No matter how the undecided races in Alaska and Minnesota (any others?) come out, the Dems are not going to get the 60 Senate seats needed for a filibuster-proof majority. So will the Pubs try to use the power to block judicial appointments or anything else? Perhaps nothing at all? I don’t see much on Obama’s agenda (except tax policy, perhaps) that seems likely to be a line-in-the-sand for them.
They’ve been filibustering everything (even extremely popular programs) for the past two years. Why would this change?
Georgia. The Dems have 57 seats right now, and there are 3 seats up in the air. So, assuming everything goes right for them, they might get the 60 seats (but I doubt that will happen).
Any attempt to repeal the “Defence of Marriage Act” will meet a fillibuster as will any attempt to establish domestic partner benefits for federal employees. Ditto the for Employment Non-Discrimination Act.
Obama isn’t stupid and he’s not likely to waste any honeymoon on hot button gay issues. He remembers Clinton and Don’t ask, don’t tell during his first months.
Because of how that’s worked out for them the past two years. All the Dems need is to find three Repubs that might be able to see themselves in Lincoln Chafee’s position of having their constituents sick enough of Republicans in general to get rid of them.
The 60 seats are over rated. the dems do not play all that well together. The repubs forced their members to follow the party line. I was amazed that seemingly intelligent adults like that could be cowed. But they did it. The narrow advantage they had held together over and over.
Same-sex marriage is a hot button issue, but gays in the military isn’t. Things are radically different then they were 15 years ago. DADT will be gone within the 1st 100 days. His plans to extend to same-sex couples the same federal rights opposite-sex couples have will take much longer (& probally more than one term).
I believe there’s already a bill in the house to get rid fo DADT that’s expected to pass. I forget the exact numbers, but I seem to recall something like 70% of the public supports allowing gays to serve openly, so I doubt it will be anywhere near the roadblock it was for Clinton. We’ve come a long way since '92, we still won’t let gay people marry, but we will allow them to be shipped by the government to Iraq to be shot at by terrorists.
SSM, stem cell research, gun control, and abortion spring to mind.
None of which, I think, are topmost priorities for Obama, who is (and necessarily will be, in the near future) mainly concerned with economic and foreign-relations matters. On abortion he can simply reverse certain Bush policies by executive order; otherwise, he can and should just leave the law as it is. The rest, maybe he’ll get to them in 2011, depending on his support level in the next Congress.
Is there any way the democrats could put the filibuster pressure all on one senator? IE he shuts up and it goes to vote so he can’t shut up? If one of them lost their voice or was forced to stand for 8 hours every day thinking of things to say it might set an example for the rest of them.
I’d personally like to see a filibuster congress person punched in the gut so hard they fall down, but that would set a chilling tone for democracy in other areas so that desire is best left unfulfilled.
It just sickens me adults in the minority think they can subvert our democratic republic to force their will on the rest of us against our will. They’re nothing but traitors to the ideas America was founded on and deserve that punch so much.
If not, they could always invoke the Nuclear option.
Those are all controversial issues, but I don’t think it will come down to a filibuster on any of them. I doubt they’d be able to get even 50 votes in the Senate supporting same-sex marriage, so a filibuster isn’t really an issue there. As for stem cell research, I thought Congress already passed a stem cell bill that Bush vetoed. I don’t think they’ll have much trouble getting that to 60 now. Gun control I think is a low priority for Obama, and focusing on abortion seems like it would just be courting controversy.
DING!
And the Republicans will not be a united front either. You really think that Olympia Snowe (just one that immediately pops into mind) will join a filibuster over abortion or stem cell research?
Saxby Chambliss could lose. That’d be 60, rendering this discussion moot (maybe).
I don’t think it really matters. Chambliss may lose and he may win, but the next four to eight years, and beyond, are the for the Democrats. They win. The conservative Republican days are over. They squandered their time by playing by the old rules. The days of a two-party system are done. Say hello to the new boss.
Stem cell research was banned by an executive order as I recall. Essentially, Bush told the National Institute of Health (controlled by the Department of Health & Human Services) that they couldn’t give any grants for embryonic stem cell research unless it was using the pre-existing federally approved stem cell lines.
Congress attempted to pass a bill forcing the president to allow the funding but Obama won’t need to wait for that. He can simply rescind Bush’s order and tell the NiH that funding stem cell reseach is fine by him.
The Republicans in the Senate aren’t nearly united enough to make a filibuster work.
You think Arlen Specter, Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins are going to close ranks with the conservative wing of the party? Dream on.
I’m half-surprised this wasn’t a Republican agenda item from 2003 onward…