Following WH's Obamacare Example, Senate Dems Use Nuclear Option To Advance Obama Agenda

Editorial Cartoon by AF "Tony" Branco

Today in Washington, D.C. - Dec. 10, 2013
The Senate reconvened at 10 AM today.  At 10:15, the Senate voted 56-38 to confirm Patricia Millett to be a U.S. Circuit Judge for the DC Circuit. Millett is a nominee whom Republicans initially blocked since Democrats announced they were pushing her as part of a court-packing plan to provide a rubber stamp for President Obama’s regulatory agenda. But majority Democrats then used the nuclear option to break the rules of the Senate to advance her nomination.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) then moved the Senate to the nomination of Rep. Mel Watt (D-NC) to head the federal housing agency overseeing Fannie and Freddie. Republicans had previously blocked his nomination. The Senate voted 54-42 to proceed to the motion to reconsider the failed cloture vote on the Watt nomination and then voted 54-42 to agree to the motion to reconsider the cloture vote.

Leader McConnell then called for a parliamentary point of order and delayed the Watt nomination by forcing Democrats to vote again to uphold their nuclear option vote to break the rules of the Senate. 51 Democrats voted to reaffirm their power grab.

The Senate then used Democrats’ new rules to invoke cloture (cut off debate) on the Watt nomination by a vote of 57-40. Following lunches, the Senate will resume post-cloture consideration of the Watt nomination.

Last night Reid filed cloture on 10 more nominations, taking advantage of the nuclear option. Among the nominations Reid is trying to move are Jeh Johnson to be Secretary of Homeland Security, 4 district judges, and Deborah James to be Secretary of the Air Force.

The House  reconvened at Noon today.  The House is considering three bills today:
H.R. 3521 — "To authorize Department of Veterans Affairs major medical facility leases, and for other purposes."
H.R. 1402 — "To amend title 38, United States Code, to extend the authorization of appropriations for the Secretary of Veterans Affairs to pay a monthly assistance allowance to disabled veterans training or competing for the Paralympic Team and the authorization of appropriations for the Secretary of Veterans Affairs to provide assistance to United States Paralympics, Inc."

Yesterday the house passed by Voice Vote: H.R. 3627 — "To require the Attorney General to report on State law penalties for certain child abusers, and for other purposes." –

Budget Negotiations have been going on in the The Budget Conference Committee led by House Budget Committee Chair Paul Ryan (R-WI) and Senate Budget Committee Char Patty Murray (D-WA). The buzz is they will release their budget proposal later today. Many conservatives are concerned that the formerly established Republican negotiated $65 billion sequestration level will be sacrificed to get Democrats to agree to a budget.  News reports indicate that revenue increases may be included alongside spending increases. The problem in Washington has been and still is that Washington spends too much – not that it takes in too little.  Maneuvers like increasing airline passenger taxes amount to gimmicks that force travelers to pick up tab for Washington’s slack.

Americans are tired of broken promises, and the abandonment of the bipartisan spending limits only reinforces voters’ beliefs that politicians in Washington cannot keep their word. Public Notice polling conducted this month found that 58% of voters want Washington to stick to the 2011 limits.   But, if it’s not, politicians should consider the electoral implications which were also reflected in the  Public Notice polling which showed  voters will reward politicians who cut spending and punish those who increase it. Seventy-one percent of voters said they would be more likely to support their member of congress if he or she votes to cut spending.

According to the Economist, only 8% of adults say the budget deficit is the most important issue to them. The economy (33%), Social Security (13%) and health care (8%) received higher percentages. Still, 54% of adults think the budget deficit is a “very” important issue.  Public Notice is an independent non-profit dedicated to providing facts and insight on the economy and government policy.

Speaking on the Senate floor this morning, Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell began by discussing Americans’ frustrations with Obamacare. “Folks are frustrated and upset by what’s happening with their health care under Obamacare. And they’re outraged at the tactics and the outright deception that led to its passage. It’s now clear that the President knew perfectly well that a lot of folks wouldn’t be able to keep the plans they had and liked, despite the endless assurances to the contrary they heard from the President himself. Many are also now starting to realize that the talking points they heard about their premiums and keeping their doctors weren’t worth the paper they were written on either.”

He continued, “If anybody needed any proof that Big Government liberalism doesn’t work, they’ve gotten a clinic over the past two months. It’s clearer now than ever that we need to replace this law with common-sense, patient-centered reforms that will actually drive down costs and increase innovation. The idea that making our health care system more like the DMV will somehow improve the final product has now been thoroughly discredited. And a thousand presidential speeches won’t change that.”

“But,” he pointed out, “here’s the larger story: Obamacare isn’t an isolated case. It may be the most obvious example of this administration’s determination to advance its agenda by any means possible. But it’s one example of many.”

McConnell explained, “The latest example was the administration’s complicity in the power grab we saw last month in the Senate. News reports suggest that a President who denounced this tactic ... in 2005 was actively lobbying for it ahead of the Majority Leader’s fateful decision to pull the trigger. So the President and the Majority Leader were for the protection of minority rights in the Senate until they were no longer in the minority. At that point, minority rights, the Rules of the Senate, and the principle of a meaningful check on the Executive became an inconvenience that stood in the way of their desire for more power. As I indicated last month, this was a pure power grab. If the majority party can’t be expected to follow the rules, there are no rules. So this was a grave mistake. And it was a grave betrayal of trust, since some of the main players had previously vowed they would never do it. But then they did — just as the President had vowed that if you liked your health care you could keep it. For the President and his enablers in Congress, the ends now clearly justify the means.”

And this week as soon as the Senate returned, Democrats went right to work on obtaining the ends they unleashed the nuclear option to get. First, they confirmed Patricia Millett to the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals. Millett was one of three nominees to that court, which will see numerous cases about President Obama’s regulatory agenda that he frequently uses to bypass Congress. Senate Democrats have previously declared their intention to “switch the majority” on that court and “fill up the D.C. Circuit, one way or another.” As The Washington Post explained in April, “Giving liberals a greater say on the D.C. Circuit is important for Obama as he looks for ways to circumvent the Republican-led House and a polarized Senate on a number of policy fronts through executive order and other administrative procedures.”

As Leader McConnell said, “[W]e see the results of this mindset most powerfully with Obamacare — a law that this administration was determined to force through Congress by hook or by crook, regardless of what half-truths it had to repeat to get there; regardless of whichever senators it had to coax and cajole. But the pattern didn’t end with the law’s passage. The administration has repeatedly invoked executive power to change whichever parts of the law prove inconvenient. Its friends begged for relief from the law, so they carved out special loopholes. Statutory deadlines became an irritation, so they waived them. ‘Incorrect promises’ made to sell the law became an embarrassment, so they changed entire sections on the fly. To many Washington Democrats, this is all fine — not because they necessarily want to circumvent the law, perhaps, but because they feel justified in doing so if that’s what it takes to enact their agenda. We’ve seen Democrats use this same approach with immigration policy, welfare reform, recess appointments. We’ve seen them use it to justify government-sanctioned harassment of entire groups of people over at the IRS. And two weeks ago, we saw Washington Democrats take this ends-justify-the-means approach to a whole new level entirely, by eliminating the right of the minority party to be heard in the Senate — something they themselves had warned against for years when they were in the minority …. something the Vice President called ‘a naked power grab’ when he was in the Senate. Washington Democrats changed our democracy irrevocably — they did something they basically promised they would never do — and to what end? To pack the courts with judges they expect will rubberstamp the President’s partisan agenda… to eliminate one of the last remaining obstacles standing between the President and the enactment of his agenda through executive fiat. In short, because they wanted power that the voters have denied them at the ballot box.”

He concluded, “Two weeks ago, the President and his Democrat allies defied two centuries of tradition, their own prior statements, and – in the case of some Democrat Leaders – their own public commitments about following the rules of the Senate. They did this for one reason: to advance an agenda the American people don’t want. It’s an agenda that runs straight through the D.C. Circuit — so now they’re putting their people in place, to quote one member of their leadership, ‘one way or another.’ . . . Washington Democrats unfortunately are focusing their energy on saying and doing anything to circumvent the representatives of the people. But ultimately, they are accountable to the American people. And the American people will have their say again soon – sooner than many ... might hope.”

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Tags: White House, Obamacare Example, Senate, Democrats, Nuclear Option, Advance Obama Agenda, Budgets, polling, editorial cartoon, AF Branco To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service. Thanks!