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Who's Zoomin' Who On This Myth of the 60 Vote Threshold?
From where comes all this obsession about the supposed 60 votes needed to pass health care reform that includes the public option? What am I missing here?
We are told by nearly everyone in the Dem Leadership that they prefer the public option be included in this legislation. Everybody likes the public option, right? When is the last time you heard a credible argument against it? (Sorry! The Insurance Industry's argument that "I won't be able to compete with the public option." is nothing more than the vampire campaigning against crucifixes.) Seriously. Take a step back and ask yourself if you've heard anyone in the leadership actually criticize the public option or suggest that it is bad policy?
No?
Me neither. In fact the polls show that a majority of the electorate wants it. Certainly, the Dem base wants it. And now Pelosi has shown that the most aggressive public option is the most fiscally responsible plan as scored by the CBO.
Even ol' MAXimum Dollar "Bought-and Paid 4" Baucus had the temerity throughout the kabuki dance that was his Finance Committee Negotiations/Fundraiser to insist he was for the public option. It's just that poor ol' MAX "The Buck Stops In My Campaign Account" Baucus couldn't include it in his bill because, as he said, "I can count, and we'll never get the 60 votes needed to pass this with a public option."
There's that pesky 60 votes thing again. But at least we can acknowledge there is consensus within the Dem Party to support the public option. That and a visit from the right lobbyist should at least gain you a round of golf, right?
Again, what am I missing? I know that 51 votes are needed in the Senate to pass legislation. I also know that 60 votes are required for a procedural vote of cloture on a filibuster. The Republican Caucus is threatening to filibuster the Health Care Reform Bill. It will therefore take 60 votes to achieve cloture if the GOP decides to filibuster. I understand this, but what's the big deal?
The Dem Caucus has 60 votes. This therefore really becomes a matter of party discipline, nothing more. I mean, is this whole 60 vote issue predicated on a concern that a member of the Dem Caucus would actually vote against his Caucus to sustain a Republican filibuster in the Senate? Is this possible? Has this been done before on anything as monumental as this Health Care Reform Act?
Inasmuch as there are Dem Senators who might feel compelled to vote against HCR, it is Reid's job - along with Senate Whip Durbin - to determine who would be offered a "pass" to vote against the bill when it is presented in the Senate. But are we suggesting that Reid will allow a Dem Senator to cast a procedural vote to sustain a GOP filibuster against the Dem Leadership on one of the most momentous bills of this generation? Are we nuts? If Reid allows himself to be held hostage by ANY member OF HIS OWN PARTY on a PROCEDURAL VOTE against cloture, he has no business being in leadership. Period.
As for Lieberman, that is a case that should be handled by Obama/Emanuel. In this case I think Emanuel could be ruthless to good effect, and Lieberman definitely owes Obama the loyalty inherent in voting for cloture, regardless of what his ultimate vote on the bill might be. Failing that, Lieberman needs to be dealt with harshly - and he needs to know beforehand in no uncertain terms just how harsh the consequences will be if he tries to cut the rug out from under Obama and the Dems. (Move his offices into a local mosque? Maybe get a black jet idling on the runway at Dulles with enough fuel to make Damascus by morning and ask "Weeping Joe" if he really wants to punch that filibuster ticket to ride?)
Imagine a junior Dem Senator from, say, Nebraska telling Lyndon Johnson at any point in his negotiations that "I will be joining with the Republicans to filibuster your Civil Rights Act." Yeah, right.
Now imagine a Senator challenging Obama/Emanuel/Reid in this way. If that is what we are concerned about here, then the whole exercise of trying to govern is pointless. We elected Dems to lead and to pass a health care reform plan. If we are to instead be held hostage by threats issued by DEMOCRATS, then God Help Us All!
We are told by nearly everyone in the Dem Leadership that they prefer the public option be included in this legislation. Everybody likes the public option, right? When is the last time you heard a credible argument against it? (Sorry! The Insurance Industry's argument that "I won't be able to compete with the public option." is nothing more than the vampire campaigning against crucifixes.) Seriously. Take a step back and ask yourself if you've heard anyone in the leadership actually criticize the public option or suggest that it is bad policy?
No?
Me neither. In fact the polls show that a majority of the electorate wants it. Certainly, the Dem base wants it. And now Pelosi has shown that the most aggressive public option is the most fiscally responsible plan as scored by the CBO.
Even ol' MAXimum Dollar "Bought-and Paid 4" Baucus had the temerity throughout the kabuki dance that was his Finance Committee Negotiations/Fundraiser to insist he was for the public option. It's just that poor ol' MAX "The Buck Stops In My Campaign Account" Baucus couldn't include it in his bill because, as he said, "I can count, and we'll never get the 60 votes needed to pass this with a public option."
There's that pesky 60 votes thing again. But at least we can acknowledge there is consensus within the Dem Party to support the public option. That and a visit from the right lobbyist should at least gain you a round of golf, right?
Again, what am I missing? I know that 51 votes are needed in the Senate to pass legislation. I also know that 60 votes are required for a procedural vote of cloture on a filibuster. The Republican Caucus is threatening to filibuster the Health Care Reform Bill. It will therefore take 60 votes to achieve cloture if the GOP decides to filibuster. I understand this, but what's the big deal?
The Dem Caucus has 60 votes. This therefore really becomes a matter of party discipline, nothing more. I mean, is this whole 60 vote issue predicated on a concern that a member of the Dem Caucus would actually vote against his Caucus to sustain a Republican filibuster in the Senate? Is this possible? Has this been done before on anything as monumental as this Health Care Reform Act?
Inasmuch as there are Dem Senators who might feel compelled to vote against HCR, it is Reid's job - along with Senate Whip Durbin - to determine who would be offered a "pass" to vote against the bill when it is presented in the Senate. But are we suggesting that Reid will allow a Dem Senator to cast a procedural vote to sustain a GOP filibuster against the Dem Leadership on one of the most momentous bills of this generation? Are we nuts? If Reid allows himself to be held hostage by ANY member OF HIS OWN PARTY on a PROCEDURAL VOTE against cloture, he has no business being in leadership. Period.
As for Lieberman, that is a case that should be handled by Obama/Emanuel. In this case I think Emanuel could be ruthless to good effect, and Lieberman definitely owes Obama the loyalty inherent in voting for cloture, regardless of what his ultimate vote on the bill might be. Failing that, Lieberman needs to be dealt with harshly - and he needs to know beforehand in no uncertain terms just how harsh the consequences will be if he tries to cut the rug out from under Obama and the Dems. (Move his offices into a local mosque? Maybe get a black jet idling on the runway at Dulles with enough fuel to make Damascus by morning and ask "Weeping Joe" if he really wants to punch that filibuster ticket to ride?)
Imagine a junior Dem Senator from, say, Nebraska telling Lyndon Johnson at any point in his negotiations that "I will be joining with the Republicans to filibuster your Civil Rights Act." Yeah, right.
Now imagine a Senator challenging Obama/Emanuel/Reid in this way. If that is what we are concerned about here, then the whole exercise of trying to govern is pointless. We elected Dems to lead and to pass a health care reform plan. If we are to instead be held hostage by threats issued by DEMOCRATS, then God Help Us All!
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You've got to get past fillibuster levels. No real way around it. Then after some bill is passed in both houses, then you can use reconciliation.
October 21, 2009 10:57 AM | Reply | Permalink
Dems voting to uphold a Republican filibuster against their own leadership? Has this happened before? To LBJ when he ran the Senate? To Dirksen? McConnell?
Is there no caucus discipline at all?
October 21, 2009 11:09 AM | Reply | Permalink
And that's exactly what it is about. Get the 60 to force the vote. The bill can then pass 51-49, or 51-50 with Biden casting the deciding vote if necessary.
Though I have a somewhat different take on Reid. I wonder, given how he seems to be on differing corners of most issues in succeeding interviews, whether "the trouble with" Harry (in this case) is that he's getting a bit senile. It's a change that comes on gradually, and is inconsistent at first.
October 21, 2009 12:11 PM | Reply | Permalink
When has Lieberman been worth a shit? The guy is compost on the hoof.
October 22, 2009 8:00 AM | Reply | Permalink
They need to yank the chair of the DHS committees from him. Same from any other "Dem" (real or perceived) that has a Chair or seniority on a committee. Boot them all to the worst committees where they can all become the low rank butt wipers they are worthy of.
This is supposedly the one kind of vote people like Lieberman were kept around for. If they vote against it they are useless to us.
October 22, 2009 9:29 AM | Reply | Permalink
Just have a talk with Senators Landrieu, Conrad, Nelson, and Liebermand. They don't support a public option... are making all kinds of excuses for their positions and none of them will commit to supporting cloture.
October 21, 2009 12:39 PM | Reply | Permalink
I say let a filibuster happen! It forces the politicians to show where they stand and the public is NOT too stupid to understand this.
October 21, 2009 12:50 PM | Reply | Permalink
I say let them actually filibuster. Let's bring the actual tradition back. Force everybody down to the floor and listen to a republican drown on about the evils of the public option. I want to see it on CSPAN.
October 21, 2009 12:55 PM | Reply | Permalink
Yes, if they want to filibuster, make them work for it. Mailing it in is BS. make them hold the floor until their faces turn blue.
October 22, 2009 2:09 AM | Reply | Permalink
That whole force them to keep the floor thing is a movie myth and has been since the seventies at least. When they've done it since then, it's been performance art, not a necessity under the rules.
October 22, 2009 9:39 AM | Reply | Permalink
I'd kind of like to see them filibuster too. Then Al Franken and Tina Fey could go on TV every day with a little quote from the previous day's filibuster and show how it demonstrates that the Rebublican Party cares more about their big business handlers than they do about their Republican voters' health and pocketbooks.
At some point progressives need to make a serious effort to talk with people who vote Republican against their own interests, and this might be the time.
October 21, 2009 2:15 PM | Reply | Permalink
Well, now that Nancy has finally unfurled her whip, we may get to see how this plays out.
October 21, 2009 2:38 PM | Reply | Permalink
The vote for cloture on a filibuster is a PROCEDURAL vote. It is a vote to undermine the Leadership's authority to set the agenda and, quite basically, manage the Senate as a leader. It is therefore a pretty extreme position to be in to be threatening your own party's leadership that you are going to stand in their way ON PROCEDURE to undermine their authority and the caucus' legislative agenda.
I knew the (threat of) filibuster has become a too widely used tool of late. But I somehow gotta' believe this willingness to support a filibuster against your own leadership is a rather new development.
I mean, really... I cannot hardly imagine this happening to LBJ - either as President or as Senate Leader. The consequences for such a decision to undermine LBJ on a procedural vote by any DEM Senator would have been nearly too terrible to consider. And that's how it should be. If they are opposed to the bill, let them express it in the up and down voting. But let's draw a line here someplace that says the caucus elects its leadership, and the leadership has the authority to perform their job without concern of procedural battles erupting within their own caucus.
I still think there is something extraordinary going on here - that, suddenly, the 60 vote majority is simply being installed by the media and other vendors of "Common Wisdoms" in Washington as the new benchmark required to get anything done. I would love to see some good analysis of this, cause it sure looks like a dire threat to anything progressive just by definition.
October 21, 2009 2:45 PM | Reply | Permalink
Well remember this. Some Senators are being plied with huge amounts of money here and I would guess that it is growing more significant now that the pressure is on.
October 21, 2009 3:33 PM | Reply | Permalink
We have written about this for the last eight months. No Dem is going to vote procedurally with the repubs. He might hide out in his state for awhile and miss a vote.
Of course that would have the same full force and effect.
At any rate I think this is an MSM thing. I mean signals are sent to the idiots who deliver the news to us.
I think 'it' is being used as a front, an excuse.
But Sleepin the final vote in the House will have public option. The issue is what comes down in the Senate and what happens when the two congressional bills go to committee for 'transformation'. Then a vote on the Senate floor is 51 votes for passage. Hell 50 plus Uncle Joe's.
It aint over.
October 21, 2009 3:08 PM | Reply | Permalink
If the consevadems vote with a filibuster they can expect opposition to their re-election bids, especially if they want money in the form of donations from Unions and other progressive organizations. Only 51 votes are needed to pass the bill. They'd better get with the program.
rec'd of course.
October 21, 2009 4:58 PM | Reply | Permalink
These guys are from purple places, and unfortunately that means that the campaign contributions shade quite a bit redder, or they wouldn't be doing this. Until you get corporate money out of campaigns, this won't ever stop.
October 22, 2009 8:04 AM | Reply | Permalink
Landrieu and Ben Nelson would rather have a dose of the clap than contributions from unions and liberal activists or even Obama. Every such contribution would be a bullet in a belt-fed machine gun of negative ads from the Republicans.
Lieberman's wife is in a flack for the helth care industry and he won with Republican votes last time.
October 22, 2009 10:46 AM | Reply | Permalink
Amen to that.
I've been wondering myself why the Dems (and perhaps even one or two Republicans) wouldn't at least vote to break a filibuster - even if opposed to the legislation at issue. Whether or not a particular Senator is in favor of a particular piece of legislation is not the same as whether that Senator would support a filibuster - by the opposing party nonetheless - opposing that legislation. What am I missing here?
Either that, or I say, let em filibuster. I'd really like to see Hatch, Cornyn, Ensign, etc. standing up and reading the phone book while Americans wait for healthcare.
October 21, 2009 7:07 PM | Reply | Permalink
See I agree with you on both counts; both alternatives are fine with me.
October 22, 2009 3:18 AM | Reply | Permalink
SJ
I am under the expression that the DEM fence sitters are just posturing for power; nothing else.
I say let their vote be the ones against health reform which tightens the noose around their political future
M. Paul
October 21, 2009 8:26 PM | Reply | Permalink
Yea that will show them.... we get no health care reform and a retarded Dem gets replace by a batshit crazy republican.
October 22, 2009 2:23 AM | Reply | Permalink
Well, jeez, the threat is always about running and supporting someone else in a Primary, not just voting for a Republican opponent.
October 22, 2009 9:12 AM | Reply | Permalink
I've tried for half an hour to find a link about this, but somewhere I read a long piece that said that even Reid can't require an acatual talking endless-debate-on-the-floor filibuster, and that really had only happened very rarely in history. The upshot was that only one Senator had to show up to kick in some procedural blocking, and it could on for days.
This morning all I can find says Reid is entitled to require a full-blown stalling debate, i.e., 'going to the cots.'
Gads, I almost think I read the explanation at TPM.
October 22, 2009 9:11 AM | Reply | Permalink