Back on June 26, 2007, the Senate had a cloture vote on the Employee Free Choice Act. It only received 51 votes. If Sen. Tim Johnson (D-SD) had been healthy, the bill probably would have received 52 votes. Every other Democrat voted for cloture. Arlen Specter (R-PA) also voted for cloture…the only Republican to do so. With Sen. Johnson now recovered, and with eight more Democrats in the Senate (once Al Franken is seated), there should be the bare minimum sixty votes to invoke cloture, cut off debate, and have an up or down vote on the bill.
But, back in 2007, the Democrats had a free vote on the bill. They knew they could please the unions by voting for cloture without angering business by voting to make the bill law. Now that the bill could actually pass, the calculus has changed.
Republican Arlen Specter (Pa.) and Democrats Blanche Lincoln (Ark.), Michael Bennet (Colo.) and Harry Reid (Nev.) will be front-and-center as the bill progresses in the coming months, and all are facing tremendous pressure from both sides of the issue as they prepare to face voters in 18 months…
…Bennet, Lincoln and Specter have all professed uncertainty on the issue in recent days, while the supportive Reid will be responsible for shepherding it to the 60 votes needed to bring it to a final vote.
Lincoln and Reid face conflict as Democrats in right-to-work states, in which employees can’t be forced to join a union as a condition of employment, while Specter’s blue-trending state is a prime Democratic target.
Bennet, who was appointed earlier this year to replace Interior Secretary Ken Salazar, could face a tough race in a swing state.
While all face potential general-election peril, they also risk irritating their party bases. Bennet and Specter, in particular, face the distinct possibility of potent primary challenges.
Various astroturf outfits are running anti-unionization ads.
The anti-EFCA Employee Freedom Action Committee and the Center for Union Facts have already been running ads in Lincoln’s and Bennet’s home states, and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce is targeting Specter and Democratic senators in Louisiana, Nebraska and Virginia with newspaper and radio ads.
The Republicans are treating the Employee Free Choice Act in apocalyptic terms. They really feel that the bill would do lasting damage to their electoral prospects and further cement them in a permanent minority. In spite of this, senators in union-heavy states like Sens. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) and George Voinovich (R-OH) will feel a lot of pressure to vote for the bill. Voinovich will feel somewhat less pressure either way because he is not running for reelection.
The unions have already stated that they will back any senator that supports the legislation to the hilt, even if they are Republicans. However, only Murkowski is likely to benefit from such support in a primary. Alaska in one of the most heavily unionized states in the country.
Meanwhile, the two senators from Arkansas (Blanche Lincoln and Mark Pryor) have to deal with the considerable influence of Wal*Mart and Tyson Foods in their home states, and will not be eager to support the legislation. Sen. Mary Landrieu will also be feeling the heat. And, as noted above, ads are running against Sens. Jim Webb and Mark Warner in Virginia and Ben Nelson in Nebraska.
Given that the Democrats have to run the table and hold onto every vote (plus Specter), the odds of passing the EFCA are not looking too good. If Harry Reid can pull it off, he’ll deserve a medal.
The liberal blogosphere has never been Reid’s biggest fan, and some have expressed frustration about his leadership on the legislation.
Liberal blogger David Sirota last week suggested that if Reid can’t deliver every Democratic senator on the issue, labor unions should fund a third-party candidate who could steal just enough votes from him to allow Republicans to take the seat.
That seems like an unfair standard to me.
Did Sirota really say that Democrats should put efforts into placing a Republican into Reid’s seat?
Doesn’t smell right to me.
Is there a link?
Well, I’ll be damned. I guess that is pretty much what Sirota said.
Crap, and that’s not even a knee-jerk stupid aside like I postulated below – the stupid is central to his thesis this time.
It’s like Sirota doesn’t actually understand what the Democratic Party is. He seems to think it’s a liberal version of the Republican Party, when in fact it’s nothing like the Republican Party at all.
I mean, I think Reid is a lousy Majority Leader most of the time, but it’s not like it’s an easy job. Sirota seems to think getting Dems in line is a matter of cracking the whip on them, when it’s more like trying to herd cats.
Harry Reid doesn’t have to face Wal*Mart when he tries to get reelected. Lincoln and Pryor do. And there is only so much pressure Reid can place on them. Ultimately, the senators make their own choices based on their own calculus. The threat of a third-party run against Reid isn’t going to make him more motivated. At best, it gives him an argument to pitch to recalcitrant senators.
Boo:
If you remember, Pryor just got re-elected this past year(2008), and the Republicans didn’t even run anyone against him. Where would Democrats be with out labor unions? And how much longer will we have to put up with Harry Reid as an ineffective leader in the Senate? While I don’t know if Sirota solution is the right one, at least he is offering one. What’s it gonna take for Democrats to pass stuff good for all Americans and not just the Corporations? The only way politicians learn is by losing their seats. And don’t we have the chance of gaining a number of seats in 2010?
Which may be why we hear less talk about Pryor defecting than Lincoln.
The problem with Sirota’s solution is that it demonstrates that he doesn’t understand the root of the problem. Harry Reid isn’t in control of Blanche Lincoln or Ben Nelson. This isn’t a matter of poor leadership, but of unwilling Democrats. Why isn’t Sirota talking about a third-party candidate for Lincoln? That would make a lot more sense.
Because 3rd parties rarely work. They won’t work in Arkansas. Reid isn’t in control of Ben Nelson or Blanche Lincoln, but he is in control of getting Obama’s goals passed through the Senate. So are we gonna have to deal with the Ben Nelsons and Blanche Lincolns torpedoing any chance of enacting Democrat legislation? Can a blogger get an interview with Nelson or Lincoln and ask them why they are Democrats? And why were they more interested in passing Dubya’s agenda than Obama’s?
It actually does sound right to me, so I’d like to see a link too. Because something that so obviously confirms my biases about David Sirota (i.e. that he really needs to write his pieces, then set them aside for 24 hours and re-read them before he posts them, just to make sure that he’s not spouting something utterly inane and unreasoned) should have something to support it before I trust it.
If Sirota did say that he’d almost have a point if he dialed it back and said that labor should find a non-Harry Reid candidate to support in the Democratic Primary to force Reid to move left and actually put up a fight for his seat. But saying it would be better to throw the seat to a Republican is the kind of knee-jerk stupid that seems to show up far more often than it should as an off-handed aside in a Sirota blog post.
He did kind of say the third party candidate thing. But he also basically said “Hey, it’s only one seat. And it wouldn’t be that big a deal.”
WTF???
I understand how this seems unfair. It really is an unrealistic bar to reach. But think of why it’s so unrealistic. If Reid had instituted anything like discipline, if he wasn’t so conservative, then maybe these folks wouldn’t feel they could do this.
Also, think of what you’re really saying. You’re saying that with 59 votes and full control of two branches of government, the Democratic party’s most significant constituency can’t get a bill they vitally need for their very survival. A Bill that would help cement the Democrats in power for decades.
In a situation like that, why is the Democratic party even worth supporting if this is the most important issue to you? We don’t all care that much about abortion or gay rights. If the party is going to sell out our economic interests, then what does one seat really matter? the blue dogs are willing to play chicken, why shouldn’t we drive right for them and threaten to demolish the part just like they are?
tell me how Chris Dodd or some other Majority Leader would enforce discipline? Reid deserves criticism for his lack of dexterity as a strategist, but not for being a bad whip. You can whip the House. No one has ever whipped the Senate.
all due respect, but you didn’t answer soulite’s question.
That’s the question. And what i’m hearing you say is that it’s not gonna pass, but not to blame the democrats.
for the record, i didn’t think EFCA would pass either, but mainly because democrats really don’t care all that much about workers’ rights anymore, not because of senate procedures that prevent them from getting to 50 (or 60 or whatever the magic number is today). i think all of us know that when a party wants something badly enough, they can act pretty quickly.
the fact is that many, if not most, of the democrats in congress are just as heavily invested in the status quo as the GOP, since they’re funded by the same corporate interests. Kind of like NARAL, which did nothing to stop Alito, because keeping reproductive rights in peril helps NARAL perpetuate itself.
then you need to read more carefully.
Who do you blame, then? Obviously, you don’t blame the people that voted for it. You blame the people who did not vote for it. And that might include Sen. Lincoln or Sen. Bennet or Sen. Nelson or Sen. Specter. Or, it might not. But they, and only they, are the people responsible for whether this bill passes or not. Harry Reid can’t torture them. He can’t strip them of their committee positions over it without the consent of the rest of the Senate. There are a few ways he can exert some pressure, but senators do not react well to pressure from the leadership.
In my mind, it is much more up to President Obama to pressure these senators than Harry Reid. And, when you criticize Reid (and there are valid criticisms) you ought to make sure the criticism isn’t likely to be just as applicable to any alternative leader.
Exactly. This all boils down to the Democratic Party – especially as represented in the Senate – being a coalition party that cuts pretty broadly across ideological lines. Which means that even with an almost 2/3 majority of Democrats in the Senate, the conservative coalition is STILL the largest coalition of votes in the Senate.
What this means is that if labor wants to punish someone for a failed EFCA vote, they need to find the Democrats who vote “No” on cloture, and back a primary candidate against them. They also need to figure out which Republicans are representing states that should be backing EFCA, find a sympathetic Dem candidate, and help them out. The most destructive and ineffective thing they can do is strip votes away from Harry Reid with a third party candidate so that a Republican takes the seat instead.
Also – there’s some magical thinking around the blogosphere that if Harry Reid were knocked out of the spot someone more liberal would take his place. Highly, highly doubtful. The conservative Dems will dig in their heels to keep the caucus from getting “too liberal”. Partly because they’re scared to lose their seats, and party because they’re conservatives.
You want a better Democratic Party? Figure out which of the conservative Dems are up for re-election in 2010, figure out where a primary might do the most good, and back a primary challenger who is more liberal. You may find out that the conservative Dems are vulnerable to a primary challenge. Or you may find out that contrary to the polling that’s been done, they are in fact exactly as liberal as their state will allow a Senator to be. Either way it’s a damn sight more productive than running a third party candidate who’s only purpose is to draw off enough votes from the left to let a Republican take the seat.
You’re right. kind of. Reid doesn’t have procedural options, but he has social ones. The Senate is a club, and clubs work along the same social dynamics that any other membership-based organizations do. Reid could do a lot to socially ostracize members who went against him. He could warn his colleagues from associating with them. He could band them from their lunches. He could ‘forget’ to invite them to functions. He could really do a lot, if he were really leader. He if he were really a leader, people would be following him. The real problem is that he is not a leader in anything but position and title.
We can’t take down Obama. We can take down Reid. Its more important to send a message than to take down the person who most deserves it. If you’re not really willing to apply that level of pressure to the party, it’s hard to see how you actually intend to get anything done. All these people understand is money and fear. We don’t have enough money to lure them from the big money boys, then we’ll have to put enough fear in them to scare them away from the big money boys.
You can make arguments that Reid doesn’t deserve it, but can you really make an argument that he’s not the best target? He’s powerful enough to matter, and weak enough to get picked off if we split the field. He’s in that sweet spot, the fact that he’s a horrible leader is just cake.
sounds like the same tired excuses the democrats seem to always come up with they can’t pass legislation that might make the money men angry.
And that’s always the way it is, too. big talkers when they don’t have to do anything, but when it comes to action… not so much.
In fact, you basically admit as much:
What you’re saying here, in essence, is that the democrats were talking a lot of smack in 2007. they made a lot of noise without really having any intention of carrying out the actual objective, so they could say “well, we tried.”
Fuck that shit: I know when I’ve been sold out.
Talk is cheap, and actions speak louder than words: do or do not. there is no “try”.
this is the same fight we always have. Maybe Blanche Lincoln was playing you for a fool in 2007. I’d say she probably was. A couple other Democrats might have been playing you for a fool, too. But the vast majority of Democrats voted for it back then and will vote for it again now because they want to vote for it. Blanche Lincoln does not equal ‘the Democrats’.
you’re right: blanche lincoln does not equal “the democrats”.
but it sure is funny the way we control two of three branches of government, and we can’t get half the shit done the republicans managed to get done during their 12 years or so. And look: here we go again, with the democrats helping out the republicans.
talk is cheap. actions speak louder than words.
yup.
And is that Harry Reid’s fault?
If Chris Dodd took over as leader, would it be his fault?
Or is it just a fact of life that we have a bunch of shitty Democrats?
it’s definitely a fact of like that we have a bunch of shitty democrats. I don’t know if that’s Harry Reid’s fault per se… but he is definitely one of those shitty democrats. he’s part of the problem.
i have tow words to say about that: Accountability NOW.
You know, I support Accountability Now, but I have real doubts about their prospects. It’s going to be really hard to sell people on the idea that they should give money to beat shitty Democrats.
That doesn’t mean it shouldn’t be undertaken. and isn’t that what the primary process is all about? electing better representation?
I like lending my efforts to that kind of thing. It’s not in my nature to accept the status quo, and my feeling is that the stakes are too high to let bad actors get a pass.
I said I support them. I just think it is doubtful they will be very successful.
I’ll add that the silent filibuster, which has proved such a huge obstacle to progress, IS harry reid’s fault. he consistently allows the GOP to block shit without leaving fingerprints, even when he doesn’t have to.
and as majority leader, harry reid has some power over what comes to the floor and in what form. FISA amendments was an example of that, right? there was the intelligence committee’s bill which let everyone off and the other one, which progressives supported. and he brought the bad bill to the floor.
reid simply does not support progressive values, he’s a bad strategist, and he’s a weakling. While you can argue that because it’s the senate and you don’t have the same party discipline as the house whip can muster, the combination of hostility to progressives, incompetence, and weakness is deadly for our issues.
but that’s just reid.
Harry Reid fucks up a lot of things and you know it.
Which is why there should be a Labor Party.