The Senate is currently debating the Transportation, Housing and Urban Development, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act of 2010, which should be self-explanatory. Yesterday, Cheatin’ John Ensign introduced an amendment to recommit the bill back to the committee that produced it. This was an effort to delay the bill. It doesn’t really matter what specific issues Ensign objected to, because the design was purely obstructive. The amendment failed in a 33-64 vote. Looking at the results of this symbolic vote is instructive.
Only 31 Republicans voted to recommit the bill. Nine Republicans voted to proceed to a vote. Who were those nine Republicans? Well, all but one of them are members of the Appropriations Subcommittee on Transportation, Housing and Urban Development, and Related Agencies. The only member of that committee to vote ‘no’ was Kay Bailey Hutichison, who is leaving the Senate to run for governor of Texas. The only Republican who is not a member of that committee to vote ‘aye’ was Lisa Murkowski of Alaska. Murkowski is a member of the full Appropriations Committee, however, and her state is more dependent on federal appropriations than any other in the union.
The two Democrats who voted to recommit the bill, Claire McCaskill of Missouri and Evan Bayh of Indiana, are not members of the Appropriations Committee. They serve in very competitive states. Their motivation in voting with the Republicans is no more noble than their desire to pad their statistics as moderate senators. They knew the amendment would fail, so their vote was free.
What’s meaningful in looking at this vote is that it demonstrates how real bipartisanship works, as well as how phony bipartisanship works. So far in this Congress, the Republicans have rarely provided a significant number of votes for anything. But, when it comes time to spend money, the Republican members of the subcommittee in charge of allocating those funds were willing to support the legislation.
The reason for this is that they must support the legislation if they want the Democrats on the subcommittee to continue to involve them in the process of crafting appropriations. Ordinarily, these same dynamics would apply to other legislation like the bills on health care reform, cap and trade, and the Employee Free Choice Act. A loyal minority would still legislate and participate constructively in the mark-up of bills. This is what Max Baucus was attempting to do with the health care bill.
It’s highly unusual for a minority party to choose to obstruct across the board. But that is what the Republicans have chosen to do with the single exception of the appropriations bills. They’re willing to give up their influence in everything except the allocation of federal dollars to their states.
The lesson for Baucus is that he must make the Republicans pay for their bad faith. All future bills in this Congress that pass through his Finance Committee should not seek to include Republican input.
One interesting thing to keep in mind is the career of Teddy Kennedy. Kennedy was in the minority from 1981-1987 and again from 1995-2001 and 2003-2007. Despite that, he left a legacy of accomplishment during those years that exceeds that of anyone who was in the majority. He managed to do that because he understood what the job of a senator is, and that is to legislate, not merely to represent a unified opposition to the majority. There are currently 40 Republican members of the Senate, and no more than one or two of them is worth a damn as a member of the minority because they have no interest in their job.
Amen. This is exactly the kind of analysis we never see in the corporate media. Thank the gods for the blogosphere.
Thank you. I hope you bookmark Congress Matters, because those folks are just outstanding.
indeed, congress matters is a great site.
good analysis too, on your part.
Very good points Booman.
It’s been so long since Democrats have been successful legislators that they have totally forgotten how to play hardball politics. It just amazes me that during the most heated political battle of the year, in the face of withering opposition from an unpopular enemy, the Democratic party’s instincts are to completely surrender to that enemy and even sanction and lecture its left base (see ACORN vote; single payer is off the negotiating table). That’s a grade of “F” in poly sci 101.
And no, the smackdowns to the left are not just symbolic votes (as opposed to the down and dirty sausage making votes you describe). Politics is largely about framing issues and symbolism. It’s a TOOL to enact better policy. Republicans OWN the Democrats at this. This is why policy options are always skewed right and why we are engaged in the same insane right wing debate with huge Democratic supermajorities that we engaged in when Bush was firmly in control. Republicans, even though they even more unpopular and their ideas have even less support, own the Democrats and have achieved near total victory at setting the agenda–and they are in the deep minority (can you imagine if the Left demanded the GOP Senate vote to condemn some action of the Christian Coalition in 2004?–it would never even be considered no matter how loudly the left yelled)!
In this regard the GOP has made a smart decision by being the party of NO. They win HUGE on the symbolic politics which has an overwhelming effect on actual policy. The create such drama that the Democrats are won’t even consider what a majority of Americans support and they promised to Americans just last year. And this gets repeated not only on health care policy but all policy.
And on the little sausage making the GOP may lose out on (IF, a big IF, the Democrats had the balls to actually punish Republicans as you wisely suggest) they can accurately make the decision that the Blue Dogs and Democrats will be business-friendly enough that they won’t enact policy terribly at odds with Republican goals and that if they do lose some local funding the macro political gains are totally worth that small price to pay.
Great to consider how Democrats can get some small victories though. I would bet against even a small victory though. The Democrats are so politically incompetent and thoroughly corrupted that I bet they screw up the small victories for the left. The only thing Democrats are good at is delivering on promises to corporate interests. Then when some big event happens the right will once again be the daddy party, the party that sets the agenda and gets stuff done and is not cowardly, and of course the Democrats will cowardly respond to that with a . . . . white flag of surrender.
One thing I should have elaborated on a little bit in this piece…
A senator needs (or should) be looking out for their state’s interests, regardless of whether or not they plan on voting for a bill once it reaches the floor. So, John Kerry is going to look out for the manufacturers of medical devices in the health care bill because his state has quite a few of those manufacturers. And Bill Nelson is going to fight cuts in Medicare Advantage because he has so many seniors in his homestate of Florida. Olympia Snowe is going to fight against a surtax on cadillac health care plans because Maine has some of the highest insurance rates in the country.
However, fighting and winning are two different things. A senator’s needs will be met in committee if at all possible. But if it becomes a close issue, winning can often require a commitment to support the bill if it passes. For Olympia Snowe, this means that Baucus might be willing to amend the bill to account for Maine’s vulnerability to the surtax. But, if he chooses to do so, he’ll have to fund other funding mechanisms to make up for it. If Snowe commits to vote for a bill that has her requested changes, it is more likely that those changes will be made. That’s how legislation is supposed to work.
Any senator that routinely opposes all legislation is going to lose influence in the mark-up process. That’s why it is actually very hard to maintain party discipline. Fortunately for the GOP, their members are highly ideological and don’t mind losing their influence. But that makes them really shitty representatives for their states.
Your analysis is so on point…OF COURSE. Gosh man, I’m in awe of how you just keep getting better and better when you were already damned good. I’m jealous. 🙂
Anyway, I was struck by your last paragraph, because I both agree and disagree. Sen. Kennedy’s record of accomplishment is great, no doubt about it. His political oeuvre puts to shame those who were in the majority, who would have an easier time passing legislation because their party controlled the chamber. But it’s not because they have no interest in the job–they very much do. It’s just that their job was not, and never will be about legislating.
Remember that most of them are Dixiecrats. And their job was not to legislate–their job was to learn the rules to OBSTRUCT legislation. Nothing has really changed except tactics, i.e., the tradition of keeping your head down while rising up the seniority ladder.
I don’t think we disagree.