The Democrats’ naked power grab
By Dana Milbank, WashPost, Published: November 21
“Congress is broken,” Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said Thursday before holding a party-line vote that disposed of rules that have guided and protected the chamber since 1789.
If Congress wasn’t broken before, it certainly is now. What Reid (Nev.) and his fellow Democrats effectively did was take the chamber of Congress that still functioned at a modest level and turn it into a clone of the other chamber, which functions not at all. They turned the Senate into the House.
Democrats were fully justified in stripping Republicans of their right to filibuster President Obama’s nominees — yet they will come to deeply regret what they have done.
Certainly, Republicans have abused the dilatory tactics that Senate minorities have, for centuries, used with greater responsibility; they seem intent on bringing government to a halt. And the Senate in 2013 is hardly a healthy institution. Yet it has achieved far more than the House — passing bipartisan immigration legislation and a farm bill and working out deals to avoid default and to end the federal government shutdown — largely because, until Thursday, Senate rules required the majority party to win votes from the minority.
(More here.)
“Congress is broken,” Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said Thursday before holding a party-line vote that disposed of rules that have guided and protected the chamber since 1789.
If Congress wasn’t broken before, it certainly is now. What Reid (Nev.) and his fellow Democrats effectively did was take the chamber of Congress that still functioned at a modest level and turn it into a clone of the other chamber, which functions not at all. They turned the Senate into the House.
Democrats were fully justified in stripping Republicans of their right to filibuster President Obama’s nominees — yet they will come to deeply regret what they have done.
Certainly, Republicans have abused the dilatory tactics that Senate minorities have, for centuries, used with greater responsibility; they seem intent on bringing government to a halt. And the Senate in 2013 is hardly a healthy institution. Yet it has achieved far more than the House — passing bipartisan immigration legislation and a farm bill and working out deals to avoid default and to end the federal government shutdown — largely because, until Thursday, Senate rules required the majority party to win votes from the minority.
(More here.)
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3 Comments:
For dictators such as Obama and Reid, the ends always justify the means. And people scoff at me when I say these two are just 21st century versions of Benito Mussolini. I am, like always, right again.
I pray that the Republicans one day win back the Senate and just abuse the shit out of the rules change and pound the Democrats in to submission with it. And I hope the Democrats piss and whine when how they have ruled the past few years comes back to haunt them.
Am I angry about this? Not at all. Vengeance takes time and patience and the Republicans will have their vengeance. Of that you can be assured.
I urge VV readers to go back and read the March 29, 2005 NYT's editorial. You should have a towel ready - you will either have the urge to laugh or cry. Perhaps laugh at first and then, when you realize the implications, cry.
Mr Koch, who needs the New York Times. Go back and read the words of Hillary Clinton, Joe Biden and Barack Obama in the spring of 2005 on the issue. Other Democrat Senators said the same thing (Dodd, Reid, and others):
http://www.washingtontimes.com/blog/watercooler/2012/nov/26/picket-video-senate-dems-minority-displayed-outrag/
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