I really think Senate Democrats should consider taking advantage of their critical numerical advantage in terms of Jewish Senators and just hold a “no Christians invited” special Christmas Day session. In the all-Jewish Senate, Chuck Schumer is the median member. Joe Lieberman, the most conservative Jewish Senator, is the median in the real Senate.
Ezra Klein relates that an array of left-leaning interest groups have signed onto a letter spelling out an eight point description of what the Senate should be doing on the first day of the next Congress:
- On the first legislative day of a new Congress, the Senate may, by majority vote, end a filibuster on a rules change and adopt new rules.
- There should only be one opportunity to filibuster any given measure or nomination, so motions to proceed and motions to refer to conference should not be subject to filibuster.
- Secret “holds” should be eliminated.
- The amount of delay time after cloture is invoked on a bill should be reduced.
- There should be no post-cloture debate on nominations.
- Instead of requiring that those seeking to break a filibuster muster a specified number of votes, the burden should be shifted to require those filibustering to produce a specified number of votes to continue the filibuster.
- Those waging a filibuster should be required to continuously hold the floor and debate.
- Once all Senators have had a reasonable opportunity to express their views, every measure or nomination should be brought to a yes or no vote in a timely manner.
I’d only say that the amount of delay on a cloture motion should be reduced all the way to zero: you fail to produce people on the floor 24/7 then regular order begins immediately; no waiting, no marinating, no anything. Put up or shut up. Same goes for “reasonable opportunity” in point eight. Spell that out and ratchet up the required population of Senators needed to uphold the filibuster; cap it with a very brief interregnum between filibuster-broken and vote-held: as in less than one legislative day. Otherwise, I agree completely.
Perhaps the involvement of these non-dirty-fucking-hippy interest groups combined with the letter from the opposition (in which the GOP duly promised to filibuster everything forever; and if you think they’ll stop once the millionaire tax giveaway is sealed, you really are out there on drugs) will in some way nudge the feckless idiots that run the Senate into doing something. I doubt it, but stranger things have happened.
Paul Starr of the American Prospect provides a way to lose the mandate and but also not destroy the private insurance system:
The law could give people a right to opt out of the mandate if they signed a form agreeing that they could not opt in for the following five years. In other words, instead of paying a fine, they would forgo a potential benefit. For five years they would become ineligible for federal subsidies for health insurance and, if they did buy coverage, no insurer would have to cover a pre-existing condition of theirs.
Fine by me. However, I can state categorically that the GOP will be against this, against the mandate (originally their idea anyway), and thus are implicitly for the destruction of the current insurance-based system and its inevitable replacement with single payer. But let’s not talk about that. Shrill.
Mike Lee, (likely: R, Utah): Our current debt is a little shy of $14 trillion. And I don’t want it to increase 1 cent above the current debt limit and I will vote against that. [A Government shutdown is] an inconvenience, it would be frustrating to many, many people and it’s not a great thing, and yet at the same time, it’s not something that we can rule out. It may be absolutely necessary.
Alex Seitz-Wald (ThinkProgress): [Disgraced] Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich’s government shutdown in 1995 was disastrous; it ended up costing taxpayers over $800 million in losses for salaries paid to furloughed employees, delayed access to Medicare and Social Security, and caused a ‘[m]ajor curtailment in services,’ including health services, to veterans.
Eric Cantor (R, VA, Minority Whip): No. I don’t think the country needs or wants a shutdown. [We in the GOP] have to be careful [pursuing our agenda such that we’re not] seen as a bunch of yahoos.”
Lemkin: I wouldn’t worry about that, Cantor; that hasn’t cost you a thing yet and presupposes a MSM that, you know, gives a shit about objective reality. Mark it: government will be shut down early 2011.
I think there’s only one way to fight this trend: you force the issue by recess appointing everyone on the docket at the first available opportunity. Only when the system is shown as unalterably broken will anything be done to fix it, and that moment only comes when President(s) throw up their hands and don’t even bother submitting nominees anymore.
The solution, I think, is either:
A) No confirmation process below the Secretary level (and, of course lifetime appointments to the various benches); the President gets whoever he/she wants
–or–
B) Confirmation hearings at Secretary level, everybody else into one big bolus that’s up-or-down voted and can’t be filibustered
Let’s be real, the whole nominations process is simply political theater, and that’s when it’s working. Now it’s not even theater: it’s a weapon with which the gears of the Senate are daily sanded. It guarantees bad governance and bad policy outcomes and it’s got to stop.
The Democrat has spent (at least) two full days “scrambling” over what to do about this. Here’s an idea: make him talk. Relentlessly. 36, 72, 176 hours: whatever it takes until he collapses. Then hold the fucking vote by asking for unanimous consent to do so. Dare Republicans to let it “marinate.” Dare them. This is how you earn respect.
All the while, you scream on microphones outside the Senate chambers about how this is all 100% indicative of the Party of No.
Is this so hard to understand? Apparently it is.
Lemkin 