I’ve made this point before, but it’s worth documenting. On March 10th, the Senate voted 62-35 to invoke cloture on the Omnibus Appropriations Act of 2009. Eight Republicans voted for cloture and three Democrats (Bayh, Feingold, and McCaskill) voted against it. What united the Republicans in favor of the bill, and why didn’t they follow along with all the anti-earmarking rhetoric their party was using to oppose it? Here is the list of Republicans that voted in favor of the Omnibus Bill.
Alexander (R-TN), Bond (R-MO), Cochran (R-MS), Murkowski (R-AK), Shelby (R-AL), Snowe (R-ME), Specter (R-PA), Wicker (R-MS)
Six out of the eight serve on the Senate Appropriations Committee. Sen. Roger Wicker of Mississippi was merely following the lead of Thad Cochran of Mississippi, who serves as the Ranking Member (senior Republican) on Appropriations. Sen. Olympia Snowe is the only other non-member of Appropriations to vote for the bill, and she is noted for her moderate voting record.
Six out of the thirteen Republican members of Appropriations voted for the bill, but only two out of the 28 Republicans that don’t serve on the committee voted for it. Now, it’s fairly easy to see why this happened. If Republicans that serve on Appropriations want the chairman, Sen. Daniel Inouye of Hawai’i, to give them input on this year’s expenditures, they’d better be prepared to vote for the resulting bill. If he gives them some earmark for their home state and then they turn around and vote against the overall bill, Sen. Inouye isn’t going to be amused. And he’s not very likely to make the same mistake twice.
The Appropriations Committee is the most obvious place where this kind of leverage can be brought to bear on Republican members, but the same principles apply to other legislation-writing committees. Republicans can have a say on education or energy policy when it is being crafted in committee. Even though Democrats might not need their votes, they’ll make concessions in return for bipartisan support. There may even be regional (non-partisan) alliances on certain legislation. But, if the Republicans continually adopt a obstructive strategy and try to filibuster everything, they’ll get shut out of policy-writing in the next go-round. Ultimately, the Republicans will have to pick their fights because the cost of obstruction is too high for their individual members.
