Hail Obama - Senate Democrats Seek To Shut Down Debate And Amendments

As Noted by "The Elephant Bar" in Aug 2008

Today in Washington - May 11, 2012:
The Senate is in recess today and will reconvene on Monday to resume consideration of the motion to proceed to H.R. 2072, the bill reauthorizing the Export-Import Bank. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) is, again, blocking Republican amendments to the bill.

The House is in recess until Tuesday at Noon. Yesterday the House passed:

• H.R. 5652  (218 - 199)  —  "To provide for reconciliation pursuant to section 201 of the concurrent resolution on the budget for fiscal year 2013."
• H.R. 5326 (247 - 163)  — "Making appropriations for the Departments of Commerce and Justice, Science, and Related Agencies for the fiscal year ending September 30, 2013, and for other purposes."

As you read the following scenario being played out in the Senate, consider these comments. What would a dictator wish? Every since the Emperors of the Rome Republic cooped the Roman Senate, dictatorial and power hungry desperate leaders have sought ways to silence the voices of the people or their representatives -- especially the opposition party. It is most interesting that the following theatrics by Harry Reid are playing out over a non-event as related later. While the Obama administration and Congress had absolute power and control prior to the 2010 elections, there efforts were stymied by the 2010 elections when the people gave the then opposition party, the Republicans, control of the House and elected enough new Republican Senators to potentially stop or at least slow down the Senate Democrats with the 60 vote majority rule.

Now we have Obama puppet, Harry Reid, at it again. Why at this time? While he may know that grassroots conservatives are upset over the Export-Import Bank, the fact is that the bill easily got through the Republican controlled House and it is fully expected to eventually pass in the Senate. So, why is Reid at it again -- why now?

The Obama puppets do not do anything other than react to the strings controlled by the White House. As a minimum, this agenda by Reid is an attempt to set the stage to later force through bills and to prevent blockage of regulations, appointments, treaties, and other unimagined actions by the White House in the potential final days of the Obama administration or at least hopefully the final days of a Democrat controlled Senate. Mark my words: Reid is up to no good but his actions are controlled by the White House.

Politico reports, “An angry Harry Reid took to the floor Thursday and demanded changes to the Senate’s hallowed filibuster rules, siding with junior Democrats who have sought to substantially weaken the powerful delaying tactic. It’s a risky move for the Senate majority leader, who could find himself in the minority in a matter of months and need the filibuster to block the GOP’s agenda. . . . ‘If there were ever a time when Tom Udall and Jeff Merkley were prophetic, it’s tonight,’ Reid said on the floor. ‘These two young, fine senators said it was time to change the rules of the Senate, and we didn’t. They were right. The rest of us were wrong — or most of us, anyway. What a shame.’ Reid added: ‘If there were anything that ever needed changing in this body, it’s the filibuster rules, because it’s been abused, abused, abused.’”  Note the words "fine young men" and the proposed abolishing  of the Senate tradition of protecting the minority party and to assure a higher level of consensus.  These words are from the puppet masters not Harry Reid.  Udall will be 64 in a few days.  Reid is not talking "young" in age, but "young" in experience in the Senate.  Both these men came to the Senate three years ago via the 2008 Obama election win and they have helped push the radical new Obama agenda before it was slowed down in 2011 with newly elected Republicans.  Obviously, they hate the 60 vote rule!

At Townhall.com, Guy Benson has the video of Harry Reid’s latest attack on this venerable Senate tradition and notes, “Interestingly, when Reid's minority posse was actually abusing the judicial filibuster in the mid-2000’s, they defended their inviolable right to obstruct President Bush's appointees . . . .” He points out that last night Reid was attacking all filibusters, not just those of judicial nominees, which Democrats went to the mats to defend in 2005.

And what prompted Reid’s “anger” last night, as Politico describes it? He wanted to pass a bill without any debate or amendment and Republicans objected, demanding the basic rights of senators. A spokesman for Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) complained on Twitter, “McConnell is holding up bipartisan Ex-Im bill in name of amendments by Toomey, Vitter, Rand Paul & Mike Lee.” But have Senate Democrats really made legislating their priority recently?

Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell has been less than impressed with Democrats’ priorities: “Earlier this week, the President repackaged a list of old ideas into a Post-It note checklist for Congress. He said he did not want to ‘overload’ Congress. Unfortunately besides the weekly political show votes to coincide with the President’s campaign schedule, the work that needs to be done, isn’t. No budget, nothing to prevent the largest tax hike in history, and House-passed bills are sitting in the hopper. And while the President is trying to manufacture arguments that he can run on, House Republicans have spent the last year and a half voting on and passing energy and jobs bills. In fact, more than two dozen job proposals are currently collecting dust on the [Senate] Majority Leader’s desk.”

With Democrats’ clear desire stymie debate in the Senate, it’s interesting to note what Harry Reid said about such things back when his priority was defending the filibuster. Guy Benson highlights: “The Senate was not established to be efficient. Sometimes the rules get in the way of efficiency. The Senate was established to make sure that minorities are protected. Majorities can always protect themselves, but minorities cannot. That is what the Senate is all about. For more than 200 years, the rules of the Senate have protected the American people, and rightfully so. The need to muster 60 votes in order to terminate Senate debate naturally frustrates the majority and oftentimes the minority. I am sure it will frustrate me when I assume the office of majority leader in a few weeks. But I recognize this requirement is a tool that serves the long-term interest of the Senate and the American people and our country.”

As Leader McConnell said at the beginning of this Congress last year, “Americans have been telling us that they’re tired of being shut out of the legislative process. They want to be heard. And the response they’re now getting from some on the other side, instead, is a proposal to change the Senate rules so they can continue do exactly what they want with even fewer members than before. Instead of changing their behavior in response to the last election, they want to change the rules. Well, I would suggest that this is precisely the kind of approach a supermajority standard is meant to prevent. It exists to preserve the Senate’s role as the one place where the voices of all the people will, in the end, be heard.”

Reid, Udall, Merkley, Schumer and their followers are progressives and would prefer to see the Republic of the United States go the way of the Roman Republic. Hail Caesar! Or, in their world, Hail Obama!

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