Matt Yglesias

Reid Tells Max Baucus to Hurry Up

Harry Reid's getting impatient (official photo)

Senator Max Baucus (D-MT) has been searching far and wide for some Republican support for a health reform initiative. That’s involved big-picture structural ideas like dropping a public option from the bill, and also small stuff like throwing reproductive rights under the bus. That would be frustrating if it was working, but at least if it was working you could say it was working. But thus far, there are no Republicans singing Baucus’ praises. And Senator Chuck Grassley (R-IA) with whom Baucus typically prefers to work has said things like “I take pride with being an obstructionist” in terms of killing a public option while offering no constructive ideas.

And now Roll Call reports that Harry Reid (D-NV) is telling Baucus to wrap it up:

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) on Tuesday strongly urged Finance Chairman Max Baucus (D-Mont.) to drop a proposal to tax health benefits and stop chasing Republican votes on a massive health care reform bill. [...] According to Democratic sources, Reid told Baucus that taxing health benefits and failing to include a strong government-run insurance option of some sort in his bill would cost 10 to 15 Democratic votes; Reid told Baucus it wasn’t worth securing the support of Grassley and at best a few additional Republicans.

This strikes me as a major vindication of Chris Bowers’ “progressive block” theory. By building a critical mass of progressive legislators who are prepared to walk away from a deal that doesn’t include a public option, the leadership either needs to find a big block of Republican support for a more moderate measure, or else include the public option.

Harry Reid’s Not Into Twisting Arms

Via Brad Plumer, Harry Reid lays out his approach to leadership:

Reid says he expects the tactic of gentle persuasion to work best, given the size of his Senate Democratic flock and the political divergences within it. “I don’t dictate how people vote,” he said in an interview this month. “If it’s an important vote, I try to tell them how important it is to the Senate, the country, the president … But I’m not very good at twisting arms. I try to be more verbal and non-threatening. So there are going to be—I’m sure—a number of opportunities for people who have different opinions not to vote the way that I think they should. But that’s the way it is. I hold no grudges.”

I’m not sure I would say this philosophy has been bearing a ton of fruit.

Pelosi & Reid Commit to Immigration Reform

Harry Reid (D-NV)

An item in yesterday’s Congress Daily said that Nancy Pelosi “told the Asian American and Pacific Islander Summit this morning that Congress would tackle immigration reform after finishing with health care and energy.” CD opined that “it seems unlikely that Congress could work through all three mega-issues this year” but Pelosi didn’t say that. Harry Reid, meanwhile, explicitly said he thought immigration could be done this year:

“As far as I’m concerned, we have three major issues we have to do this year, if at all possible: No. 1 is healthcare; No 2 is energy, global warming; No. 3 is immigration reform,” Reid said. “It’s going to happen this session, but I want it this year, if at all possible.”

Obviously, this still may not happen. But it’s good to hear. In the immediate wake of the Sonia Sotomayor announcement, you sometimes heard that now that we’re getting a Latina justice, there’s no need to do immigration reform. The reality, however, is that the presence of huge numbers of undocumented immigrants in the United States is a very real problem that needs to be confronted. Efforts to make any other kind of social policy—be it health care, higher education, labor law reform, whatever—wind up being complicated by the problem. You could try to solve the problem in an impractical and inhumane manner by deporting everyone, or you can try to find a practical way of getting law-abiding people paying taxes on put on a path to citizenship. Just trying to ignore the issue isn’t going to viable.

Obstruction of Well-Qualified Obama Nominees Succeeding

Dawn Johnson has all the relevant qualifications for a job at the Department of Justice. And she’s been nominated for such a position. And she has the support of a majority of the Senators on the Judiciary Committee. And she has the support of a majority of members of the United States Senate. Naturally, that means she can’t be confirmed:

As Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) moves to ease a backlog of executive branch nominations, he suggested on Tuesday that he does not have the votes to bring up President Barack Obama’s pick to run the Department of Justice’s Office of Legal Counsel.

Joining the GOP in opposition are Ben Nelson (D-NE) and Arlen Specter (D-PA). The main objection to Johnson is that she’s pro-choice. Which is strange since of course Barack Obama is pro-choice as are the vast majority of his appointees. Indeed, even Senator Specter is pro-choice. He was even pro-choice when he was a Republican! And note the total lack of outrage in Reid’s comments. The lack of piss and vinegar. Just a kind of slinking resignation. After all, why should well-qualified nominees with majority support be confirmed? This is the world’s greatest deliberative body!

And then there’s the case of David Hayes:

The Senate Democratic leadership is preparing to lose a vote Wednesday morning on the confirmation of David Hayes as Deputy Secretary of Interior. If that happens, it would be the first time Congress votes to reject one of President Obama’s nominees. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s spokesman Jim Manley tells CNN that Democrats believe Republicans will vote in lockstep to block Hayes’ nomination, and therefore, it will fail.

Republican objections to Hayes appear to have little to do with him or his qualifications, and more to do with an Obama administration policy. Specifically, Utah Republican Robert Bennett has been leading his party’s opposition to Hayes because of an Obama decision to cancel oil and gas leases in Utah.

“This is not about Hayes,” Bennett spokeswoman Tara Hendershott tells CNN.

I think it’s pretty obvious that the trends over the past 5-10 years are pointing in the direction of constant filibustering leading to the total paralysis of the American government. There was never an intention of creating a standing 60 vote supermajority rule in the Senate, and for the vast majority of American history filibustering was a routine measure rather than an everyday thing. Now that it’s become routine, the situation is untenable and it’s urgent to start looking for a path to shifting to majority rule. That would presumably involve some kind of staggered phase-in or something to mitigate charges of opportunism. Or it could be done opportunistically. Either way, the sooner the better.