I’m pretty depressed about the political situation in the country. I guess the most dispiriting thing is that Obama can win reelection in a landslide, we can win back control of the House, and we can retain control of the Senate and even pick up a couple of seats, and all of that will not be enough to break the Republicans’ ability to stonewall. Blame the filibuster.
But there are some things that might change for the better in Washington. Control of the House and all its committees is obviously something worth fighting very hard for. But things could get better in the Senate, too. Let me highlight a few things.
The chairman of the Senate Budget Committee, Kent Conrad, is retiring. We’ll probably lose his seat to the Republicans. But Sen. Patty Murray is in line to take over the chair if the Dems hold onto control of the Senate. I think we all can agree that Murray would be a vast improvement over Conrad in that role.
Most of you probably know that Joe Lieberman chairs the Senate Homeland Security Committee. What you might not know is that the Homeland Security Committee has a dual role as the committee on government oversight. If the Dems retain control of the Senate, Tom Carper of Delaware will probably take over Lieberman’s chair. Carper is, like Lieberman, a former chairman of the Democratic Leadership Council. He’s a fairly shitty senator. But, unlike Lieberman, he’ll defend the administration from unfair attacks. Also, Lieberman’s likely replacement is Rep. Chris Murphy, and he’ll be a major upgrade over Holy Joe.
Sen. Dan Akaka of Hawaii is retiring. He is the chairman of the Indian Affairs Committee. Otherwise, he’s not much noticed in Washington. Sen. Maria Cantwell will probably take his gavel on the Indian Affairs Committee. Rep, Mazie Hirono, a true progressive, will probably take his seat in the Senate. She’ll be an upgrade. She’ll also be the first Buddhist to serve in the Upper Chamber.
There is a good chance that Elizabeth Warren will replace Scott Brown as one of the two senators from Massachusetts. That would be a massive improvement.
If Tammy Baldwin is successful in replacing the retiring Herb Kohl, that would be a major injection of progressivism into the Senate.
In New Mexico, its possible that Martin Heinrich will take Jeff Bingaman’s place in the Senate and provide a little spark. More importantly, Sen. Ron Wyden is poised to take over Bingman’s gavel on the Senate Energy & Natural Resources Committee.
It can’t be bad that Arizona’s Jon Kyl is retiring even if we don’t yet have a strong candidate to compete for the seat.
Tim Kaine would be a modest improvement over Jim Webb (on most issues) in Virginia.
And Sen. Ben Nelson of Nebraska will probably lose, meaning we won’t have to suffer his betrayals anymore.
There could be interesting primary challenges to Olympia Snowe, Orrin Hatch, and Dick Lugar, but they all seem likely to survive. Maybe the Texas replacement for retiring Kay Bailey Hutchison could be a Democrat. But, I doubt it.
Rep. Shelley Berkley could unseat Sen. Dean Heller in Nevada. She’d be a very modest improvement.
If things go well and Obama is reelected, we should see a better Congress. But it’s all relative. It won’t be good enough to solve our problems.
We may be at that point that Dmitry Orlov wrote about a few years ago, where we face the following challenges:
Of course he was describing the Soviet Union and how our situation mirrors it.
Things won’t get done, even if we were to gain a few Senate seats next year, because Harry Reid and the powers that be don’t want it to get done. The filibuster isn’t in the Constitution. Hell, they could even change it so that 40 votes are needed to filibuster instead of 60 to break it.
I met Rep. Hirono tonight at a Los Angeles fundraiser for Tammy Duckworth who is running for Congress in Joe Walsh’s (the child support dodging teabagger) soon-to-be old district. I was highly impressed by both women. However, I asked Rep. Hirono about the potential for reforming the filibuster if she makes it to the senate, and she expressed the oft stated sentiment “one has to be careful in case one’s party loses control of the senate” hedge against reform, BUT she did promise to be a true Democrat and not a conservadem. She is firmly convinced the Right does not want to compromise and so must be defeated electorally for anything to get done.
I urged her to consider pushing for filibuster reform from the standpoint that just being able to get stuff passed would help to reverse the Republican framing of govt=bad and must be drowned. Pass bills and then have the courage to run on that record rather than retaining the 60 vote filibuster out of fear of losing it.
Seems about right, Booman. Good work.
IIRC, Ed Kilgore wrote a piece, perhaps before the 2010 elections, analyzing why progressives weren’t going to be able to make major legislative advances for the next several years, even if Obama gets reelected.
1 – The 2010 elections were always—even in a best case scenario—going to be a major victory for Republicans. Thus, the record of the 2009-10 Congress—the most productive progressive session of Congress since 1965-66—would not be replicated in 2011-12.
2 – Because of the 2006 wave of new Senate Democrats, Democrats would face a herculean challenge just to avoid losing Senate seats in 2012.
3 – Assuming Obama’s reelection (not a given with this economy), expect congressional Democrats to have a rough 2014 election season as is typical for the incumbent’s party in the 6th year of a presidency.
There are two major structural changes that could help progressives in the coming decade. The first is demographic: 4 million 18 year olds will reach voting age every year. If this generation continues to vote Democratic by 2-1 or 3-2 margins, it will slowly but steadily transform the electorate.
The second is in the US Senate. Changing Rule 22 to weaken or eliminate the filibuster would allow electoral majorities to govern more effectively. Progressives would need to be willing to accept that this change means Majority Leader McConnell (or Cornyn) would have more power to enact a conservative agenda. But that’s the price to be paid for Majority Leader Reid (or Durbin or Schumer) to have more power to enact a progressive agenda.
we need to run candidates.
period.
don’t leave anything uncontested.
I admit BooMan, that I’m still a little bitter about how folks treated Kendrick Meek down in Florida during his Senate Run.
That’s dumb. The guy was clearly a scrub. He got 20% of the vote in 2010.
20%.
So with “stronger support” (whatever that means) he would have gotten…25%? 30%? Enough to beat Crist for second? Certainly never enough to beat Rubio.
I would save the bitterness for Gov. Gollum squeaking by his opponent.
She would be a HUGE improvement. She might actually DO SOMETHING. Dean Heller has nice hair, but that’s about it. He has never actually DONE anything, EVER. But for some crazy reason, people in northern Nevada continued to vote for him when he was in the House. Now that he has to compete in a statewide Senate race, he may well lose because people from southern Nevada know and like Shelley Berkley.
Because we run ConservaDems in those districts, that’s why!! Just look at who the Democrats ran in that special election to replace Heller.
After you’re already conceding GOP wins in North Dakota and Nebraska, and bemoaning the lack of good candidates in Arizona and Texas? Even when Warren beats Brown, that still leaves Dems another man down on the year.
You get a win in Nevada, you only break even. Where next? Like you said, the best places to make the senate more progressive is new Dems replacing retiring members of their own party, not flipping seats from the other party.