26 Democrats: Climate Change Should Be Filibustered
As I reported last night, the Senate went on record yesterday against using the reconciliation process to pass climate change legislation. Most high-profile Democrats say they had no plans to do that anyhow, but yesterday's vote (67-31) almost certainly forecloses on the option altogether. The roll call just went up belatedly on the Senate website (owing, perhaps, to a backlog of votes) and I want to highlight the 26 Democrats who voted with the Republicans. With this vote they committed themselves to the idea that climate change legislation should be subject to a filibuster, and their large numbers suggests, perhaps, significant opposition to passing any major reform legislation (read: health care) through reconciliation.
Full list below the fold.
Max Baucus (D-MT)
Evan Bayh (D-IN)
Mark Begich (D-AK)
Michael Bennett (D-CO)
Jeff Bingaman (D-NM)
Robert Byrd (D-WV)
Maria Cantwell (D-WA)
Bob Casey (D-PA)
Kent Conrad (D-ND)
Byron Dorgan (D-ND)
Russell Feingold (D-WI)
Kay Hagan (D-NC)
Amy Klobuchar (D-MN)
Herb Kohl (D-WI)
Mary Landrieu (D-LA)
Carl Levin (D-MI)
Blanch Lincoln (D-AR)
Claire McCaskill (D-MO)
Patty Murray (D-WA)
Ben Nelson (D-NE)
Mark Pryor (D-AR)
Jay Rockefeller (D-WV)
Debbie Stabenow (D-MI)
Jon Tester (D-MT)
Mark Warner (D-VA)
Jim Webb (D-VA)
Josh
Matt
Eric
Ugh. Obviously Senators like Stabenow and Levin voted for this because Midwestern Democrats are very much against things like cap-and-trade, so it's good to see that Sherrod Brown is not there.
Overall, it's the usual suspects; the only people with a moderate reputation who aren't on are Mark Udall, Shaheen. I was going to say Gillibrand but she's been acting ultra-leftist since she got to the Senate to compensate for her House years. (I'm particularly dismayed by how far to the right Bayh has been going lately).
April 2, 2009 10:42 AM | Reply | Permalink
It looks like it's a partisan issue for Republicans (who voted along party lines) and a regional issue for Democrats (who split along regional lines). That seems like a really bad sign for this legislation.
Oh well, I guess we'll see how the coal producing states like carbon being regulated by the EPA as a pollutant under the Clean Air Act.
April 2, 2009 12:49 PM | Reply | Permalink
This is very depressing news and in my view does not bode well for health care reform and the other key agenda items for Obama. What the hell are these conservadems afraid of??? the future?
April 2, 2009 10:47 AM | Reply | Permalink
Obama should forget the GOP...he has to get this crowd under control
What a bunch of prima donnas
April 2, 2009 11:00 AM | Reply | Permalink
Russ Feingold? WTF??!? There must be something in this I don't know about. He's usually about the last guy to vote with the R's on anything.
Dang it now I have to actually read about this instead of simply reacting viscerally to the headline...
April 2, 2009 11:05 AM | Reply | Permalink
Shame on them.
April 2, 2009 11:06 AM | Reply | Permalink
Ridiculous headline. They're simply voting against the end-around, not voting for a filibuster. The reconciliation gave what they deemed to be too much power to the progressive wing. A vote for reconciliation was a vote for strict partisanship and would have doomed any bill that couldn't be passed via reconciliation from here on out.
April 2, 2009 11:11 AM | Reply | Permalink
This take seems exactly right to me. This is about preserving influence: if you're one of the Senators who hopes to have some hope of influencing aspects of this legislation, it's in your interest to vote against this. Otherwise, the Dems only need to get to 51, and 7 Dem Senators can be ignored. These 26 (or most of them) likely want to ensure that they're relevant to the discussion.
Furthermore--assuming I understand reconciliation properly--it's significantly more in our interest to get a "regular" bill passed rather than a "reconciliation" bill. I believe the reconciliation bill would expire when the budget projection expires (10 yrs from now?), whereas the "regular" bill is law forever (that's repeal can be defended by a potential future Democratic minority). If the CWA had been passed on a reconciliation-style vote, it would have expired during the Reagan era and would not be law today. It's better to compromise a bit and pass a law that will be around long-term.
April 2, 2009 1:22 PM | Reply | Permalink
co-sign with both of these comments.
April 2, 2009 1:47 PM | Reply | Permalink
Ditto, hear, hear. I think Walter Mitty is on to what's what on this.
April 2, 2009 2:03 PM | Reply | Permalink
It's better to compromise a bit and pass a law that will be around long-term.
It's better to pass a good bill now, rather than passing something so watered down that it won't be effective.
And once the door is open to shutting down reconciliation rules, it's open. Goodbye meaningful health care reform.
If they pass health care reform under reconciliation rules (a big if at this point, if you ask me) when it expires in 5 years, no one is going to want to go back to 2009 health care policies.
But hey, at least Democratic Senators still have their influence in the Senate!
April 2, 2009 2:08 PM | Reply | Permalink
Most of these don't surprise me. except:
Bingaman
Kohl
Feingold
Murray
Cantwell
What the hell happened there??? (particularly the WA senators and Bingaman!!!)
April 2, 2009 11:12 AM | Reply | Permalink
There are good strategic reasons for progressives to vote against using the budget process to circumvent the filibuster — namely the fact that budget laws expire after 10 years.
Had the Clean Air Act, Clean Water Act, Endangered Species Act, Occupational Health and Safety Act, etc., etc., etc. all been passed this way, they would have expired in the early 1980s, and almost certainly would not have been renewed.
Better, in my view, to increase the pressure upon Congress to act, than to accept a law that isn't permanent. We must use our majority to wring real change out of the system, not temporary stopgaps. We're well beyond that point.
April 2, 2009 3:43 PM | Reply | Permalink
The U.S. is going to destroy the planet unless it gets swallowed up by a giant earthquake. What a crappy country. It's in denial about every single issue facing it, whether from drugs, to poverty to crime, to health care to climate change. Utterly incapable of facing any issue honestly. Captured by its pig people.
April 2, 2009 11:17 AM | Reply | Permalink
Russ Feingold. Hmm... I wonder what the far-lefties have to say about their golden boy, now.
April 2, 2009 11:44 AM | Reply | Permalink
I (a far-lefty) emailed Russ to find out what his thinking is. I'll be sure to let you know what he says so you can go back to picking lint from your belly button.
April 2, 2009 12:29 PM | Reply | Permalink
...Right. Good luck on getting an answer, buddy. No need to be rude about it, though. =)
It's just makes me chuckle that many people on the far left(yourself included, I would assume?) consider Russ Feingold to be this bastion of liberalism, with the integrity of 20 men, willing to stand up and fight for the rights of the people! ...At least that's the image that so many seemed to project throughout 2008. I'm jut wondering where the hell that guy is right now.
April 2, 2009 12:35 PM | Reply | Permalink
His thinking will be not to try and end-around the process. If Bush pulled this stunt the progressive wing would be irate. Feingold is all about proper process.
April 2, 2009 1:06 PM | Reply | Permalink
Just remember. It will have been the Democrats who killed this. Not Republicans.
April 2, 2009 11:55 AM | Reply | Permalink
Well, no. There were also 41 Republican votes there...
April 2, 2009 1:12 PM | Reply | Permalink
Just remember, it's Americans and their idiotic political system that are going to make the planet uninhabitable.
April 2, 2009 12:28 PM | Reply | Permalink
Just left this for my pathetic Senator:
Senator Stabenow,
I just came across this website detailing your vote on the Johanns Amdt. No. 735 yesterday. Same has been posted to the Senate website relating to the roll call for this vote.
I am so angry at you for this vote that I could scream! Supporting a filibuster against your own party? You and Senator Levin should be ashamed of yourselves. Standing in the way of progressive legislation - and siding with the "Party of No Ideas" known as Republicans, who may I remind you were DECISIVELY ROUTED IN THE 2008 ELECTIONS - is not the way you will keep my vote. We don't want their policies, we don't need their governing style, and we certainly don't need weak-kneed D Senators from any state conferring some air of legitimacy to the "debate" on climate change by refusing to support their own party's initiatives.
There is no debate: climate change is happening now, it's happening at an exponential rate due to humans, and much of that is attributable to greehouse gas emissions from automobile usage. Propping up outdated CAFE standards as a friend to Michigan industries (who have divested themselves of so many jobs here we're nearly in a Depression!) doesn't move American forward - it retrenches it to suckling on the foreign oil teat into perpetuity. WE NEED TO LEAVE THIS THINKING BEHIND. I am sorry that this appears to trouble your campaign contributors at the Big 3 so deeply, but denial of these facts just isn't an option. Your ordinary constituents would like to have some sort of livable Earth to leave to future generations - although that doesn't garner as much cash in the coffers.
I find it beyond troubling that you would continue to prop up industry at the cost of the taxpayers of Michigan. As someone whose family has been employed in the Big 3 for generations, it's time to call the auto industry to excellence! Why is it that there are so many hybrid and alternative vehicles for sale in Europe, but not in the US, where the brands are ostensibly headed? It makes no sense - except when you consider protectionism of the status quo, then I guess it makes perfect sense.
Acknowledging climate change is the first step to positioning Michigan to reap the benefits of creating NEW ENERGY PRODUCERS - why aren't there massive wind farms on the shores of Lake Michigan? Why aren't there more efforts to use hydroelectric power? We are frittering away a golden opportunity to demand more accountability from Michigan industries while at the same time moving towards alternative energy options that are clean and renewable.
April 2, 2009 12:55 PM | Reply | Permalink
Party and regional lines me thinks. With a few blue dogs sprinkled in for good measure.
April 2, 2009 1:04 PM | Reply | Permalink
Hee hee hee, here comes the Hillary Troll.
Remember part of the Hillary bashing was that she had tried to run over the Senate in her health care attempt, had even (who could even contemplate) tried to use the sacred reconciliation process to ram through health care? Senate colleague Emeritus Robert Byrd demurred (nice rhyme there, dontcha think?), and it went down in flames.
Roll forward a few years, and suddenly Daschle's big breakthrough on passing health care is to use the reconciliation process. Sebelius agrees. Kennedy agrees. Obama fans go wild. Change! Hope! Almost 100% coverage!
So because X's pet project is in trouble and the Democrats with a 58-42 seat majority still haven't figured out how to pass legislation, we must game the system to allow every piece of newly sacred legislation to skirt the legislative process.
There's another alternative, which is that Democrats could figure out how to have a backbone, to frame their issues clearly and concisely, to create overwhelming public support for their actions, to actually communicate rather than expect people will just gravitate to them through their obvious brilliance.
Because I'm rather horrified by the idea that the Republicans will have a "just-use-the-resolutions-process, Tony" precedent to simply make up legislation when they get their next Congressional majority. And I was none too impressed with the "load it up with tax cuts" approach to a "stimulus" bill. So maybe there is room for real opposition to what some may assume is a God-divined policy position. The Devil's in the deatils.
April 3, 2009 2:40 AM | Reply | Permalink
I should of course note that there are Democrats who are pushing very hard to be organized, on message, communicative, effective. Here I'm just railing against the Deus-Ex-Machina crowd, the "oh-it's-so-tough, can't-it-be-easier" bunch. Simple answer, no. Either elect more Democratic Senators (and get that Minnesota guy in or start blocking their candidates), or be more effective with what you have.
April 3, 2009 2:53 AM | Reply | Permalink