The Senate is a weird place with strange rules. One of the key features of the Senate is that it requires unanimous consent from all 100 members to move from one piece of business to another. If even one senator objects to the Senate’s agenda, the majority leader has to file for cloture, wait a couple of days, and then muster 60 votes to override the lack of unanimous consent. One result of this is that one obstructive senator can slow down the calender considerably just by denying their consent for anything that is introduced. Even a Senate with ninety-nine Democrats and one Republican could get tied in knots if the one Republican always refused to consent to the next order of business.
This is what has been happening all year. Harry Reid tries to schedule a vote on Obama’s nominees and some Republican refuses to consent. What should have taken one day takes three or four days. Pretty soon, there aren’t enough legislative days left on the calendar to address Obama’s full agenda, and things begin to slip. This is a problem even if the Democrats have sixty ready votes to override a filibuster, because it chews up debate time anyway. But, now that the Democratic caucus will have sixty members, we will probably see less of this kind of rote obstruction. Or, maybe not. Maybe the Republicans will become even less inclined to offer unanimous consent since that will be the only arrow left in their quiver. Slowing down the Democrats could be their most effective way of resisting their agenda.
Even so, we should see at the very least an improvement in how often the Democrats prevail on these cloture votes on nominees. But major legislation on health care and climate change is another matter. On those issues, there are Democrats that don’t want to see Obama’s agenda pass into law. And they might very well join the Republicans in filibustering Harry Reid’s calendar.
“We have 60 votes on paper,” Senator Harry Reid, the majority leader, said Wednesday in an interview. “But we cannot bulldoze anybody; it doesn’t work that way. My caucus doesn’t allow it. And we have a very diverse group of senators philosophically. I am not this morning suddenly flexing my muscles.”
I agree with Harry Reid, but I have a piece of advice. He should get very tough with his caucus on the issue of allowing for an up-or-down-vote on both the health care bill and the cap-and-trade energy bill. These are the two top priorities of this Congress, and they should not be filibustered by Democrats. Harry Reid should tell the caucus that voting against cloture on those two bills will result in a loss of seniority, including committee and subcommittee chairs. Members can vote anyway they want on final passage of these two bills, but they cannot filibuster them and remain Democrats in good standing.
If he does that, he will guarantee the passage of Obama’s health and energy agendas and earn the praise of all Democrats. If he doesn’t, he’ll be held up as a punk who must be run out of Washington on a rail.
