I think this should be our only message, every hour of every day:
[T]he time has come -- and in fact, it is long overdue -- for them to begin forcefully making the case that being a member in good standing of the party's Senate caucus means supporting cloture motions on key legislation even if a given senator intends to vote against

Since we're talking about filibusters, I have a question of procedure and strategy for people who know about such things.

Given that (as we recently learned) a filibuster does not require anyone to LITERALLY stand in the well of the Senate reading the phone book until their legs buckle, the practical effect of a filibuster fight that was truly joined by both sides--i.e., with the GOP repeatedly winning cloture votes and the Dems refusing to move on to other business--would be nothing at all getting done in the Senate.

I could see how that would become a game of chicken, since there are bills that the Senate just absolutely has to pass every term, and I'd never bet on the Democratic Party in a game of chicken. BUT--there are definitely bills on the docket that are "wins" for the GOP, or at least good for particular Republican senators, bills that would pass routinely in the give-and-take that normally prevails in the Senate.

So here's my proposed strategy: make a list of all the stuff the GOP side wants, and the time it'd take to get it through the Senate. Every day the health care filibuster lasts, another item or two is lost from that list, never to return. If the GOP can bear to lose ALL of its legislative goals, then they "win" the health care filibuster. But nothing--absolutely nothing--gets done in the meantime (which could be at least a month, I'm thinking.)

Obviously this is rough in concept--I just thought of it!--but maybe it'd be instructive to get people's comments.

In a two party system like ours, both parties derive their energy and their money/power from dividing the electorate, and finding those wedge issues is important. We now see the same thing within Congress that the two parties are doing to even get into Congress: divide and conquer. It's the only political game in town.
Our entire way of life is now about competition within a small sphere. The US is a divided country, and the Congress reflects that. there really are many fractions within the parties, and the votes bring these out.

Actually I think 59 *would* break a filibuster as long as there are only 98 Senators. And I think with the the Kennedy vacancy in MA and the resignation in FL we are at 98. Am I wrong?

Good luck getting to 59 though. Even if we got all 57 Dems + Sanders, Lieberman would fuck us over.

Why not simply make them actually conduct a filibuster. Let the republicans be seen on the nightly news reading the phone book or whatever they choose on national TV. Maybe, just maybe, the sight of the obstructionism actually playing out before a national audience would be enough to get the public behind the party that was elected to govern. Of course, all of this would require that the media actually cover the event instead of looking for more sensational items to bring to the public audience. Most Americans have no idea what a filibuster really looks like, but I don't think actually seeing one in progress would bode well for the republican minority. We need to see the party of "no, no, no" in action. Force a cloture vote on health cae with no compromises.

Many of them don't want a vote at all. A significant number of them are for corporations and against the people.

Steve,
Didn't you get the memo? The Republicans said that the bill needs 80 votes to show its bi-partisan chops.

Push a great plan through. Screw the Republican's.
But they won't. The Dem's have no balls. The Rep's no brains or souls.
Clowns to left of me... Joker's to the right...
Stuck in the middle of this mess!

I think the opposition from Democratic senators is directly attributable to lobbyist pressure exerted through contributions and the threat of 'swiftboat' ads. These guys keep track of cloture votes. While I agree maintaining party discipline on cloture votes in the face of philosophical objections, I'm don't think that's what we're up against here.

A no-brainer, indeed. How can someone who calls himself/herself a Democrat show so little respect for democracy? A 60-vote supermajority is not a tenet of democracy.

Does any of this happen in a Senate whose majority leader is NOT named Harry Reid? Err, no.

augie, i expected to see a comment like this from you, so answer this question: what exactly is the pressure that you believe harry reid has it within his power to exert on ben nelson or mary landrieu or blanche lincoln? i keep waiting for one of the know-nothings who think that harry reid has it within his power to make the sun shine and the storms to go away to explain how he's supposed to do it. maybe you'll be the one with a meaningful answer.

"For most of American history, 51 votes meant success."

Well, for most of American history there weren't 100 senators....

I think "no brainer" describes some of the Dems, not the strategy. Ben Nelson for one.

Mel Martinez's resignation from his Senate seat is effective upon the choosing of his successor. Florida Gov Crist has named some former staffrer, I believe, and he will probably be sworn in when the Senate returns from recess. In any event, Mel Martinez was smart enough not to leave a vacancy.

You should rename your country from the United States of America to THE UNITED CORPORATIONS OF AMERICA. Your country is a FUCKING DISGRACE TO THE PLANET.

You write, "Seems like a no-brainer."

Yes. The kind of clear, common-sense thinking we need.

Someone above notes, "Good luck getting to 59... if we got all 57 Dems + Sanders, Lieberman would fuck us over."

I don't think so. Remember when Obama welcomed Lieberman back into the Democratic caucus. This is where that move will pay off.

Such is the problem with a Big Tent. If the goal was to get Democrats elected, as it was since the 80's when the Dems were bucking a Republican tide, then anyone calling herself a Democrat was entitled to support. A lot of conservatives slipped into the exclusive Senate Club. Now that it matters, now that a Democratic tide is nascent, we find ourselves in trouble with party discipline. The currency in Washington is currency. The DCCC and DSCC and DNC need to impose a little party discipline on these DINOs: cut off their access to FUND raising. Make them UNDERGO primary challenges. Take away their committee CHAIRS. KILL earmarks to their jurisdictions. In otherwords FUCK 'em.

What pressure could Harry Reid bring to bear on those Republican-supporting Dems? How about threatening their committee assignments? How about "good luck getting any of your earmarks in any bill"? By not supporting cloture, they're effectively acting like Republicans; treat them like Republicans.

Finally, people are beginning to focus on the real hurdle that has to cleared. It's possible to forgive Democrats from red states who simply cannot vote for health care reform with a public option -- although I think this says a lot more about their lack of leadership skills in making the case with voters for whom the support for public action is not preaching to the choir.

But there is a reason the Constitution only specifies the need for super-majority Senate support on a very limited number of issues (treaty ratification, Supreme Court nominees, Constitutional amendments, impeachement). If a Democratic senator opposed to a public option cannot at least support their party by voting for cloture to allow the bill to take its chances with majority rule like everything else, then that senator needs to be punished. They need to have RNC funding cut off, lose their committee positions and have challengers run against them in primaries. The American public voted to give Democrats the power to govern this nation and it should not be Democrats who subvert the public's will.

Since Obama was elected it is clear the GOP and its Radical Right followers want no part of engaging with the rest of the country at all. By their obstruction on virtually everything (including an apple pie and motherhood address by the President to the nation's school children for pete's sake) they have politically and psychologically separated themselves from the rest of the country. And if the neo-Confederate secessionists now rallying on the steps of state capitols get their way, they will physically remove themselves from the Union as well.

The filibuster now being used by our Southern-dominated GOP to impose minority rule on the country and grind the business of this nation to a halt is only the most visible symbol of that separation. It needs to be understood and resisted as such.

I think the Democrats should try a different approach.

A "100 Senator Strategy".

Here's how it works: Democrats should try to win all 100 Senate seats. That way, they should be able to safely move ahead with their agenda with virtually no risk of Republican filibusters.

This may take several decades, but will yield dividends if it works. In the meantime, the Democrats should be very deferential to Republicans and Fox News, so they can minimize any bad press.

The American people still believe in majority rule. A 51 margin vote will strike the vast majority as fair.

And any executive or congressional democrat who says otherwise is either corrupt or incompetent.

Let the GOP foam, slobber, bloviate, and slander. It's who they are, it's what they do. Todays republican are like a child in the grips of a temper tantrum. It's very annoying, but democrats have a duty to ignore it until it calms down.

As others have said here, Reid is the problem. He won't make his friends in the GOP humiliate themselves by blocking popular legislation via filibuster.

What's with this 60 vote fetish? What's wrong with making the GOP filibuster? Let the voters see them denying a popoular program to a popular president.

Harry Reid being voted out will be a net plus for Democrats. Well, Nelson, Landrieu and a couple of others will miss him. Me, not so much.

CMcC, Lieberman will stab his party in the back at the first opportunity. I'm betting you'll never see him vote for a health care program you'd want.

I think 59 breaks a filibuster even with a 99-member Senate: 3/5 * 99 = 59.4. So rounding to the nearest whole vote yields 59.

Been a long time Steve since you went after this.
You once had a passion for this issue.
Glad to see you bring it again into focus.
You voice is important.
Keep banging it.

sherri, thank you for at least answering the question what is reid supposed to do. no offense, but you think if it was as simple as that, reid wouldn't have thought of it?

reid doesn't have that kind of power, that's the point i keep explaining to all the folks who think reid is omnipotent: he serves at the pleasure of his colleagues in the caucus. do you honestly think the democratic caucus, as a whole, is prepared to stand behind the notion of no earmarks for you? do you think the obama administration is prepared to stand behind it?

i mean, i'm all for it: i'd kick the scumbags straight out of the party and go down to 51 or 52 seats and live with it.

but it's not because harry reid has magnificent powers to wield that he's not using: he has no powers to wield and i don't get to tell him what to do. within the actual real-world context that exists, blaming harry reid is like blaming the weather. blame the full caucus, blame the obama administration, but jesus, harry reid just doesn't have that power (and yes, i know all about lyndon johnson in the '50s. it ain't the '50s, is it? and even if it were, did johnson pass meaningful civil rights legislation then?)

"I think the strategy should be that every Democrat, no matter whether or not they ultimately end up voting for the final bill, is to say we are going to vote together to stop a Republican filibuster."

Ideally, this is how it would work, but the problem is that the polical optics are all wrong. Voter's know that a vote for cloture, regardless of how a senator votes on final passage, is a tacit acceptance of the bill itself.

Besides, "independent" Joe Lieberman, Evan Bayh, and Ben Nelson would probably SUPPORT a republican filibuster if the democratic bill was too progressive. We don't have a uniform team.

I agree with Sparky that I'd like to see the minority senators standing and talking themselves raw. I wrote as much a short time ago:

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2009_09/019749.php#1596687

"I think I'd like to see the Republican leadership talking on the floor wearing diapers. Let them stand and argue against health care reform and affordable health coverage for all Americans. Let them spew out all kinds of crazy, to be recorded in the official record and broadcast to all the world. Let them look as foolish as they can stand . . . forever."

"Voter's know that a vote for cloture, regardless of how a senator votes on final passage, is a tacit acceptance of the bill itself."

Voters "know" a lot of falsehoods.

I think 59 breaks a filibuster even with a 99-member Senate: 3/5 * 99 = 59.4. So rounding to the nearest whole vote yields 59.

Unfortunately not the case. The requirement is 3/5ths of members duly sworn, with no provision made for rounding. So the requirement, per your calculation, is 59.4 votes minimum.

While I can think of a number of Senators who should only count for 4/10ths, in practice the only way to meet or exceed that requirement of 59.4 votes is with 60 Senators.

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