What Democrats' Inability To Move Johnsen Forward Says About Democrats
Greg Sargent gets the answers from Sens. Olympia Snowe (R-ME) and Susan Collins (R-ME) that I've been seeking for weeks. The two both say they remain undecided about the nomination of Dawn Johnsen to head the Office of Legal Counsel.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said yesterday that he'd need "a couple" Republicans to cross the line before he could move Johnsen's confirmation to the floor, as Greg notes, this suggests her nomination's simply stalled--not dead in the water.
But here's the corollary to that.
Johnsen already has one Republican supporter--her home state senator, Richard Lugar of Indiana. At the same time, there are now 59 members in the Democratic caucus. One plus 59 equals 60. Enough to overcome a filibuster. Which means Reid's really saying that at least one Democrat is signaling his intent to join a Johnsen filibuster.
As I've noted before, Sen. Ben Nelson (R-NE) isn't a Johnsen fan, but his office strongly suggested to me that he wouldn't participate in a filibuster. That leaves the other anti-Johnsen Democrat, Sen. Arlen Specter (D-PA), who's on the record opposing her, though he's never really explained why, or whether he'd support a filibuster of her confirmation.
It's possible, I suppose, that there's another, lurking, secret Johnsen opponent in the Democratic caucus. But assuming that's not true, it suggests Reid and the Obama administration have been unable to enforce party unity on the idea that he should get an up or down vote on all of his nominees. Whether it's Specter or not (and I've put that question to his staff) the 59th Democratic vote may not be necessary. But it's been months now since Johnsen was nominated, and the fact that party leaders can't count on all the members of the caucus to not to filibuster their own President's nominee presents a real conundrum for them.
Josh
Matt
Eric
Why aren't Dem leaders screaming from the rooftops about Republican hypocrisy in filibustering nominees after piously insisting during Bush's terms that nominees always deserved an up-or-down vote? They need to get ads out in key states with Republican senators in their own words saying nominees deserve up-or-down votes. To a public who already views them as the Party of No, this is another nail in their coffins.
May 13, 2009 6:24 PM | Reply | Permalink
Two reasons: First, it would be hypocritical of them to complain, since they were on the other side of the issue at the same point. Second, pointing out hypocrisy, as we've seen many times in recent years, seems to be completely ineffective for motivating voters or officials. It's damned annoying, but there it is.
May 14, 2009 12:45 PM | Reply | Permalink
Greenwald asks a good question that I'd like to hear the answer to:
May 13, 2009 6:37 PM | Reply | Permalink
Don't you need 60 votes to break cloture or am I missing something here?
May 13, 2009 7:35 PM | Reply | Permalink
The point is, Dems let Republicans ram cabinet nominees through on a simple majority vote but seem unwilling to do the same for Obama's choices. It's a kind of cowardice that only Harry Reid is capable of showing.
May 13, 2009 8:51 PM | Reply | Permalink
Yes I completely agree that Reid is a coward, there's no question about that. But i'm still confused. You can't pass most things through the Senate by a simple 51 vote majority, they have to break the 60 vote cloture to move on. Maybe i'm confused or something or i'm still not getting it.
May 13, 2009 9:35 PM | Reply | Permalink
I don't know -- it didn't seem to me, from all that I know of Glenn and his writing, that he would ask this question if there was such a simple answer. Perhaps you're right. Perhaps it is the case that Dems never threatened a filibuster over Bush's nominations.
May 13, 2009 10:59 PM | Reply | Permalink
Right. Now that we know what the Republicans are doing, all the Senate Democrats should totally get into their time machine, go back in time and filbuster Mukasey.
Seriously, WTF is his point? That we should have filibustered Mukasey on the grounds that we just knew the Republicans would be total hypocrites once they were in the minority?
May 13, 2009 11:08 PM | Reply | Permalink
The point is that requiring 60 votes to pass "most things" is not normal because it's not normal for the minority party to filibuster everything. It's possible to do under the rules of the Senate, but the most recent Republican minority is the only group that has ever decided to do it. The fact that the media treat this as "of course, it really requires 60 votes to pass anything" rather than "Republicans care more about obstructing every Democratic initiative than allowing our government to function" is outrageous, and we should not be lulled into doing the same. (Imagine how it would have been reported if Democrats had done this during the Bush Administration.)
The fact is, modern conservatives proved over the past eight years that they are incapable of governing, and now they're in the process of trying to prevent anyone else from doing it either. It's incredibly destructive to the country, it's not business as usual, and it should never be treated as such.
May 14, 2009 12:42 PM | Reply | Permalink
No, sorry not seeing your point. What exactly, is it that Reid is supposed to be doing that he's not doing now? "Ramming nominations through" isn't really getting it done for me.
That's really my question to everyone who piles on to the Harry hate fests. Leaving aside all the generalized invective and name calling, what is it, exactly, that you think he's supposed to do to get, say, Nelson or Bayh to fall into line on every vote and from whence do you think he gets the power to do that?
Reid is exactly as powerful as the caucus will let him be. He cannot be more powerful than they want him to be.
May 13, 2009 11:15 PM | Reply | Permalink
"Ramming it through" is a Republican talking point. Back when we had a functioning system, getting 51 votes was simply "passing legislation", and filibustering was a rare tactic for something truly objectionable.
One of the confusions at this point comes from the Blue Dogs who regularly vote Republican, so a 53-vote Republican margin would have never been held up by a weak Democrat attempt to filibuster. But quite frankly, the Democrats should just declare war - strip Republicans out of each and every decision if they can't play normal, and push all the rules to discriminate against them. Screw the bi-partisanship unless there are people who want to be bi-partisan.
May 14, 2009 2:07 AM | Reply | Permalink
I totally agree with all of that.
May 14, 2009 10:03 AM | Reply | Permalink
Missing something, I believe. You don't necessarily need 60, you need three fifths of the whole Senate. Thus f there is one vacancy (Minnesota), you need 59.
Jail Cheney,
O.T.
May 14, 2009 6:13 AM | Reply | Permalink
Unfortunately, it doesn't work that way. You have to round all fractions up. I suppose academically, you could say that they need only 59 whole votes plus 4/10 of a vote, but since Senators cast only whole votes, not fractions of a vote, they really need 60 votes to have 3/5 of the Senate.
Or you can think of it this way. They need a number of Senators to vote in favor of cloture greater than or equal to 3/5 of the total number of Senators. 3/5 = 0.6. 59/99 = 0.59595959, which is less than 0.6. Therefore 59 is not enough. 60/99 = 0.606060606, which is greater than 0.6. Therefore 60 is enough.
May 14, 2009 9:17 AM | Reply | Permalink
Is the "R" snark or a typo?
May 13, 2009 7:08 PM | Reply | Permalink
Probally alittle bit of both. If you looked at his voting record you swear he's a Republican. I mean there are moderate Democrats then there's this asshole. If he switched parties tommorrow you wouldn't know the difference.
May 13, 2009 7:31 PM | Reply | Permalink
Harry Reid: non compos mentis
May 13, 2009 9:16 PM | Reply | Permalink
I think Harry is an obvious corporate Democratic whore.
I was going to use "shrewd", rather than obvious, but "Give 'em Hiney Licks" Harry is a little too blatant for his own good.
~
May 13, 2009 10:43 PM | Reply | Permalink
Democrats actually have 58 votes, not 59: Kennedy has appeared in Congress once since this fall, and that makes it harder to reach 60.
May 14, 2009 5:54 AM | Reply | Permalink
If I were the President, I wouldn't put up with it. I'd have him on the phone, informing him that the Senate has held this up long enough (three to four months is more than enough time to grant/deny consent), and that I intend to grant recess appointments to the remainder of the outstanding appointees during the Memorial Day recess. That would indeed be embarrassing to Sen. Reid, but that's the way it is.
May 14, 2009 9:39 AM | Reply | Permalink