen.”
Of course there’s nothing “ridiculous” about it. It’s quite standard in legislative bodies for members who defy the party position to face various kinds of reprimands. A political party, after all, isn’t supposed to be a mutual aid society for incumbent legislators. At their best, parties are vehicles for advancing a somewhat coherent vision of national policy. It is true, however, that it would be an unusual step for the Senate Democratic caucus to engage in discipline-enforcing behavior. That, however, is because Senate Democrats are outliers in their behavior, not because the idea of enforcing discipline is somehow nutty.
Now it should be said that in the particular case of Dodd it’s probably not in his interests to pick a fight with a home state colleague in the midst of a re-election campaign. Consequently, he probably shouldn’t be the go-to guy to ask about this issue.
44 Responses to “Dodd is Against “The idea that people are going to be reprimanded” for Breaking Party Discipline”
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October 28th, 2009 at 1:08 pm
I think it would be hilarious if someone challenged Lieberman for the Connecticut-for-Lieberman party nomination. They could argue that Lieberman has failed to uphold the historical values and positions of Joe Lieberman.
October 28th, 2009 at 1:17 pm
Lieberman’s problem with health care reform is that it proposes to save lives, whereas he has devoted most of his Senate career to the neocon idea that taking lives, whether through warfare or denying health insurance to sick people who cannot afford it, represents the best national policy.
October 28th, 2009 at 1:21 pm
I’m not quite sure why it’s so natural to expect Dodd to stand by Lieberman. Dodd is unpopular in CT right now, sure, but so is Lieberman, and I imagine the people who like Lieberman aren’t exactly Dodd’s base.
It seems to me that picking a high profile fight with Lieberman might actually be a GOOD rally-the-base electoral strategy for Dodd.
October 28th, 2009 at 1:25 pm
I take Dodd’s comments as a Kabuki moment, with an eye on his own political future. That said, I think the Dems are approaching a reckoning with Lieberman, time to call him on his game of chicken. He’s clearly determined to screw over the folks that have opposed him since his quixotic quest for the presidency in ‘04, no matter the consequences. It’s a kamikaze mission, and the only explanation for his increasingly incoherent behavior.
October 28th, 2009 at 1:26 pm
Dodd (D-Hedgefundistan) and Lieberman (I-Israel) – WTF is up with CT voters?
October 28th, 2009 at 1:27 pm
Hey, Holy Joe can vote how he wants on any bill. I am not for ideological purity in the democratic party. But if he goes against the majority on PROCEDURAL matters like cloture, then there better be some stiff penalties, or reid will look more like a paper tiger than he already is. No committee chairmanships or plum committee assignments if Dems vote against their leadership on procedural members. Bayh says there is no difference between procedural and substantive issues at this stage, but this is simply FALSE. Bayh better be ready for a big backlash if he goes through with his filibuster threat.
October 28th, 2009 at 1:28 pm
Except that his re-election campaign is already a struggle due to cushy ties to big business interests. So if he provides Joe with cover for blocking an up-or-down vote on something that 68 percent of Connecticut residents favor, with so much money changing hands, it might make things even rougher for him.
(To be fair, the same poll also showed people favoring replacing Dodd with Rob Simmons, and Joe with Governor Rell, both of whom would likely be opponents of the public option. Hey, if we weren’t ill-informed up here, we wouldn’t have re-elected Joe.)
October 28th, 2009 at 1:30 pm
The extremely lax discipline among Senate Democrats is generally quite favorable to the interests of individual incumbent Democratic Senators
It also moderates the party without anyone having to do anything. Ben Nelson can go do what he wants, all the activists can get upset, Nelson gets his way, and the leadership acts real upset.
It just seems a little disingenuous. The party could choose to become more responsive to the people who work for it or the people it represents; instead, it chooses to be held hostage by its most wavering members. The process severely impacts the substance of what can get done. That’s not by mistake – it helps serve big party donors and powerful interests.
October 28th, 2009 at 1:32 pm
Favoring Republican party discipline and Democratic party lack of discipline is a way of assisting an agenda which favors concentrated economic interests, so this is unsurprising.
October 28th, 2009 at 1:56 pm
Its not that “different points of view” are the problem. The problem is not voting with the leadership that provides holy joe and Evan Bayh with their plum committee chairs and assignments. No one is saying the Joe or Evan vote for health care reform against their “principled objections on the merits of the bill”, but if they don’t allow a vote that the majority and leadership of their own caucus support, then they should be out of the caucus. Let them join the party of NO.
October 28th, 2009 at 2:18 pm
if they don’t allow a vote that the majority and leadership of their own caucus support, then they should be out of the caucus.
This. If you hold a gavel, the presumption ought to be that you don’t piss in the eye of the people who gave it to you.
October 28th, 2009 at 2:21 pm
Then why don’t you step down from your chairmanship, so a longer-serving Republican can take it?
After all, you wouldn’t want to reprimand someone because he has a different point of view.
October 28th, 2009 at 2:29 pm
Of course there’s nothing “ridiculous” about it.
Well, of course it would be “ridiculous” for Dodd or any other leading Democrat to talk publicly about discipline, or to make threats in public. What you want to do is act all nice and reasonable in public, and then be brutally, unsentimentally disciplinarian when it comes to, you know, actual actions.
October 28th, 2009 at 2:30 pm
pseudonymous in nc
This. If you hold a gavel, the presumption ought to be that you don’t piss in the eye of the people who gave it to you.
Who gave it to him? The peaceniks who believe the public option is the be all and end all to health care reform? Or the voters of Connecticut. Boy you’re pigheaded.
Newt Gingrich recently said the following about right-wing Republican purgers pseudo wants to emulate”
And so this idea that we’re suddenly going to establish litmus tests, and all across the country, we’re going to purge the party of anybody who doesn’t agree with us 100 percent — that guarantees Obama’s reelection. That guarantees Pelosi is Speaker for life. I mean, I think that is a very destructive model for the Republican Party
It is really amazing to think that Lieberman once was the VP candidate for the Democrats in 2000. What happened? 9/11 and Iraq.
October 28th, 2009 at 2:33 pm
The Democrats won’t even punish the Republicans — why should they pick on a fellow Democrat?
The fucking Republicans steal $3 Trillion out of Social Security/Medicare, give $2 Trillion to the Richest 2 percent of the population, start a bloody unnecessary war that kills over 4500+ US citizens, run up $6 Trillion in Debt in 8 years and then let their buddies on Wall Street plunge the economy into a deep recession that avoids becoming a catastrophe only by dumping $2 Trillion in charges on the taxpayer — and putting the taxpayer on the hook for another $22 TRILLION in loans and guarantees.
And what does the Democratic Caucus do? NOT A SINGLE FUCKING THING. Not a PEEP of criticism.
October 28th, 2009 at 2:42 pm
Well, you can say in a way that I gave Joe Lieberman his gavel. My vote for Jim Webb in 2006 gave the Democrats the ability to assign committee chairs as the majority. And all other people who voted for Democrats (or Sanders) with lesser seniority in the chamber allow people with greater seniority to hold their gavel.
Barbara Mikulsi (who I think is the most senior Democrat without a gavel) should lead a revolt of the backbenchers who actually believe that the Democratic agenda should actually be voted on.
October 28th, 2009 at 2:45 pm
The “peaceniks” – defined in Poptarts’ comment to mean “the large majority of Americans who gave the Democratic Party a majority due to their opposition to the Iraq War – gave Joe Lieberman his chairmanship. Not the voters of Connecticut. The outcome of the Connecticut Senate race had absolutely nothing to do with the Democrats gaining the majority in the Senate.
I really don’t think somebody this pig-ignorant of legislative procedure and the rules of Congress needs to be striking an arrogant tone.
The Republicans have 40 seats in the Senate, and are lapping at the shores of third-party-hood. The Democrats enjoy a majority, both in terms of Senate seats and in terms of public support, not seen since the days of Franklin Roosevelt.
One of these parties is in a position to shrink the tent in exchange of ideological cohesion, and the other is not.
October 28th, 2009 at 2:53 pm
Lieberman’s not going to filibuster. He’ll effectively be retiring if he does that, because there’ll be no way he wins in 2012.
And the bill can still go through reconciliation, so he won’t even have killed the bill.
So he’ll be throwing away his career for 2 weeks delay.
Then again, Dodd won’t be the one to point this out.
October 28th, 2009 at 3:02 pm
Bingo.
-”I’m shocked, shocked to hear that lack of party discipline is going on here!”
-[lobbyist hands DSCC chair a bag of money] “Your campaign contribution, sir.”
October 28th, 2009 at 3:03 pm
Joe from Lowell:
The Republicans have 40 seats in the Senate, and are lapping at the shores of third-party-hood. The Democrats enjoy a majority, both in terms of Senate seats and in terms of public support, not seen since the days of Franklin Roosevelt.
One of these parties is in a position to shrink the tent in exchange of ideological cohesion, and the other is not.
Not really. One of these parties shrunk themselves into irrelevance after a purge-party which happened after a bout of hubris after Newt (see quote above) won them Congress. The other party is just now entering hubristic mode. As others point out, if it does get serious about purging I predict some on the left will be among the purgees/purgified.
Like Miles I doubt Lieberman will filibuster. And you have to give the Left in Nevada credit for putting the pressure on Reid, from what I’ve read. (and Obama probably gave him the go ahead too).
October 28th, 2009 at 3:06 pm
On the other hand, the only “discipline” Democrats could impose would be the equivalent of lashing Joe Lieberman with an ostrich feather. Take away his committee posts? So what?
Maybe there is a God. If so, then maybe God will arrange for a random serial killer to feed Joe into a wood chipper feet first.
Ah, the consolations of religion.
October 28th, 2009 at 3:09 pm
Miles:
Lieberman’s not going to filibuster. He’ll effectively be retiring if he does that, because there’ll be no way he wins in 2012.
Correction to my earlier post. He might filibuster and if he does it will because the filibuster will be a departing “FUCK YOU” to the pseudos of the political scene.
October 28th, 2009 at 3:16 pm
There is essentially no downside for Lieberman to filibuster. If it ends up with his losing his committee chairmanship, it would in all likelihood seem like such an outrage that it would essentially kill the Democratic candidate for CT in 2012. Which is exactly what he wants, as the Republicans aren’t really running against him.
In fact, he wins by pissing off the left, by marginalizing GOP support and turning himself into a moderate/conservative martyr. I am not sure martyrdom is what the Democrats want for Lieberman, although I am sure he would be perfectly fine with it.
October 28th, 2009 at 3:31 pm
Myles, his approval rating is at like 20% in CT since he’s gone hard right. It’s not like he’s despised everywhere BUT Connecticut (perhaps the Bluest state); he’s despised everywhere, period.
You could say he has nothing to lose, because he’s already lost it. But I don’t think he feels that way.
October 28th, 2009 at 3:33 pm
Not only should Lieberman filibuster, but the Democratic Party leadership should encourage him to, because, you know, fuck hippies.
October 28th, 2009 at 3:37 pm
it’s probably not in his interests to pick a fight with a home state colleague in the midst of a re-election campaign
Oh yes it is, and I say that as somebody who has pulld the lever for Dodd since his 1st Senate run and who was still an avid supporter – until today, nope wont be voting for him
yeah that means Simmons gets in, so what?, no issues that matter to me will move forward either way
October 28th, 2009 at 3:37 pm
It’s a long way out, but he’d already lose to either Attorney General Blumenthal or Governor Rell, if either wants a crack at him. Against extreme left-wing hippie Greenwich businessman Ned Lamont, it’s a dead heat before taking into account any fallout from filibustering something favored by a substantial majority of CT’ers polled. Joe was almost certainly already looking for other, more financially fulfilling work, given the almost immediate buyers’ remorse from Dems and independents after 2006. “No one wants to bring the troops home from Iraq more than I do”? Yet enough people fell for it.
OTOH, the opinion of us CT voters doesn’t matter nearly as much as completely uninformed / mendacious dumbassery from Poptarts and Mylie. And those of us who are registered Democrats certainly don’t have the right to choose our party nominee in a primary. Representative democracy? What is this, France?
October 28th, 2009 at 3:39 pm
Poptarts,
You are incorrect. There was no “purge” among Republicans in 2005-2006 that explains the 2006 elections, and you can’t possibly be talking about something happening earlier, given the 2002 and 2004 elections.
The Republicans lost in 2006 and 2008 because of the Iraq War and their incompetence at governing.
But we’re not talking about “getting serious about purging.” We’re talking about punishing Senators who line up with the Republicans on procedural votes. Everyone who is talking about slapping Lieberman, you might have noticed, makes the point that he is perfectly free to vote against the HCR bill, without the slightest consequences.
October 28th, 2009 at 3:52 pm
Must disagree. Lieberman is not at all popular in Connecticut these days, Dodd would do well to distance himself from Lieberman and his comments, and to threaten loss of privileges should he defy the party, not to mention breaking his promises to his constituents that he would work towards “universal health care.”
October 28th, 2009 at 4:00 pm
Who gave it to him?
The Senate Democratic caucus and Senate Majority Leader. Membership of the Senate is a matter for the voters. Who chairs Senate committees is a matter for the majority caucus leadership.
Pastry FAIL.
October 28th, 2009 at 4:01 pm
Lieberman has no hope for reelection in 2012. The numbers aren’t there. Even if he were to run as a Republican, he’d have absolutely no chance of winning. Lieberman’s numbers haven’t moved in years, and it’s very unlikely they will uptick in any way that would make him electable. He is too widely known for his campaign lies in 2006 (when he claimed to be anti-war) and his constant campaigns against popular democratic candidates for president.
Of course, it’s very unlikely that Dodd will win in 2010, either. Not with his numbers, and not with the economy where it is now and likely to be for quite some time. He is just too unpopular and too closely linked to bankers.
October 28th, 2009 at 4:14 pm
Furthermore, by extension, the fact that the Democrats are the majority caucus in the Senate and in a position to grant committee chairs has sweet fuck-all to do with Lieberman.
Pastryboy is like a Japanese soldier hiding in the jungle, fighting WW2 in the 1960s. In Pastry-world, there are still proud, unembarrassed librulhawks who can wiggle their manhoods with impunity. Perhaps he’s intoxicated by the fumes from Hitchens’ taint.
October 28th, 2009 at 4:19 pm
again, Pseudo:
This. If you hold a gavel, the presumption ought to be that you don’t piss in the eye of the people who gave it to you.
The Senate Democratic caucus and Senate Majority Leader. Membership of the Senate is a matter for the voters. Who chairs Senate committees is a matter for the majority caucus leadership.
Right, I forgot Pseudo loves dictatorships like Saddam’s. When the boss cracks the whip, you jump. Probably into S&M too.
October 28th, 2009 at 4:23 pm
If it’s true that localities, states, and countries can have a ‘character’ or ‘national character’, well, it seems to me that Lieberman and Israel have awfully similar personalities. Both are petty, not particularly moral, extremely venal, and prone to hold grudges and remember slights.
October 28th, 2009 at 4:27 pm
At the end of the day, voters are going to judge Democrats as a party. They won’t care if 99.9% of the Democrats wanted a better bill. They won’t care how much you whine that you did the best you could. all they are going to care about is that you passed a bill that didn’t do ANYTHING you said it would.
$5000 fines are not enough to prevent rescission. That’s not enough to force guaranteed issue. You aren’t outlawing deceptive junk-insurance plans. You aren’t setting up universal healthcare. You sold the voters a bill of goods, and you know it. All you did was force people to buy insurance that many of them won’t be able to afford out of pocket. These subsidies are tax credits, Americans will still be forced to shell out the actual money involves.
The Democratic party is a joke. Joe Lieberman just figured that one out before any of the rest of us.
October 28th, 2009 at 4:39 pm
Senate Majority Leader is an elected position. Saddam Insult FAIL.
October 28th, 2009 at 4:41 pm
But not their own Congressman, who they will judge on an individual basis, and who they will actually be asked to vote for or against.
Hasn’t this point been proven over and over again? People hate Congress and love their Congressman.
October 28th, 2009 at 5:29 pm
Joe from Lowell:
Senate Majority Leader is an elected position. Saddam Insult FAIL.
So is the President, but he’s not a dictator. You don’t need to do everything he does on pain of death.
Having said that, health care is Obama’s and the Democrats’ signature issue. It is the issue, which is why I have a hard time seeing moderate Democrats sinking it.
Secondly, after the Senate passes a bill and the House does, they need to be reconciled.
October 28th, 2009 at 5:39 pm
I think Soullite is right in that, if they fail to pass health care, Democrats will be blamed as a whole.
If they pass health care reform that doesn’t work, they’ll be blamed.
October 28th, 2009 at 6:25 pm
It really shouldn’t be controversial to suggest that the procedural privileges of the gavel by one’s caucus should require not fucking over said caucus through procedural means.
In other news, Pastryboy thinks it’s scandalous that the third-base coach for the Phillies is expected not to share signs with the Yankees bench.
October 28th, 2009 at 8:41 pm
Dodd has also come out in favor of taking bribes and using his position of power to increase his personal wealth. Thanks god he’ll be in the conference committee on health care to defend the progressive agenda! We need more men in the Democratic Party who are willing to take bribes without fear of the consequences! I’m sure he bears no responsibility at all for the complete lack of oversight that led to a worldwide economic depression.
October 28th, 2009 at 9:26 pm
It is long past time for Lieberman to be held accountable for his self-serving actions that do not reflect the wishes of his constituency. When he decided to campaign against Barack Obama and for John McCain, he showed his true colors. He is going to do only what is expedient for Joe Lieberman. He needs to be stripped of his leadership positions, something that should have taken place right after he proved to have been on the losing side of the presidential election.
October 29th, 2009 at 6:12 am
[...] But then again, what can you expect? The voters installed a Democratic supermajority in Congress, and all we have are a bunch of weasly apologizers and toadies running around Capitol Hill. When asked if the Democratic Caucus was going to hold Joe Lieberman accountable for his refusal to mount the unity pony (remember when that used to be the sin of sins???) Dodd was heard to say in aghast surprise: [...]
October 29th, 2009 at 9:02 am
[...] free to openly fuck with party strategy; who’s going to respect a party leader that avoids precedented punitive measures in favor of passing out free hand jobs? [...]