Republicans Run Their Political Party The Right Way
When Olympia Snowe angers her colleagues by voting yes on health reform, they won’t just be annoyed they may actually punish her by denying her the opportunity to become ranking member of the Senate Commerce Committee. That’s something she’ll need to think seriously about. And it’s also something Senate Democrats should think seriously about. As Steve Benen remarks:
It often goes overlooked, but it’s worth remembering that the Senate Republican caucus, unlike Senate Democrats, have mechanisms in place to enforce party unity and discipline. When Democrats break party ranks on key bills, there are no consequences. Those who let GOP leaders down, however, know in advance that enticements like committee positions are very much on the line.
Indeed, there are widespread rumors that Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) shifted away from cooperation on reform and towards belligerence immediately after his Republican colleagues made it clear that his future committee assignments were in jeopardy if he worked with Dems to pass a reform bill.
It’s also worth being clear on this: The Republicans do this the right way. The Senate Republican caucus is organized, like the House caucuses of both parties, like a partisan political organization whose objective is to advance the shared policy objectives of the party. The Senate Democratic caucus, by contrast, is organized like a fun country club trying to recruit members*. Join Team Democrat and Vote However You Want Without Consequence! But it’s no way to get things done.
I would emphasize the fact that merely acquiring the means to apply discipline doesn’t require you to actually use them. Common sense indicates that Blanche Lincoln should be given more leeway to break discipline than Maria Cantwell gets and nothing about adopting a mechanism that allows for the possibility of discipline means that you’d be required to try to enforce it in a blinkered way.
* Speaking of which, it’s interesting to speculate under which circumstances Senator Snowe might switch parties.
60 Responses to “Republicans Run Their Political Party The Right Way”
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October 13th, 2009 at 1:51 pm
Not to jinx anything, but it seems to be working at the moment.
If your argument is that a more organized and regimented Senate caucus would have led to a more progressive bill… then you should actually make that argument.
October 13th, 2009 at 1:53 pm
I think the point about Snowe switching parties is often overlooked. She is a very popular Republican politician from a left-leaning state. I’d say any retaliatory action by the Republican caucus would force her to seriously consider switching parties (or becoming independent, ala Jim Jeffords). And I thik the Republican leadership knows this and would probably not risk such a defection. Grassley doesn’t really have this option, as Iowa is much more closely split and he is generally more conservative anyway.
October 13th, 2009 at 1:55 pm
There is nothing to prevent Obama and the Democratic Caucus in the Senate from severely punishing Max Baucus or Ben Nelson. Including stripping them of their Committee Chairmanships.
But it does require (a) knowing what you want to accomplish for the country and (b) the spine to stomp the shit out of anyone who gets in the way –because they deserve it.
You can compromise on ways and means — but when you surrender important goals, you should ask yourself what you are doing in Congress. Because you are also surrendering the lives of the people you promised to serve.
October 13th, 2009 at 1:56 pm
Like Alen Specter.
October 13th, 2009 at 1:57 pm
This is, by far, the best thing to come out of the Contract w/ America/Republican revolution.
October 13th, 2009 at 1:59 pm
J.W. Hammer:
Yes. With 60 Democratic votes, they may manage to sneak through a bill which is modestly progressive, if the whole thing doesn’t fall apart at the conference stage. Truly a vindication of the Democratic leadership model.
The GOP did this with 51 Senate votes, if I recall correctly. And what happened to Democrats who broke ranks and ensured that that ruinous, regressive tax cut would pass? Nothing.
October 13th, 2009 at 2:00 pm
Senate Democrats pander to their high dollar donors, more so than to their party structure. The divide comes from blue sponsors, their sponsors.
There is a distinct divide in the House, between progressive and Blue Dog Democrats. Don’t pretend it’s not there as well.
October 13th, 2009 at 2:02 pm
I think this is an important point. Republicans are substantively wrong on almost everything, but as a partisan political organization they’re worthy of admiration and emulation in many ways. Democrats have let their rejection of Republican ideas/policies cloud their ability to borrow from what works in the Republican view of politics.
October 13th, 2009 at 2:02 pm
The greater Republican discipline is reflected in their greater ideological unity. Or, perhaps the cause-and-effect arrow goes the other way: there simply aren’t any moderate Republicans other than Snowe and Collins in the Senate, and so it’s easier to for them to keep their caucus together.
Look at this chart from 538. The most conservative is +1 and the most liberal is -1. The third most moderate Repub is Murkowski at +.263. The only Repubs between zero and +.263 are Snowe and Collins.
On the Democratic side, however, there are, looking at the chart, about ten Dems between zero and -.263, including our friends Blanche Lincoln and Max Baucus.
October 13th, 2009 at 2:03 pm
It’s also worth being clear on this: The Republicans do this the right way.
Except the Republicans have ended up with only 40 votes in the Senate doing things this way. Now Matt tries to dodge this point with the “but you don’t have to use this power” stuff, but that is pretty naive: if such hierarchical coercive power exists, eventually someone wanting to use that power will take control of it.
That said, I think relaxing their seniority rules would be a good idea for the Democrats. But totally imitating the Republicans when it comes to imposing “party discipline”? Not such a good idea.
October 13th, 2009 at 2:03 pm
In endorsing the GOP strategy of solidarity, I think you’re assuming some things that don’t exist, as indicated in paragraph 3, where you apply the boundaries of common sense. Do Republicans do that in their quest for party discipline? Be careful what you wish for.
October 13th, 2009 at 2:03 pm
I think the problem is that the Republican way of doing things is wrong, in a way that is corrosive to the system. We’re simply not set up to be a parliamentary democracy; they Republicans have enforced party discipline as if we were, weakening the link between representatives and their constituents.
You think John Cornyn’s going to do anything I want, on anything, ever?
My preferences as one of the people he putatively serves is by far less important than his ties to the national party and the conservative movement as a whole, even beyond the extent to which I live in an unpleasantly conservative state.
The only thing worse than acting like parliamentary political parties in a system not designed to cope with them is when only one party does it unilaterally. So, sure, go ahead, let the Dems enforce some kind of party discipline– but it’s not because the Republican way of doing things is “right.”
October 13th, 2009 at 2:06 pm
Jacob @2: Grassley doesn’t really have this option, as Iowa is much more closely split and he is generally more conservative anyway.
Charles Grassley is not a moderate. His DW-nominate scores for the 110th Congress place him to the right of Kit Bond and Thad Cochrane.
October 13th, 2009 at 2:11 pm
Aon21 Says:
So you believe a more organized caucus that was unafraid of wielding the stick could have stopped a huge tax cut? Even if it did keep those Dems in line, I think those Dems would have a hard time getting reelected and thus be more likely to defect.
It seems to me that demanding rigid idealogical purity has not worked out well for the GOP.
October 13th, 2009 at 2:19 pm
Is it possible that the GOP’s famed party discipline is a source of weakness as well as strength? It seems to me that the current GOP is struggling mightily to conceive and articulate a future for itself that isn’t dominated by its least mature, least knowledgeable factions. My sense is that the GOP’s deeply ingrained habits of orthodoxy, discipline, and dogma are making this task substantially more intractable. Is it possible that the long-term health and success of the Democratic party has been better served by its looser discipline and greater tolerance for dissent?
October 13th, 2009 at 2:19 pm
I don’t know. I kind of like the fact the Democrats don’t insist on lock step coordination. The Republicans may look to the Brown Shirts for advice, but I really don’t want to go there. I’m proud that I’m not a member of any organized party. The Democrats may be stupid, but at least they’re so stupid they can’t take over and try to invade every country nearby. There’s nothing to fear from the Democrats, they can’t get it together enough to cause trouble. The Republicans are different, think Stalin. They do work in lockstep and they really do want to conquer the entire world. They are not kidding, and when they get power again, they’ll invade some country for no reason at all. Not sure which one it will be, but they don’t know either. But it only takes them fifteen minutes to come up with a reason to invade any country. They don’t worry about that bullshit of coming up with a plausible reason, they just do it. And then they say: “look how bad things are in country we just invaded. Obviously, we need to keep fighting there to make it better.” And everyone buys into to it. Including he Democrats. What utter nonsense. And I have to pay these freaks.
October 13th, 2009 at 2:19 pm
…that said, Joe Lieberman needs to find a horse head in his bed.
October 13th, 2009 at 2:22 pm
The Republicans do NOT do it the right way. Putting party and power over everything else is not the right way.
October 13th, 2009 at 2:26 pm
It’s also worth being clear on this: The Republicans do this the right way.
yes – party before country – that’s why they always call them Communist Russia and Nazi Germany
October 13th, 2009 at 2:28 pm
By the way, as I and others have noted in the past when Matt has suggested things like this, there is no guarantee that if the Senate Democrats did in fact adopt much stricter disciplinary measures that it would end up being progressive Democrats controlling, as opposed to being controlled by, those measures.
October 13th, 2009 at 2:30 pm
As Matthew said, the Democratic caucus needn’t be as inflexible or ham-handed as the Republican caucus. The Democratic caucus could decide that various perks (offices, parking spaces, staffing, etc.) should be tied to party loyalty. Sacrificing some perks shouldn’t sway a Senator with truly principled objections, while witholding perks is a reasonable means of enforcing party loyalty. Also, nobody outside the Village is going to tolerate whining about losing out on a corner office.
The caucus should decide the party loyalty votes, which should at least include supporting cloture to end a filibuster against the Democratic President’s agenda. The Majority Leader could have some discretion to determine loyalty votes on other procedural matters, while the entire caucus decides loyalty votes on substantive issues. I am surprised that the junior members of the caucus haven’t been trying to impose more discipline since they are the reason the senior Senators get their chairmanships and high visibility.
In addition, both the caucus and the White House should be rewarding their loyal supporters. In the current environment, the squeaky wheel moderates get the media visibility and the log-rolling, creating an incentive to be contentious. For example, for Obama’s forthcoming trip to Oslo, it should be real obvious that none of the public option holdouts or wobblers get to be part of the “charmed circle” going on the trip !
October 13th, 2009 at 2:36 pm
Republicans do it the right way. The problem is that in the US we vote for individuals, not parties. One should be able to vote for a party with clear platform and predictable position on every issue; all the MPs from the same party vote the same way, no exceptions. This is how it should be.
October 13th, 2009 at 2:41 pm
“Speaking of which, it’s interesting to speculate under which circumstances Senator Snowe might switch parties.”
Any Maine politician would sell their soul to end the awarding of contracts for Ingalls Shipbuilding in Mississippi and transfering the work to Bath Iron Works. BIW is the biggest and best paying employer in Maine. Moreover, closing Ingalls has the added benefit of punishing Mississippi for Trent Lott and voting Republican.
There is a precedent. Nixon closed all the military bases in Massachusetts, including the Springfield Armoury, as punishment for voting for McGovern.
October 13th, 2009 at 2:41 pm
totally imitating the Republicans when it comes to imposing “party discipline”? Not such a good idea.
From a strict bums-on-seats perspective, perhaps not. But, sad truth is that a whipped-like-cream Senate GOP with 55 members in the caucus under Bill Frist pushed through all manner of stuff that is proving hard to undo, while Blanche fucking Lincoln and Ben fucking Nelson will demand just enough corporate giveaways under the mantle of bipartisanship for healthcare reform to die the death of a thousand cuts under a GOP Congress.
The counter-argument is that all the party discipline in the world doesn’t count for shit if someone like Lincoln, who’s potentially headed for defeat, has a cushy corporate number lined up for her post-Senate career.
October 13th, 2009 at 2:41 pm
Except the Republicans have ended up with only 40 votes in the Senate doing things this way.
That’s because the policies they rammed through turned out to be a disaster for the country. Which is as it should be. You win an election, you get to enact your agenda. And then you face the consequences based on that agenda’s success or failure.
October 13th, 2009 at 2:44 pm
Meh, there’s got to be a reason why the Democratic party has been in the majority since 1930 and the Republican party hasn’t. The House’s biggest majority of the 90’s was 20 votes smaller than the majority Dems have now.
Since 1930, we’ve mostly won and they’ve mostly lost. And now their vaunted “discipline” has landed them as a party that is completely trapped representing the interests of a small and declining plurality.
Dems’ problems are far more the result of a screwed up political discourse dominated by short-sighted idiots (and Fox news), as well as a political structure that over-represents rural areas and also has many points of logjam than they are a lack of party discipline.
I simply don’t trust Harry Reid to be a better judge of what Mary Landreiu needs to do to survive politically than Mary Landreiu is. The Republican approach means there are ZERO House members from New England. The Maine Senators only survive because they have been around a million years so their voters know frequently break with their party on major issues.
This is a waste of time. Our energy is much better spent at trying to have fewer Senators from Nebraska than trying to get Ben Nelson to vote right. It’s much better spent trying to convince the people of Nebraska that Republican policies stink than trying to get Ben Nelson to vote the way they don’t want him to.
October 13th, 2009 at 2:45 pm
yes – party before country – that’s why they always call them Communist Russia and Nazi Germany
Well, not to quibble, andy, but it *wasn’t* Communist Russia. It was the Soviet Union (or at best, you could refer to the Russian section as the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic).
In other words, the name of the bloody country was literally the name of the party.
October 13th, 2009 at 2:49 pm
yes Greg – and the official name *wasn’t* Nazi Germany. Your point?
October 13th, 2009 at 2:53 pm
But if Democrats held people accountable, they wouldn’t have anyone to blame when they refused to do what they campaigned to do?
At some point, you guys have to look at the mental gymnastics you exploy to avoid reaching this conclusion feel the weight of the all that BS bearing down on you. Why don’t you just give up and acknowledge that the Democrats aren’t effective because the Democrats don’t want to be effective.
October 13th, 2009 at 2:53 pm
That your point was even stronger than you made it!
October 13th, 2009 at 2:55 pm
Fostert, be honest: you really don’t like liberal solutions and don’t want them enacted. That’s really pretty obvious here, read up the list of people who equate politicial cohesian with nazi-fascism and see if you don’t recognize those names as the same people who hate the public option, hate the idea of bank regulation, and despite the EFCA.
These are BS, scammer arguments made by very conservative Democrats to protect a system that stifles progress.
October 13th, 2009 at 3:00 pm
@Pseudonymous in NC # 24
I am so afraid that you are correct. Legislation with a mandate to purchase and subsidies for low-income folks will pass and in a big spasm of Rightous anger the Republicans will return to power.
The first items on their agenda will be canceling the subsidies, raising the penalties and eviscerating the recission regulations, all in the name of “budgetary balance”.
So we’ll end up with a system completely controlled by the hellth care vultures bound and determined to impoverish the people of the United States. Democrats will next return to power in 2028 when Hispanics take over the government of Texas.
These corporate puppets are so f*&^ing stupid.
October 13th, 2009 at 3:07 pm
Well, I agree with those who wouldn’t want the democrats to be in as an authoritarian lockstep as the Rethugs. Nonetheless, there has to be a middle ground between that and invoking absolutely zero consequences on a senator that refuses to abide by the results of a part primary to run as an independent, actively supports the Rethug presidential candidate and trashes the Democratic candidate, and spends literally years not just opposing party positions but trashing the party specifically in the most high profile manner possible.
October 13th, 2009 at 3:16 pm
But, sad truth is that a whipped-like-cream Senate GOP with 55 members in the caucus under Bill Frist pushed through all manner of stuff that is proving hard to undo.
The status quo is always hard to undo in our system–and they had many failures along those lines themselves (e.g., Social Security reform).
That’s because the policies they rammed through turned out to be a disaster for the country.
Maybe so, but I would suggest that isn’t unrelated to their internal structure. Again, when you have powers like the ones Cheney (through Bush) exercised available, eventually someone like Cheney will arise to grab and then abuse those powers.
October 13th, 2009 at 3:21 pm
I think it’s highly likely that she will eventually switch parties, and likely bring Collins with here. Right now she has more “power” getting concessions playing the Moderate Republican than being one of many Moderate Dems.
Long term going Dem makes sense for her. Baldacci is term limited, and it’s up next year. He will turn 56 the same month that his term expires. He’s been a Congressman, and rather than pick a spot to challenge either Collins or Snowe earlier in the decade, he went for Governor and one it. It seems highly unlikely that at that age he’ll want to toss in the towel on his career, and spending 2011 preparing for a 2012 Senate run when Obama is up ticket would be really tempting. While not as popular in Maine as Snowe is, the state is trending away from the GOP fast. If Snowe sticks with the GOP Caucus in a lot of these votes, she opens herself up to a Dem candidate.
If Snowe jumps parties, extreme pressure will be placed on Baldacci not to primary her. It’s pretty much impossible to see him jumping in against her.
One suspects the *less* popular Collins will follow to close off a 2014 challenge.
The reality is that the current GOP doesn’t really fit Collins and Snowe as well as even ConservaDems, let alone the rest of the Dems. She’ll figure it out.
John
October 13th, 2009 at 3:24 pm
Re “Except the Republicans have ended up with only 40 votes in the Senate doing things this way.”
——————-
Oh, bullshit. The Republicans steal $3 Trillion out of Social Security/Medicare in order to give their Superrich patrons a $2 Trillion tax cut and to give Big Oil the oil deposits of Iraq — at an additional cost of 4500+ American lives.
Even though the US military budget already was close to the COMBINED military budgets of the next 23 major military powers — many of whom are our NATO allies — the Republicans managed to DOUBLE the pork going to Big Defense. And NO ONE suffered the slightest wrist slap for Sept 11.
Next, the Republicans wiped their ass on financial regulation so that their Wall Street patrons could pocket $Trillions — and then forced Obama and the rest of the Democrats into sticking the US taxpayers with the bill.
The end result — some Republicans retire and take high paid sinecures. Others stay in office in the minority — waiting through a two year timeout until they can come back into power. Laughing their ass off at how they manipulated the Democrats into enabling — and hencing sharing the blame for — every fucking evil thing they accomplished in their 12 year reign.
Meanwhile, the cowardly Democrats can’t accomplish SHIT — except making up excuses and rationalizing failure.
Unfortunately for their supporters, the Democrats have gotten pretty good at that.
October 13th, 2009 at 3:25 pm
they had many failures along those lines themselves (e.g., Social Security reform).
I expected you to mention that: Nancy Pelosi, in particular, made it clear to the Dem House caucus that the party’s position was to support Social Security as it stood, instead of being goaded into proposing an alternative plan that could then be whittled and Blue-Dogged away. Which sort of proves the point about discipline.
I simply don’t trust Harry Reid to be a better judge of what Mary Landreiu needs to do to survive politically than Mary Landreiu is.
The survival of Mary Landrieu is barely an end in itself other than providing a vote for the Majority Leader at the start of the term, if she votes with the GOP on most of the issues that count. Your point holds if Mary Landrieu considers the point of her being in the Senate is to be in the Senate, but otherwise, she is an empty vessel.
October 13th, 2009 at 3:30 pm
From a strict bums-on-seats perspective, perhaps not. But, sad truth is that a whipped-like-cream Senate GOP with 55 members in the caucus under Bill Frist pushed through all manner of stuff that is proving hard to undo, while Blanche fucking Lincoln and Ben fucking Nelson will demand just enough corporate giveaways under the mantle of bipartisanship for healthcare reform to die the death of a thousand cuts under a GOP Congress.
Bullshit. You’re full of it. Frist was Majority Leader from January 7, 2003 – January 3, 2007. What did they do of lasting value?
Afghanistan? Iraq? They only happened because of the special post-9/11 political environment of fear. Only disengenuous fucks would deny that.
Huge increase in government via the prescription drugs benefit? Not exactly conservative and basically a bribe to the elderly voting bloc. Didn’t work though, just alienated the base.
Tax cuts. They sunset. Anything else? Nope.
And health care reform? Looks like they might get something decent. Snowe voting yes means Nelson is no longer the deal maker. There might even be a public option, which the cynics said would never happen.
October 13th, 2009 at 3:45 pm
HAHaha! As if the Senate Dems want to pass anything. They just want excuses. Sure, they say they want to pass progressive stuff, because how else could they run against Republicans. But no one bribes them to pass progressive stuff – the bribes they get are for not passing progressive stuff or for protecting corporate profits and passing tax breaks for the rich. So if the Senate Dems have 47 votes, they need 51, and if they have 57 votes, they need 60. If they had 100 votes they’d still find an excuse for voting the way their corporate sponsors pay them to vote.
October 13th, 2009 at 3:48 pm
Bullshit. You’re full of it. Frist was Majority Leader from January 7, 2003 – January 3, 2007. What did they do of lasting value?
I would say that the class action “reform” and the bankruptcy “reform” acts both passed by the 109th Congress under GOP control were both acts of far-reaching and lasting consequences.
Don’t forget there’s an awful lot of corporate related stuff that gets passed by the Republicans that never really make the public radar when the media is more focussed on hot-button social issues. Wonder why that is…
oh – and also, don’t forget that Trent Lott was Senate Majority Leader through June of 2001
October 13th, 2009 at 4:02 pm
The Democrats should do whatever gets their agenda passed. Period.
October 13th, 2009 at 4:08 pm
The Senate Democrats have more freedom to vote their concience and in line with his/her constituency’s wishes – and you say that’s bad? Hell with that. The Republican steamroller approach brough out the worst aspects of conservatism – bad policies and a poisonous atmosphere. The Democrat approach has resulted in moderation and (who’d have thunk it) bipartisanship.
Republicans controlled the house and senate for 12 years and have basically nothing to show for it. They impeached Bill Clinton, passed some tax cuts and ran up the highest deficits in US history. That’s not an example of ‘doing it the right way.’
And for the record, this is not a liberal group of Democrats. They’re mostly moderate to conservative with a few liberals. How does that equal a liberal agenda and what right do liberals have to think this is ‘their’ congress?
October 13th, 2009 at 4:38 pm
Everybody has missed the point entirely.
Snowe being the top Republican in Commerce is exactly the same as Baucus being the top Dem in Finance.
Your committee heads need to be in the mainstream of the party. Otherwise, it fucks stuff up.
October 13th, 2009 at 4:47 pm
it’s interesting to speculate under which circumstances Senator Snowe might switch parties.
Speculating along those lines quickly leads you to realize why President Obama is supporting Alan Specter’s re-election, even though Specter is much less supportive of Obama’s agenda than Joe Sestak would be.
October 13th, 2009 at 4:58 pm
Look, the Dems piss me off as much as anybody, but I think you ignore an important point. The Republicans represent maybe 1% of the country — corporate interests & enormous wealth. The Dems represent actual people, and these actual people have different needs, different cultures, etc, and sometimes this leads to non-unified voting. Frankly, I’m glad the Dems don’t blindly vote in lockstep all the time; I think it’s bad for the country.
The real prob here isn’t the Dems, it’s that the Republicans don’t give a flying f*ck about governance and are willing to obstruct anything and everything, making every single Dem vote a necessity.
(btw: by this time next year, Snowe will be a Dem.)
October 13th, 2009 at 5:05 pm
Of course, what’s overlooked is that, when the GOP punishes a member for intrangisence, no one ever talks about it. However, when the Democrats do it, like even thinking about punishing joe LIEberman for backing Mccain, it’s portrayed as a travesty and catastrophe.
October 13th, 2009 at 5:08 pm
Re Poptarts at 38: “Afghanistan? Iraq? They only happened because of the special post-9/11 political environment of fear. Only disengenuous fucks would deny that.”
—————
Well, I am one of those fucks. I think Democrats supported the invasion of Iraq because an Israeli billionaire named Haim Saban dumped $15 fucking MILLION dollars into the Democratic Party in 2000-2002 and his hired buttboys at Brookings “Saban Center for Middle East Policy” — Kenneth Pollack and Marty Indyk — made it pretty clear what Haim wanted. As did Bibi Nathanyahu when Joe Lieberman invited Bibi to address the US Congress.
I think that is also why NO A SINGLE FUCKING DEMOCRAT spoke up and objected when George W Bush lied to the country and said the Sept 11 attack occurred because the Islamofasicsts “hate our freedoms”. Everybody knew why the fuck Bin Laden attacked us — he had warned US TV networks several times in 1998. One of his three reasons was US support for the Israeli extermination of the Palestinians.
Democrats who spoke up against the war — like Howard Dean and Cynthia McKinney — were knifed in the back by Israel Lobby billionaire S Daniel Abraham and AIPAC respectively.
And the Democratic Caucus did NOTHING.
We have 7500+ Americans dead — and thousands more crippled for life — because the Democratic Caucus wanted to suck the cock of the Israel Lobby for money. It’s that fucking simple. To imagine that those same people won’t fuck us on Healthcare reform is stupid.
October 13th, 2009 at 5:15 pm
All we hear about now is the awesome power of the filibuster. Where the fuck was that when Bush was handing out $2 Trillion to the rich in 2001 — and telling Congress to declare war on Iraq in 2002?
October 13th, 2009 at 5:57 pm
Actually, the filibuster was the reason the 2001 tax cuts had to be passed through reconciliation. I think it passed with 58 votes.
The Iraq war passed with 77 votes. More Democrats voted for it than against it.
October 13th, 2009 at 6:20 pm
Your committee heads need to be in the mainstream of the party. Otherwise, it fucks stuff up.
Yes, this is what I was thinking, but I don’t know much about how the committee chairpersons are selected? Do the caucus members vote on the Majority Leader and then Dear Leader and the steering committee decide who gets what? Is it based on seniority? I would think the best way to enforce discipline would be to have the caucus vote on the chairmanships every two years.
All I’ve been able to gather over the last year is that it doesn’t matter if Democrats have a super majority and it doesn’t matter if we elect more progressives to the House and Senate because the committee chairs control the agenda and the Democratic committee chairs are conservatives. Also it doesn’t matter if we elect a progressive President because he can’t get anything passed without the conservative committee chairs agreeing to allow the progressive legislation out of committee. So the point is don’t give money, don’t volunteer, don’t vote, because it doesn’t matter, anyway. We’ll still get conservative governance.
And the reason Dems voted for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan was because it offered an opportunity for nation building which is the basic ingredient to Democratic foreign policy.
October 13th, 2009 at 7:41 pm
Actually, many, if not most, of the committee chairs in the House and Senate are relative liberals, especially for the health care-relevant committees. We have liberals Charlie Rangel, George Miller and Henry Waxman in the House, and Ted Kennedy, Chris Dodd and Tom Harkin in the Senate. Max Baucus (and Kent Conrad, at Budget) are the exceptions.
If Baucus wasn’t chairman, the next Democrat in line for the Finance chairmanship is Jay Rockefeller, of robust public option fame. Imagine how different this whole process would’ve been if it were Rockefeller in charge instead of Baucus.
We do really need competitive elections for chairmanships. If we did Joe Lieberman would have lost his, and Max Baucus may very well have too.
October 13th, 2009 at 9:15 pm
We have liberals Charlie Rangel, George Miller and Henry Waxman in the House, and Ted Kennedy, Chris Dodd and Tom Harkin in the Senate.
I don’t really agree. It seems to me like Dodd is willing to sell out on banking and Harkin sells out to agribusiness and DiFi sells out to defense/intelligence, and Rockefeller sells out to coal, and Kennedy is dead. Lieberman, Landrieu, Dorgan, Conrad, and Baucus were 5 of the Top 7 most conservative Democrats as ranked by 2007 National Journal. The only committee chairmen in the top 10 most liberal Democrats were Leahy (7) and Boxer (8).
October 13th, 2009 at 9:20 pm
Which sort of proves the point about discipline.
I’d suggest it proves that a disciplined minority can protect the status quo against a disciplined majority unless the majority is really big. So I think that actually gets right back to the primacy of the size of your working coalition if you want to change the status quo in significant ways. Speaking of which . . .
The survival of Mary Landrieu is barely an end in itself other than providing a vote for the Majority Leader at the start of the term, if she votes with the GOP on most of the issues that count.
Landrieu currently has a 58% “crucial votes” score from Progressive Punch for this term. The highest Republican is Collins at 28%, but more relevant is someone from an equivalent state . . . and in this case we can just use Vitter, at 2%. So Landrieu, however frustrating she may be to progressives, is undoubtedly much more helpful on crucial votes than a Republican replacement would be.
So the real key to moving the Senate in a more progressive direction is not to try to change the behavior of the likes of Landrieu. The real key is to swap even more Democrats for Republicans, particularly in more progressive states. Again, I know that it is frustrating for progressives that they have yet to win enough elections to simply impose their will on Congress, but that is the real upshot.
October 13th, 2009 at 9:20 pm
One day this week, a parka will show up at the Senate with a fish wrapped inside it. Staff will be puzzled. What’s this?
-Olympia Snowe sleeps with the fishes.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hkTQdEZbjQA
October 13th, 2009 at 10:25 pm
So the real key to moving the Senate in a more progressive direction is not to try to change the behavior of the likes of Landrieu. The real key is to swap even more Democrats for Republicans, particularly in more progressive states.
This logic is false. You can increase the number of progressives all you want but if no legislation comes out of Landrieu’s committee, they have nothing to vote on. The key is to get Landrieu out of the chairmanship and a progressive into it. On what basis does Landrieu deserve a chairmanship if she only votes with us slightly more than 50% of the time?
October 14th, 2009 at 1:53 am
Republicans are smelling the money that’s coming. Forget this chickenscratch that’s been floating around the system. But money. Real money. They are tightening up their game in anticipation.
How much does it cost to buy a Senator’s health care vote right now? $1 million? $1.5 million? The cost of two or three prime time commercials. NOTHING. But let’s say you want to drill 3 miles off the coast of Myrtle Beach. That’s a tough one, right? No way that gets through. But what if you could give 51 Senators $100 million each? For $5 billion you get leasing rights to drill up and down the Eastern Seaboard. Hell, for that kind of money they’ll likely throw in a bonus -let you drill in the East River between the Manhattan and Brooklyn Bridges.
The Republicans aren’t stupid and neither is the rest of the world. Countries and corporations are lining up to strip this country clean, and the future US government, run by Republicans and Blue Dogs types -who will represent the far, far left- will be the enablers. When the money begins to enter the system, and remember we talking about tens and tens of billions every year, the United States will cease to exist within two years, or, ONE ELECTION CYCLE. That’s how close we are.
October 14th, 2009 at 2:22 am
Total campaign spending in 2008, for the House, the Senate, and for the Presidency, totaled about $3 billion. THREE BILLION MEASLY DOLLARS!
China owns $2.5 trillion of American paper assets -assets just sitting around looking for something tangible to invest in. And low and behold, China will soon be able to buy the entire American political system, cheap, and LEGAL! I mean how much would it cost, Matt, to buy it all. $200 billion. $500 billion? $1 trillion? China can afford it, can’t they?
Rule #1: Never underestimate the value of a massive surplus. It always comes in handy.
We know China has been following the health care debate very closely. But I guarantee you they are following the Supreme Court docket 50,000 times more closely. So is everybody else. Why aren’t you?
October 14th, 2009 at 7:46 am
You can increase the number of progressives all you want but if no legislation comes out of Landrieu’s committee, they have nothing to vote on.
As an aside, a far as I know the only full committee Landrieu chairs is the Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship, which only has mandatory jurisdiction over matters involving the Small Business Administration.
But anyway, if progressives want to change the Democrats’ committee assignment system, then the same sort of logic holds: to do that you need to elect at least a majority in the Democratic caucus that is willing to vote to do that (although you might get help on that issue from junior and ambitious Senators of any ideological persuasion).
On what basis does Landrieu deserve a chairmanship if she only votes with us slightly more than 50% of the time?
There has to be some reward for red-state Senators like Landrieu to vote with you 58% of the time, or else they will become Republicans and vote with you only 2% of the time. I’d agree that in the current political context, that reward need not be the chair of a major committee, but something like the chair of the Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship actually seems about right to me.
October 14th, 2009 at 3:55 pm
Enforcement party unity wasn’t what caused the downfall of the GOP…it was enforcing party unity in service of disastrous policies that ultimately destroyed them.
I think the Dems shouldn’t enforce blanket party unity—it requires too much energy. Like, don’t enforce on procedural shit and whatnot. But on the key issues of American liberalism (ie, public option, health care) you should at least be able to force 60 votes for cloture. Not even the bill, but cloture. That’s got to be the bare minimum. Otherwise, what the fuck do we even have 60 votes for??
October 14th, 2009 at 11:38 pm
There has to be some reward for red-state Senators like Landrieu to vote with you 58% of the time, or else they will become Republicans and vote with you only 2% of the time.
I’m sure this thread is dead, but this is again faulty logic. Why reward the people least likely to be loyal? And why reward them before they cast any important votes? I think we can agree that the Dems are not about to start rescinding the committee chairs short of jail time. So why give Landrieu a chair and give away all your leverage over her? She needs to work for her supper. If she votes for a critical bill, she gets some campaign funding or some pork projects to take home. If she won’t vote on the critical bills, she might as well be a Republican. Nobody needs help with the easy ones.
Once she has the chair, she has the lobbyists to give her campaign donations and a power base from which to direct public funds to her state. She can vote her own way and the Party be damned.