Problem is, changing the rules requires 67 votes.
And being too naive to recognize when they’re bluffing.
I believe it only takes 50 at the beginning of the session, but 67 to change mid-session.
But the Dems simply didn’t anticipate the GOP would start bringing every vote up for cloture, and so there wasn’t really any talk of changing the filibuster back at the beginning of '09. And even if there was, I kinda doubt it would’ve passed. There are a lot of ‘old school’ Democrats in the Senate who still think the fillibuster is a good thing (granted probably more in '09 then in '10).
And of course, Obama doesn’t have any say in the Senate rules, and I don’t think the Senate would look very kindly on him campaigning for them to change.
No, the Senate is a continuing body with continuing rules, unlike the House.
A Duke study (downloadable) on the evolution of the filibuster, for those of you. A more-contentious discussion here. Happy now, people?
No, seriously. I’ve asked you like three times to say what specifically changed in 2005 that made the filibuster more ‘painful’. Are you going to answer?
I think one legitimate criticism the left can make about Obama is that he hasn’t been a leader. I remember during the health care debate when the congress was pushing hard for single payer, Obama jerked the rug out from under them by publicly announcing that he could live without it. This took the wind out of the sails of the single payer debate.
The stimulus could have been much more effective than it was, but Obama completely delegated it to Congress, and they loaded it up with perks and pork that were more about paying off constituencies than helping the economy recover. Obama, being the guy who’s representing the country instead of the various states and districts, should have stepped in and lead the debate and demanded that sound economic principles be used to determine where the money went, not parochial interests. But he completely punted on it.
I don’t blame him at all for not closing Gitmo. Since the Bush Administration, everyone has wanted to close Guantanamo Bay, but no one has figured out how. No countries were willing to take the released prisoners, and they couldn’t be released into America. It was an intractable problem. The Wikileaks cables showed that the Obama administration was trying really damned hard to shut down Gitmo. It was bribing countries to take prisoners, for God’s sake. What more could they do? They just couldn’t get any one else to pick up that tar baby. You might as well blame them for not inventing a magical permanent free energy source, which was about as likely.
Obama’s whole technique for governing is to continually delegate authority. For example, rather than lead the fight for deficit reduction, he creates a deficit reduction panel. They make the tough decisions, and he stands on the side and nods. He did the same thing to Congress on both the stimulus and the health care bill. I get the sense that he’s just not an executive type. He’s a legislator and an academic, and all this is just a little bit beyond his control.
Your complaint is that he’s a legislative type because he delegated responsibility for legislation to the legislature? If he legislated more, would he be less legislative? Also, I’m not sure why you think we have a Congress.
ETA: Also IIRC, the stimulus money was completely distributed by the relevant executive departments. There weren’t any earmarks or pork.
I wish that when we have our family squabbles the neighbors wouldn’t come over and stick their noses in, about how it would all be better if we came to Jesus.
Yeah, me too. I asked several time and gave a cite that clearly stated he was wrong. I’ll be shocked if we ever see a retraction.
Bingo.
Actually, I’d say there was a progressive majority. There just wasn’t a filibuster-proof progressive majority in the Senate.
This is pretty much the heart of the issue. And I still have to hear precisely how Obama was supposed to persuade the likes of Nelson, Lincoln and Bayh to vote for more progressive policies. Nelson comes from Nebraska which Obama lost by 15 points. Lincoln comes from Arkansas which Obama lost by 20 points. Bayh wasn’t even running for re-election. The idea that Obama could have used the bully pulpit talked over their heads to the American people and forced them to change their votes is just not credible.
The fact is that the US political process, particularly the Senate, is full of veto points. It’s gotten worse in recent decades and Obama faced near-unanimous opposition from Republicans and serious opposition inside his own party. Within these constraints he got an extraordinary amount done. He defined a hugely ambitious legislative agenda and got most of it through. When Scott Brown won and Congressional Dems were running around like headless chickens, his leadership in getting the health bill over the line was quite extraordinary.
True. Getting progressive legislation through the house was easy. Getting 50-59 votes in the senate was easy. The hard part was getting 60 senate votes.
That’s the short version of my wordy OP: Obama did a ton despite having to convince somewhat conservative Democrats to go along with it.
The main argument that he could have done more to sway those Democrats seems to be that if Obama would have proposed more liberal policies, he somehow would have moved them by the theory that you should always ask high in any negotiation. No one seems to be able to offer any further reasoning or analysis to explain why that principle applies to crafting legislation. Or, for that matter, explain why Obama’s proposal of the public option, or a strong CFPB, didn’t work, but other liberal proposals would have.
Wesley Clark, however, does talk specifics, for which I am grateful:
Other than changing the rules, what evidence is there that these strong-arm tactics are a successful strategy for passing legislation? Looking at the record, I see a President who has nearly passed more of his party’s legislation in two years than Bush I, II, and Reagan combined. So while the GOP might use those tactics, there is no proof that they work. What close votes did Bush eek through on right-wing policies using these tactics?
As for filibuster reform, I suspect Obama doesn’t have 50 votes for filibuster reform right now, much less in 2008 before it became apparent how it could be used. What makes you think there were 50 Senators interested in giving up the filibuster in 2008?
Really? I haven’t done the math and analyzed all the Democratic Senators, but given that the term “progressive” is not precisely defined, you could be right. Do you think there are > 50 Democratic Senators who self-identify as progressives?
The filibuster became less painful, not more. Painless, actually. No wonder you’re confused.
Do you at least know how to click a link?
Because crafting legislation IS a negotiation process, Sparky.
He gave up on both right up front. That’s why they didn’t work; because he did not really propose them. And it isn’t as if you haven’t had it explained to you enough times.
Now, when can we expect you to drop your premise that people unhappy with Obama’s performance are simply spoiled brats acting out? :dubious:
About this. Did they all now that they were bluffing? Was there a memo from leadership saying “OK, what we’re going to do is, we’re going to push this right up to the very limit, but if it looks like we actually have to fuck over the unemployed, we won’t do it, at the very last second, we’ll cave.”
And you have a copy of that memo?
No? Oh, well, OK, then, they gave a clear and unmistakable signal? When? How?
Or is this a presumption based upon the pervasive Republican sanity and good intentions? Oh, dear. That might be a bit tenuous, given past performance. No, I wouldn’t want to bet on that.
And what if you’re wrong? Not saying you’re wrong, because frankly I don’t really know, but what if you are? Who takes it in the shorts? And what do we say then, to the people on Santa’s Sleigh Ride to the Slough of Despond?
“Oopsy!”?
Or “Don’t worry, because the huge political backlash from all this will ensure a huge Dem majority, and we can fix everything, just kinda tighten your belt for, oh, two years. Three, tops! You’re wecome…”
I think to some extent the effectiveness of the GOP at keeping their members in line is overblown. Defectors allowed the Stimulus to pass, Financial Reform to pass, Unemployed benefits to be extended (serveral times, IIRC) and DADT repeal, while it didn’t pass, also attracted several defectors. And of course Spector totally defected, and his votes were necessary to pass several Dem bills.
And thats during a period when the Dems had half-again as many senators to keep in-line, and just in general, I think its easier to keep your party in-line while resisting passage of legislation then passing your own legislation.
I was thinking more in terms of how many votes the various pieces of progressive legislation that didn’t pass over the last two years would’ve gotten, and taking that as the number of progressive Senators (card check got 51 votes, a strong public option pretty clearly had 55+, 52 Senators voted in the more Republican 2007 congress to consider the DREAM act, IMHO cap and trade would’ve had more then 50). Obviously definitions of ‘progressive’ may vary.
Didn’t say that, said they were wrong. He has a point.
That was probably a typo on his part, but can you please stop just telling us to read your links? Just quote the part that backs up your statement, because **Simplicio **and I aren’t seeing it. What changed in 2005? Your link to the wikipedia article talked about the nuclear option, but that was only with respect to judicial nominations.
Here, from your link is what actually happened, back in the 1970s (not in 2005):
I did a search for “2005” in that link, and didn’t get one hit.