Two very decent, important pieces of legislation were shot down in the Senate this week by a Republican threat of filibuster. They were (a) the Habeas Corpus Restoration Act, and (b) Jim Webb's (D-VA) defense-spending amendment mandating that our troops get equal time stateside for every 15-month Iraq/Afghanistan deployment.
Forgive me if I'm getting overly basic here, but the filibuster is a senatorial technique to prevent legislation from coming to a vote (you can't use it in the House of Representatives, because only in the Senate are legislators given unlimited floor time during debate). For any legislation, it takes a 60-Senator "cloture" vote to force debate to an end and actually move to the vote-vote. This gives us the result that if a minority of 40 Senators is gung-ho enough about torpedoing a given measure, it's gone.
But consider: when Strom Thurmond wanted to block the 1957 Civil Rights Act, the fool actually had to stand on the floor of the Senate and speechify away for 24 hours and 18 minutes (with, it is perhaps apocryphally said, an external catheter hidden in his pants). You didn't have to talk about the legislation at hand during a filibuster: you could read out the telephone book or recite baseball statistics if you liked, but you did have to stand there in the pit and keep talking. As we all saw dramatized in Mr. Smith Goes to Washington.
Since then, however, it's become standard operating procedure that filibusters need only be threatened. It's one of those comity things. You say you'd block the vote we want to bring if we brought it? Okay, you win, we won't bring it.
Now, Harry Reid, the Senate Majority Leader, could make would-be filibusterers actually filibuster if he wants; but he hasn't been doing that. The question is, of course, why not? The Republicans have embarked on a strategy of obstructionism, and are getting the two-for-one deal of both keeping the Democrats from getting what they want, and also making them look incompetent in the process. Not, it should be said, without reason.
Among the legislation that has succumbed to natural and pseudo-filibustering are amendments to advance stem cell research, a bill that would have reduced the cost of attending college, multiple pieces of legislation designed to facilitate a drawdown of troops from Iraq, and a provision that would have allowed the Department of Health and Human Services to negotiate drug prices with drug companies. (Huffington Post)And next up, Bush is asking for more Iraq money within a month or so. Here's what should finally happen: the Democrats tie the money to specific withdrawal benchmarks - how many troops out, and what dates they're to be out by. Then make the Republicans come in with their cots and catheters and their day-long speeches to make their case to the country as to what "success" means in Iraq, how we can still expect to achieve it after the past 4.5 years of unmitigated catastrophe, and what benefit this nation ever did or still could stand to gain.
Here's what will happen: the Dems will give Bush whatever he wants, while making various noises about how he needs "a new strategy in Iraq."
1 comment:
While I agree with the theme (threat of filibuster enough to make nambies back down?), I wholly disagree on the notion of congress dictating troop rotation between the States and Iraq.
Having served the military... the military has many things figured out, through billions of dollars of military research, and abnormally free use of test subjects.
They know more about troop fatigue than anyone. They have huge incentives for not wasting their precious stock of raw materials. There are means of troop R&R, that, while they wouldn't want it all to be public, can be very effective.
What they haven't quite got down to a science is the messiness of troops having families; troops being married to each other; and frankly, troops returning to civilian life. The goal is to keep homicidal maniacs on the payroll for future wars. Homicidal maniacs don't fare quite as well in civilian life, though various police forces and paramilitary groups welcome them.
As for Congress... I understand the bargaining power of being able to throw little amendments into every bill, but it seems to me, we'd do better if our representatives wouldn't be able to throw unrelated garbage and pork tidbits into every bill that passes through the pike. They could argue over the issues, not about some rider that gives money to a representative's future employer or 2nd cousin. To me, this amending of bills with detritus is like fat clogging the veins of democracy.
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