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Freshman Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky, speaking to Anderson Cooper of CNN, on Friday, May 20, 2011:
Senator Rand Paul: “We go week after week in the Senate and do nothing. I feel like sometimes I should return my check because I go up, they do no votes and no debate. Look at this horrendous debt crisis – we don’t debate that either.”
Anderson Cooper: “Really, you feel like that? You feel like you’re not doing anything there?”
Paul: “Yes. I feel… Absolutely. We go up week to week and there’s no debate in Congress. No debate in the Senate. We sit idly by. Some weeks we vote on two-three non-controversial judges and we go back home. It, really…”
Cooper: “Why is that?”
Paul: “I’m trying to get a vote on Libya. They say they don’t have time. I was told, when I wanted to bring up my resolution on Libya – which I did force them to [for, literally, ten minutes], but I had to kinda capture the floor…”
Cooper: “It got tabled like 90-10…”
Paul: “Yeah, and they weren’t too happy with me because I used some parliamentary procedures to gain access to the floor, and they came running down to the floor. They were apoplectic that I had taken over the floor, and the thing is is that we should be having these debates on the floor – they don’t want to have any debate. I’m asking right now to vote on Libya – I have a resolution saying we’re in violation of the War Powers Act. It’s hard for me to get the floor unless I somehow sneak on the floor when no one’s looking to try to get a vote. Why would we not want to debate great Constitutional questions? When I ran for office, that’s what I thought – there will be great and momentous debates on the floor. We don’t have any because they prevent the debates from ever even beginning.”
Cooper: “Senator Rand Paul, appreciate your coming on. Thank you.”
Paul: “Thank you.”
David A. Fahrenthold, providing a rare and welcome account of Senate floor proceedings in the Washington Post, on June 9, 2011:
In the U.S. Senate, this is what nothing sounds like.
“Mr. Akaka.”
At 9:36 a.m. on Thursday [6/9], a clerk with a practiced monotone read aloud the name of Sen. Daniel K. Akaka (D-Hawaii). The chamber was nearly deserted. The senator wasn’t there. Not that she was really looking for him.
Instead, the clerk was beginning one of the Capitol’s most arcane rituals: the slow-motion roll calls that the Senate uses to bide time.
These procedures, called “quorum calls,” usually serve no other purpose than to fill up empty minutes on the Senate floor. They are so boring, so quiet that C-SPAN adds in classical music: otherwise, viewers might think their TV was broken.
This year–even as Washington lurches closer to a debt crisis–the Senate has spent a historic amount of time performing this time-killing ritual. Quorum calls have taken up about a third of its time since January, according to C-SPAN statistics: more than 17 eight-hour days’ worth of dead air.
[...]
“It’s not even gridlock. It’s worse than that,” said Allan Lichtman, a history professor at American University who once ran for the Senate himself as a Democrat. He said “gridlock” implies that somebody was at least trying to get legislation passed.
Instead, he said, this year “they’re not even trying to get something done.”
To an outsider, a quorum call looks like a serious–if dull–piece of congressional business. A clerk reads out senators’ names slowly, sometimes [usually] waiting 10 minutes or more between them [and rarely getting beyond the first few names].
But it’s usually a sham. The senators aren’t coming. Nobody expects them to. The ritual is a reaction to what the chamber has become: a very fancy place that senators, often, are too busy to visit.
This is [part of] what happened: Decades ago, senators didn’t have offices. They spent their days at their desks on the Senate floor. So clerks really needed to call the roll to see if a majority was ready for business.
Now, senators spend much of their time in committee rooms, offices and elsewhere. If no big vote is on the horizon, often nothing at all is happening on the Senate floor.
But Senate rules don’t allow for nothing to happen.
[...]
After 12 minutes, Sen. Mark R. Warner (D-Va.) showed up. “I ask [unanimous consent] that the proceedings of the quorum be dispensed with,” he said. That’s how quorum calls usually end: The next senator who wants to speak asks for a halt.
After Warner gave a brief speech on the value of federal workers, it happened again. “Mr. Akaka,” the clerk said. Twenty-one minutes of silence.
At a deli in the Senate’s basement, it was clear this was wearing on people. One Capitol employee asked another: Where are you working today? “Senate chamber,” his buddy replied. “Shoot myself in the head.”
These sham roll calls have been a feature of Senate debate for decades, but this year has been special: According to C-SPAN, the Senate has spent more than 32 percent of its time in quorum calls. That’s more than in any comparable period dating to 1997.
The main reason seems to be the bare-bones agenda pursued by the Senate’s Democratic leaders: There have been just 87 roll-call votes so far, compared with 205 in the same period during 2009. Senate Democrats have not even proposed an official budget; the strategy appears to be to shield vulnerable incumbents from controversial votes on spending.
“Why are we here?” asked Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.), a critic of the large number of quorum calls this year. “The Senate is not operating the way it was designed, because politicians don’t want to be on record.”
A crucial point that’s summarized by Fahrenthold’s “But Senate rules don’t allow for nothing to happen” is that, in the absence of that “slow-motion” roll call that I call the Fake Quorum Call – which never comes to an end on its own, and may only be lifted by unanimous consent or by the Majority Leader, unless and until some Senator has the guts to challenge the Party status quo by asking that the Senate’s parliamentary rules be enforced – or of any actual floor debate, the Presiding Officer is required under the rules and precedents of the Senate to put the pending question (whatever it is – a motion to proceed, an amendment, a bill, a nomination) to a simple-majority vote of the Senate:
“When a question is pending, and a Senator addressing the Chair concludes his address to the question, and no one immediately seeks recognition, it is the duty of the Chair to state the pending question to the Senate.” - Riddick’s Senate Procedure
Which is a fact that should help illuminate how insidious (and wholly unnecessary) it is that the current Party majority in the Senate now routinely abuses the optional Rule XXII cloture motion process, in the absence of obstructive floor debate – thereby preventing routine Senate debate and amendment (the transaction of Senate “business” without the need for unanimous consent), while simultaneously imposing supermajority thresholds for the adoption of legislation and confirmation of nominees in the Senate. The only reason for the current Democratic majority to avoid the use of the default simple-majority Senate rules, given the absence of actual debating filibusters in the Senate for almost two decades now – via their resort to the optional supermajority rule and procedure (which was created in 1917 to overcome rare obstructive floor debate) – is to avoid public debate and unpredictable democratic legislating, conducted in the open by the representatives of the people. [A reason that routinely translates into "Republican filibusters" in Democratic Party-speak, as embraced and amplified by Party hacks and widespread journalistic malpractice.]
So, although David Fahrenthold (and certainly most of his colleagues) may not realize it, that “slow-motion” Senate roll call that never actually determines whether a Constitutional quorum is present (in the empty Senate Chamber) is doing a lot more than “biding the time” of the Senate, and it’s seriously damaging the institution. The constant imposition of the Fake Quorum Call, unchallenged by any Senator, and deployed in lieu of a simple Senate recess – which would make the Senate’s inaction plain for all to see, and which the Senate routinely agrees to every Tuesday, at midday, while members attend their private Party luncheons – creates the need for unanimous consent simply to conduct ordinary business on the Senate floor. That vests inordinate power in a few hands at the top of each Party organization, and those Party bosses, in turn, regularly try to privately “deal” in the backrooms for a unanimous way to the floor through their self-imposed Fake Quorum Call blockade of the Senate floor.
It’s the increasing imbalance of power between the three branches of government brought home to the Senate, where the elected power-holders in the institution allow others to wield their power for them. [And no, the absent Senators aren't all off conscientiously attending committee hearings that conflict with Senate floor sessions (despite a Senate rule, for good reason, precluding that, which must be waived daily) - as the appalling absentee rate at important Senate committee hearings repeatedly demonstrates.]
That supermajority, backroom style of proceeding is of course implicitly embraced by Party leaders like Majority Whip Dick Durbin of Illinois, who deliberately, and contentedly, put the President and their Party (that is, their campaign-fundraising organization) before the Constitutional separation of powers and the weighty responsibilities of their high legislative office:
It is a legitimate and timely question, because we are now in negotiations at the highest levels–between the President and the leaders in the House and Senate–to try to find some way through our impasse. - Dick Durbin, June 30, 2011
Senator Durbin isn’t, of course, speaking of a Senate or House “impasse” on any specific piece of legislation, or on any conference committee report negotiation, or on any other formal legislative measure that’s actually been introduced under regular order, given full public hearings in Congressional committee(s), and full committee deliberation and acceptance, before reaching the Senate floor for further public debate and careful amendment pending a final simple-majority vote. Far from it. That would require the democratic involvement of all committee members, and of all members of the Senate representing every state and all the people, in proportion to the power that the voters actually gave their representatives, and only them, to craft and pass legislation, for signing or returning by the President. In other words, that regular, deliberative legislative order would remove both the inordinate influence of a Senate minority that’s been granted co-equal status by the majority Party Congressional leadership and the President, and the unhealthy interference of the Executive Branch of government in the Congressional process and policy outcome, while placing the proceedings and the debate on the public record where they belong.
Freshman Senator Ron Johnson of Wisconsin (who defeated Senate veteran Russ Feingold last fall, likely in significant part because of Feingold’s unapologetic embrace of the Executive Branch-designed, backroom-created healthcare bill), a member of the Senate Budget Committee, speaking on the Senate floor Tuesday, June 28, 2011:
But what kind of process is this? A few people talking behind closed doors, far from the view of the American public, is that the process that is going to decide the fate of America’s financial situation, of our financial future? Is this how the U.S. Government is supposed to work? I don’t think so. Of course not.
Unfortunately, this has become business as usual in Washington. As a manufacturer, I know if the process is bad the product will be bad. Business as usual in Washington is a bad process. [...]
I am pretty new here. I don’t pretend to understand everything that makes the Senate work, or maybe more accurately what doesn’t allow the Senate to work. But I do know the Senate [as presently operated under tight Party control] runs on something called unanimous consent. So unless we receive some assurance from the Democratic leadership that we will actually start addressing our budget out in the open, in the bright light of day, I will begin to object. I will begin to withhold my consent.
The Senate needs to pass a budget. It shouldn’t be that difficult.
[...]
Let me start the process by throwing out a number–$2.6 trillion. That is $800 billion more than we spent just 10 years ago. The $2.6 trillion is the amount President Obama, in his budget, said the Federal Government would receive in revenue next year. If we only spent that amount of money we would be living within our means. What a concept.
If we want to spend more than $2.6 trillion, Members of Congress, members of this administration, should go before congressional committees and openly justify what they want to spend, how much they want to borrow, and how much debt they are willing to pile on the backs of our children, our grandchildren, and our great-grandchildren. They should explain just how much of our children’s future they are willing to mortgage.
The American people deserve to be told the truth. Unless that happens, I will begin to withhold my consent. Unless there is some assurance the Senate will take up its budget responsibilities in an open process, I will begin to object.
Madam President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will [pretend to] call the roll.
The assistant editor of the Daily Digest proceeded to [pretend to] call the roll.
Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.
Mr. JOHNSON of Wisconsin. I object.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Franken). Objection is heard.
Mr. SESSIONS. I thank the Chair.
[Now, watch carefully, citizens, as the Fake Quorum Call is magically, invisibly, and seamlessly transformed here by the Majority Leader (with a signal to the Senate Clerk/Parliamentarian at just about 6:00 p.m. on 6/28) into a rare real quorum call (making it, under Senate precedents, an actual "quorum call"), so that he may be recognized at its conclusion to offer a unanimous consent request regarding a bill, since Senator Johnson is objecting to the normally-routine unanimous consent requests to lift the Fake Quorum Call that's meanwhile blocking all Senate floor action (absent a quorum, the Senate must round up Senators, or adjourn):]
The assistant bill clerk continued with the call of the roll, and the following Senators entered the Chamber and answered to their names:
Alexander
Begich
Bennet
Casey
Collins
Johnson (WI)
Reid
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. A quorum is not present. The clerk will call the names of absent Senators.
The bill clerk resumed the call of the roll.
Mr. REID. Madam President, I move that the Sergeant at Arms be instructed to request the attendance of absent Senators, and I ask for the yeas and nays.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Casey). Is there a sufficient second? There is a sufficient second.
The question is on agreeing to the motion of the Senator from Nevada. The yeas and nays are ordered and the clerk will call the roll.
The bill clerk called the roll.
Mr. REID. I announce that the Senator from Illinois (Mr. Durbin), the Senator from California (Mrs. Feinstein), the Senator from Hawaii (Mr. Inouye), the Senator from Wisconsin (Mr. Kohl), the Senator from Missouri (Mrs. McCaskill), the Senator from Nebraska (Mr. Nelson), the Senator from Arkansas (Mr. Pryor), the Senator from West Virginia (Mr. Rockefeller), the Senator from New Mexico (Mr. Udall), the Senator from Virginia (Mr. Webb), and the Senator from South Dakota (Mr. Johnson) are necessarily absent.
Mr. McCONNELL. The following Senators are necessarily absent: the Senator from Missouri (Mr. Blunt), the Senator from Georgia (Mr. Chambliss), the Senator from Oklahoma (Mr. Coburn), the Senator from Illinois (Mr. Kirk), and the Senator from Arizona (Mr. Kyl).
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Bennet). Are there any other Senators in the Chamber desiring to vote?
The result was announced–yeas 44, nays 40, as follows:
[...]
The motion was agreed to.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. With the addition of Senators voting who did not answer the quorum call, a quorum is present.
The majority leader.
Mr. REID. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the following pending amendments be agreed to: [Etc.]
So congratulations, and well done, Freshman Senator Ron Johnson, for taking one small step (that I doubt Russ Feingold ever dared take) to challenge the corrupt Party practices that subvert and pervert the design of the Senate, even though it incurred the displeasure of inconvenienced colleagues of both Parties – as Johnson soon hinted in response to Reid’s unanimous consent request:
Mr. JOHNSON of Wisconsin. Mr. President, I realize a number of people in this Chamber are asking why I am doing this. First of all, I think it is important for everybody to realize that–and I certainly mean no offense to anybody in this Chamber–I did not run for the Senate because I wanted to be a Senator [for the sake of being a Senator]. I ran for the Senate because I realized we are bankrupting this Nation.
I think the evidence is quite clear, if we take a look at the budget deficit for just the last 3 years: $1.4 trillion, $1.3 trillion, and for this year estimates as high as $1.65 trillion. We have incurred over $4 trillion worth of debt in just the last 3 years, and our Nation’s debt stands at $14.3 trillion. We have reached our debt limit. Our debt is almost the size of our entire economy.
I have been watching Washington for 32 years from Oshkosh, WI, and I realized that Washington was pretty broken. I have been here now for 6 months, and I haven’t seen anything here that convinces me otherwise.
The Senate has not passed a budget for over 2 years. Of the six pieces of legislation we have passed–only six pieces of legislation we have passed from this Chamber have actually become law, and of those six three dealt with last year’s business. They were pieces of legislation dealing with this year’s budget that should have been passed last summer.
The bottom line is the Senate is fiddling while America is going bankrupt.
As I mentioned, the debt ceiling has now been reached. What are we doing about it? The answer is virtually nothing. We are scheduled to go on recess next week. We should not be doing that. We should be staying in session. We should be debating. We should be developing a budget. Bottom line, all we are doing is waiting for the results of a negotiation between a limited number of people, conducted behind closed doors, far away from the view of any American citizen.
Is this the process we are going to rely on to prevent the bankruptcy of America? Is this on what we are placing the future of America? I hope not.
Note that, under Riddick’s Senate Procedure, Page 1075:
A quorum call must be completed and the Chair announce the presence of a quorum in order for it to constitute a quorum call which requires the transaction of business before another quorum call can be suggested; when a quorum call is vitiated by unanimous consent before it is completed it is not a quorum call. [1982 precedent, informed by 1967 practice]
But please also note, Senators and others, from the same source, on Page 1060:
The call for the regular order when the Chair orders the call of a quorum requires the Chair to insist that the Clerk call the roll; the making of a point of order at that point before the quorum call begins by a Senator that a quorum call was not in order would present a different situation as distinguished from a call for the regular order; should a point of order be made that a quorum was not in order, the Chair would be forced to rule on whether or not a quorum call was in order at that time under the existing circumstances. [1972 precedent]
Translation: Existing Senate rules and precedent with regard to (real) quorum calls would have to be formally announced and, for a change, enforced by the Parliamentarian through the Presiding Officer (unless and until challenged and overturned), should any single Senator raise a “point of order” to try to begin to stem the tide of abuse of the Fake Quorum Call, as deployed by the Parties to idle and block public Senate floor business, in favor of the backroom control of proceedings by a handful of Party bosses.
Jeff Sessions of Alabama, the ranking minority member of the Senate Budget Committee (which hasn’t met since April 5th), echoed Johnson’s laudable sentiments the next day, Wednesday, June 29, 2011:
The Republican House has set forth their plan, but the Democratic Senate has not done so. This year the Senate has not produced a budget, has not met to work on a budget, and has not passed a budget in 791 days. We have not had a budget in 791 days. During that time we have increased the debt of the United States by $3.2 trillion and have spent over $7 trillion.
On the Senate floor we spend week after week on bills that have little or nothing to do with this increasing danger to our economy. We name courthouses and post offices, but we do not deal with the gathering financial storm.
[...]
We also owe the American people an honest, open debate on the debt limit, the debt ceiling we have. This should not be talks behind closed doors by only a few Senators, Congressmen, maybe the Speaker, the Vice President, or now maybe the President. Are they the ones to decide this? Aren’t we all elected to do so?
Then should we be faced with a situation in which this small group, having produced what they consider the perfect deal, brings it to the Congress and demands, in a period of panic and fear, that it must be passed without any significant amendment or the country would have a crisis?
We have seen that before. Is that good business? I do not think so.
[...]
Let the Congressional Budget Office provide an estimate of what the spending alterations and the tax alterations will be. Let the Budget Committee meet to address the impact of these proposals. It is time to remove the blindfold.
Since the election in November, the Congress, divided between a Democratic Senate and Republican House, has seen an increasing reliance on closed-door meetings to resolve our greatest public challenges. In so doing, I think Congress has once again ignored the public will. Ultimately, our challenges can only be solved through the democratic process. Let’s hold votes–dozens if necessary. Let’s hold hearings. Let’s have an open debate. Democracy may be messy. It may be contentious. But it is the best system we have and the only system that works.
[...]
So let’s have the debate. Let’s have it out here in the open. And let’s allow the American people to participate and help decide. But until we work on a budget, until we work on the debt limit, until we work on the people’s business, we do not have a right to go home and adjourn with a looming deadline–supposedly August 2–by which decisions have to be made. I believe to do so would be to fail the public.
As for the substance of Johnson’s complaint about the lack of Senate work this year on its own budget blueprint for the federal government, as he did in the 6/29 excerpt Jeff Sessions has for weeks been making the same case; no matter the typical partisan motives that may drive Sessions and/or Johnson, I think these facts speak for themselves (note, too, this article that indicates that Kent Conrad finally has a draft budget ready to present for the consideration of the Senate Budget Committee):
Mr. SESSIONS. I thank Senator Johnson for his leadership on this issue.
As the ranking Republican on the Budget Committee, I share my colleagues’ disappointment that we have not functioned. It is good to see Senator Ayotte and Senator Johnson, who are members of that committee. We worked hard to get prepared some weeks ago on the assumption that the Senate would meet its statutorily required duty; that is, to produce a budget.
I am holding up title 2, section 632 of the United States Code, and it is the Budget Act. It requires that the Congress annually produce a budget. We have now gone 792 days without a budget.
The first line of the act is: On or before April 15 of each year, Congress shall complete action on a concurrent resolution on the budget for the fiscal year beginning October 1 for the next fiscal year.
We haven’t done that. It also says we should meet by April 1.
Senator Conrad, our Budget chairman, Democratic chairman and able, experienced chairman, was prepared to go forward. It is pretty clear to me that the majority leader decided we shouldn’t have a budget process.
Last year, the Budget Committee produced a budget out of committee, but the majority leader failed to bring it up for vote on the floor. As the leader, he has the power generally to control that fact and was able to do so. This year, he said it would be foolish to have a budget; and, basically, we would not even meet in committee to have a budget.
[...]
Six months have gone by, and we have not had any hearings, we have not had any votes on the floor. We haven’t seen any legislation. So I think this is an unacceptable method. I think it undermines the classic constitutional duty of Congress to appropriate money and deal with taxes.
Yet Majority Leader Harry Reid does have priorities – not so much priorities of his own, or of his institution, but instead of the President who Reid abuses his power to submissively serve, in the name of Party and fundraising largesse, reinforced by Reid’s instinctively-authoritarian nature.
This, for example, is the priority that Harry Reid (and 16 of his Democratic colleagues) decided last Thursday should be at the top of the Senate’s agenda when it reconvenes late tomorrow, Tuesday, July 5th, never mind the overdue budget or the looming debt ceiling deadline, which was nominally the reason Reid canceled the Senate’s planned week-long recess last Thursday morning:
Mr. REID. Mr. President, I move to proceed to Calendar No. 88, S.J. Res. 20.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will report the resolution by title.
The legislative clerk read as follows:
A joint resolution (S.J. Res. 20) authorizing the limited use of the United States Armed Forces in support of the NATO mission in Libya.
Mr. REID. I have a cloture motion at the desk.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The cloture motion having been presented under rule XXII, the Chair directs the clerk to read the motion.
The legislative clerk read as follows:
Cloture Motion
We, the undersigned Senators, in accordance with the provisions of rule XXII of the Standing Rules of the Senate, hereby move to bring to a close debate on the motion to proceed to Calendar No. 88, S.J. Res. 20, a joint resolution authorizing the limited use of the United States Armed Forces in support of the NATO mission in Libya.
Harry Reid, John F. Kerry, Daniel K. Inouye, Jeff Bingaman, Joseph I. Lieberman, Benjamin L. Cardin, Al Franken, Jack Reed, Richard J. Durbin, Richard Blumenthal, Carl Levin, Ben Nelson, Jeanne Shaheen, Mark R. Warner, Dianne Feinstein, Bill Nelson, Mark Udall.
Mr. REID. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the vote on the motion to invoke cloture occur at 5 p.m. on Tuesday, July 5, and the mandatory quorum under rule XXII be waived.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Got that? Immediately after “moving to proceed” to the war-authorizing resolution, S.J. Res. 20 – before one word had been spoken on the floor for or against the motion to proceed, and after less than a minute had elapsed since he made the motion to proceed (a motion Reid made just before the Senate adjourned, at 6:51 p.m. on Thursday, until Tuesday afternoon, not including a brief pro forma session Friday morning) Senator Reid, joined by 16 Democratic colleagues, filed a cloture motion “to bring to a close debate on the motion to proceed.” [Which, speaking of Senate "recesses," is of a piece with how Majority Leader Reid has been working overtime, at least since June 16th, to smooth the way for this particular resolution.] That cloture motion will, under the rules, automatically receive a cloture vote on Tuesday, specifically, by unanimous consent, at 5:00 p.m., as arranged for the convenience of traveling Senators, according to Reid earlier Thursday:
That is why the Senate will reconvene on Tuesday, the day after the Fourth. We will do that because we have work to do. We will be in session that week–that is next week–with our first vote on July 5. We will determine what time that vote will be on July 5, likely in the afternoon because of the travel problems with the Fourth of July the previous day.
If asked by the media, Harry Reid no doubt would protest, through one of his spokesmen, that the Republicans “filibustered” or “blocked” or “obstructed” S.J. Res. 20, “forcing” Reid and the Democrats to attempt to choke off debate immediately by filing a (supermajority) cloture motion, instead of letting the floor debate take its simple-majority course, upon Reid’s filing of the motion to proceed (accompanied by a lifting of the Fake Quorum Call).
In fact, however, Reid filed that cloture motion late Thursday, 6/30/11, to force a floor vote on S.J. Res. 20 at a set (predictable) time, to avoid the need to lift the Fake Quorum Call or to provide any time for floor debate beyond the maximum of three hours that early-returning Senators Tuesday afternoon might be able to make use of (on Tuesday Reid may well typically proclaim, as part of his injured-innocent routine, that the Senate has been “considering” this measure for “four days” already – as a result of his last-minute actions on Thursday while the rest of the Senate was on its way home for a four-and-a-half-day weekend). Reid & Company filed their cloture motion Thursday evening as soon as they could after Reid received an objection to his request Thursday afternoon to waive the regular, default order of the Senate (public debate included), in an effort to put the war resolution immediately before the Senate without preliminary debate:
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senate will resume legislative session [after confirming General Petraeus to be the new CIA Director, 94-0].
The majority leader.
Mr. REID. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Finance Committee be authorized to meet today at 3 p.m. [to take up new "free trade" agreements, as Senator Menendez soon made clear]
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?Mr. McCONNELL. I object.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Objection is heard.
Mr. REID. Mr. President, I now ask unanimous consent that at 4 p.m. on Tuesday, July 5, the Senate proceed to the consideration of Calendar No. 88, S.J. Res 20, a joint resolution authorizing the limited use of the U.S. Armed Forces in support of the NATO mission in Libya.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
Mr. JOHNSON of Wisconsin. Mr. President, reserving the right to object, this is a very important issue. I understand a number of my colleagues have worked very hard to bring this issue to the floor.
But the fact is, it simply does not address the fact that we are bankrupting this Nation. I do object.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Objection is heard.
As Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin’s recent statement above encapsulates, and unlike some of the promising freshmen whose words and actions are helping to expose the undemocratic abuses of Party control of Congress, most of our Senators today – particularly those not deemed to be among the handful of “leaders” of their egalitarian, non-hierarachical legislative body by the two hierachical Parties or by the hierachical White House – act for all the world as though they have no more power or more meaningful role to play in our national policy debates than the average blog writer or commenter. So does the Senate today amount to no more than a televised blog, when it comes to “debate” about the debt limit, the federal budget, the economy, war, and all the rest? Should the Senate be more than the speechifying-but-powerless (save for occasional rubber-stamping) institution that President Obama, for one, no doubt prefers that it be? Or do we, like the highly-paid members of the national media assigned to cover our government, prefer to remain in the familiar comfort zone of ceaseless argument and speculation about the personality and unseen backroom conversations and actions of one man in the presidency (and/or of the public antics of anticipated contenders for his office in the next campaign)?
Shouldn’t we be asking our Senators (and our Representatives) why they ran for, and remain in, elective public office, in the name of representing their constituents in our nation’s hard-won self-government, if they desire only to obey orders from a few Party bosses and/or the President (whose Constitutional role is to “faithfully execute” the democratic will of the Legislative Branch of government, not to dictate to it), on matters of the most consequence to the nation?
It’s probably safe to assume that the jaded majority of incumbent Members of Congress are past caring about the intended and essential Constitutional role of their branch of government, or about the necessity of separation of powers for the preservation of the Republic and individual liberty, or about the irreplaceable value of democratic self-government, so long as they perceive their own seat as safe for the foreseeable future. Those self-serving members will no doubt continue to unquestioningly salute Party dictates as long as they can get away with it. We should clearly and publicly identify them and encourage worthy opponents to challenge them, but probably not waste our time trying to reason with them to change their behavior.
My focus instead is on those few (though significant beyond their numbers) Senate (and House) incumbents who, of late, seem to be demonstrating some genuine and courageous, if tentative, independence from the corrupt Party control of Senate operations – on the PATRIOT Act renewal, on the President’s Libyan war, and, as indicated above, on the proposed backroom-deal-dictated future of the entire federal budget. And I think it’s tremendously important for the future of our self-government and nation that we recognize, encourage and commend those few Congressional insiders who are noticeably thinking twice about the usurpations of the power of Congress by today’s two congressional/presidential campaign-fundraising organizations – the Democratic and Republican Parties.
34 Comments
Good to see you back and posting an excellent diary PowWow but I suspect you lost a few commenters with the length. Completely concur with your focus and analysis.
Wish I could remember exactly the quote from the OK Repub Rep who used to be a football player about how it is in the House.
But it’s an uphill, promotheus like struggle when only 58 % of the population knows it was in 1776 that the Declaration was signed.
Rec’d big time.
I’ve no doubt lost more than a few commenters/readers by having the diary debut, as did my last MyFDL diary, half-way down the “Recent Diaries” list, ubetcha (it was posted an hour ago, and is presently in the ninth slot on the list, ahead of diaries posted hours earlier). There’s not much I can do about that unrepaired MyFDL software bug, though, and I decided I needed to give this one a go, despite such potential hurdles to visibility.
I didn’t mention the House in this diary, but there actually have been signs of improvement there under Republican control. The first “open amendment rule” in almost four years was adopted by the House Rules Committee on June 1st, and others have followed. So actual, democratic floor debate and amending by our Representatives has returned to the House Chamber, at least on some significant appropriations bills, which is a very welcome development.
But how does this make sense for Al Franken? He hasn’t been there long enough to be jaded. His name is there on the cloture filing. If this is universally interpreted as a change in the way the Senate should operate (and the introduction really does appear to provide proof of that) and you claim that the change is in service to the Presidency, why is he participating? It seems like there must be more to it.
I take Franken as a believer in the cult of personality, IMO, the inherent goodness of his own tribal leaders. He was one of the Senators targeted by “Operation Fourth Star”, the military propaganda IO unit, or Psychological operations to ensure a funding stream for Afghanistan didn’t dry up.
Would Party Leaders put a junior senator on an appropriations committee if they weren’t already sure he was going to be able to be counted on? Also, he was brand new when Feingold lectured his committee that they weren’t there to push what the Party wanted, they were there to safeguard the people rights. Franken sat there like a bump on a log.
“workingclass” wrote in a comment a while ago that the Democrats don’t know how to behave as the majority, and when we finally get a Republican President things will appear more balanced. It made sense to me.
They have ‘loser’ written on their brains. What really surprises me is how authoritarian and paternalistic they are when in power.
Good news about Johnson though. Thanks powwow.
Great Post. Rec’d
This post identifies the worst of Washington. It show the unintended consequences after 100 years of a non-democratic Senate Rule. But it also identifies our way out of this nightmare. I doubt anyone noticed that the two Senators fighting the system are Tea Party right wing zealots that “believe” they don’t owe their offices to corporate America(LOL). Therefore, they believe they are free to legislate by their beliefs and conscience. I totally disagree with Johnson and Paul on most issues but I love the fact that they aren’t playing ball like the worthless “Democrats” I’ve been supporting for years. America needs to end the Democratic-Republican regime if we ever hope to recover. Paul & Johnson have earned “less disgust” this week.
Great post powwow, thanks!
Although it is obvious that Congress has not been functioning as a separate co-equal branch for years, it is in the details that we see how that dysfunction has come to pass and how it presently manifests itself. I don’t know how you manage to keep track of the details (they are beyond me : ) but I really appreciate your efforts to show them to the rest of us.
Like ubetcha, “rec’d big time”!
And fwiw, if Johnson is willing to stand up to the party bosses, he may yet prove to be a far more valuable senator to our nation than Feingold. Although, I’ll admit, those are fightin’ words in these parts ; )
I may disagree with Johnson’s policies, but I would much prefer his insistence on an open debate, followed by a simple majority vote, than continue to abide with our deeply corrupt system of back room deals and super-majority requirements that always manage to magically benefit our economic and political elite at the expense of the rest of us. Maybe if Johnson got what he wishes for, another senator might actually make opposing arguments that would reflect my preferred policy positions. Who knows, I might actually start to feel like I was represented in Congress ; )
I’m not so sure. I can understand what’s going on, but not clearly enough who benefits and who wants what to figure out exactly what’s driving it. In the examples, it really is Mitch McConnell who is doing the objecting, with the sole exception of Sen. Ron Johnson trying to get his debate on the debt ceiling. His objection to the unanimous consent on the resolution on Libya starts out as reserving the right to object based on the fact that other senators have a serious need to debate Libya, but ends with his real objection to the consent being because he wants to debate the debt ceiling, which is again not a call for debate on Libya.
I don’t see Al Franken as someone who wants to see a phenomenal accrual of Presidential power. He hasn’t been that for his whole life, you’re saying he got to the Senate, quickly transformed to a Democratic subcritter with no mind of his own who has a stupendous need to feed the party and the presidency? More likely Harry Reid is the person who gains by this game, and Mitch McConnell, and a few others. President Obama is not gaining with it, his presidency is very crippled. The Democratic party didn’t win the bi-elections, it can’t be said to have gained. So the real gain if it were a party would be the Republicans, were it not for the Tea Party.
But the proof powwow delivers is unassailable, so it has to be Reid et al. So I accept powwow’s proof, but can’t accept the transfer, because it requires assignment of motives to people that I don’t follow, and ends which haven’t panned out. I get it as far as Reid and his close associates, I can’t follow the trail past that.
Beautiful, powwow. I don’t pretend to follow all the ins and outs … my brain is just not that well cooled, however, you always show me that they are gaming it and the game is worse than I knew before. Thank you for creating a record. Otherwise, who would know what Reid is doing.
King Reid? Feels like it. Not really any different from Henry VIII as far as I can tell.
Prezzie is *just* the head of the administrative branch after all.
Prezzie may be Reid’s political leader but just who’s really pulling (or putting the chewing gum in) the levers of democratic power here? Reid. Fuck him and his fucking Kabuki.
As you say … Johnson has now been more effective than Feingold. This is my argument with Feingold and Gore and all the “good guys” ~ they don’t actually accomplish anything. And in that way they are no better than the rest, but one does get jumped on for criticizing these ‘heroes.’ Heroes, my ass. They just have prettier youtubes but it’s all the same pr game to get youtubes up for your campaign/busines pr team.
It don’t have a thing to do with democracy. Nope. Not. any. more.
So tell me again, why we should vote? Sorry, my kabuki skills just aren’t that good. I don’t do kabuki voting. LOL.
And who the hell knows what is going on with Franken … I sure don’t.
It’d be real progress if this secretive, top-down Party system was “universally interpreted,” or recognized, as an ominous “change in the way the Senate should (was designed to) operate,” but I’m afraid that we’re a long way from that degree of interpretation or recognition as yet.
With regard to Al Franken specifically, seeing him toe the Party line, at the request of leadership, surprises me not in the least. Though Franken, as you indicate, is apparently far from jaded (he seems to be enjoying himself in the Senate), he appears to have consistently Followed The Leader in his tenure to date, as skf indicates. I’m more surprised to see Mark Udall’s name on that preemptive cloture motion for S.J. Res. 20, because Udall is one of the new Senators with promising hints of an inclination to challenge the Party status quo (most recently, while paired with Wyden during Reid’s ramrodding of the PATRIOT Act renewal).
It’d be interesting to know just how much arm-twisting, or explanation, or other tactics of persuasion are used (or needed) by Party leadership to get signatures on a cloture motion of this sort (for a binding measure relating to a war on which the Senate has held literally only ten minutes of Paul-forced formal debate since the war began on March 19th). But since the discussions about cloture motions all go on behind the scenes, we obviously have no idea how much, or what kind of, information each signer received before agreeing to sign. I assume, though, that they’re all taking Reid’s word for what the Republicans as a group (through McConnell or otherwise) are saying in response to Reid’s privately-hotlined procedural requests (in addition to irresponsibly leaving all that procedural ‘mumbo-jumbo’ to Reid to ‘sort out’ as he, or the President, pleases) since, again, aside from the (unusual) public Johnson objection quoted in the diary, like us, most Democratic Senators probably don’t have first-hand knowledge about what the Republicans are saying to the Democratic leadership about this Joint Resolution, or why, unless it’s also said on the floor or on television.
“It shows the unintended consequences after 100 years of a non-democratic Senate Rule [Senate Rule 22's cloture provision].”
That’s a very good point, Bin Quick. [Although there have long been those (for example, at least in today's Democratic Senate, Tom Udall of New Mexico and, disappointingly, Tom Harkin of Iowa, not to mention Harry Reid) who prefer those unintended consequences (or opportunities, in their eyes) of Rule 22 cloture to the default, power-decentralizing, debate-friendly rules of the Senate - such as the unrestricted ability, despite the absence of obstructive floor debate and even when all business in the Chamber is blocked by the Fake Quorum Call, to force floor votes at a set time, if only to score political points, without regard for the value of public Senate deliberation.]
Well said, phred.
Agreed on Johnson (although he’s obviously got a long way to go yet; Rand Paul’s quite far ahead of the other freshmen on that score already). Russ Feingold, like so many others who know or knew better (Byron Dorgan, for example), just couldn’t seem to ‘go there’ – to meaningfully challenge the Party’s operation of the Senate beyond a certain point, no matter their abuses of power on matters of grave import (of course, it always helps to have company in such an endeavor, which Feingold probably rarely had). We need to try to take advantage of the window of opportunity presented by these ‘activist’ freshmen, to make Party-challenging the fashionable new “bipartisanship.”
“…they are gaming it…”
Indeed they are.
Maybe examine what happens on another bill. The Libya matter has views all over the map. People in favor of the action but opposed to the way the President didn’t seek a vote from Congress, people who believe he doesn’t need a vote from Congress but don’t support the action, people who oppose both, people who are in favor of both, people who are in favor of both but see a political opportunity, people who oppose both but… So maybe some of those names are on there because they just wanted to cut off debate on that bill in particular.
The reason perhaps we don’t know this is because we haven’t had debates in so long we don’t know what people think anymore?
Today there was an Op-Ed in the NYT by Jeff Merkley, Rand Paul, and Tom Udall, 2 Dems and 1 Tea Party, all senators, demanding an exit from Afghanistan. What was stunning to me was that they were fine with the U.S. pursuing “terrorists”, and sort of specifically al Qaeda, given the context they put it in, all over the world outside of Afghanistan, militarily and with our beefed up intelligence resources, they wanted that — instead — of Afghanistan. What they objected to was — “Nation building”.
Back to the Bush 2000 presidential campaign stance. For 2 dems and a Tea Party. That defines the anti-war coalition in the Senate. Fine with drone attacks and surveillance all over the world to fight al Qaeda, not fine with “Nation Building”.
People sometimes wonder about ending the AUMF or this or that, or about closing Guantánamo, or a lot of other things that actually cannot be laid at the feet of the Executive since they are congressional actions. They often lay them at the feet of the Executive anyway. But what do they actually feel in the Congress and would they repeal those obstacles? Well, do the authors of an Op-Ed seek guidance from Harry Reid or permission from the White House before writing? Does Rand Paul?
Sorry to diverge a bit, but I sit at a position from which the Congress is to blame for a great deal. I see you point to the dysfunction, and I understand it, but still I see indications that even if it operated like a Swiss watch, it might continue its full throated approval of those things for which it is to blame.
I wonder why that is… By which I mean Feingold, Dorgan, Sanders, and others who ought to have the motivation to stand up to the Senate leadership, yet they fail to use the tools at their disposal. Sticking with Feingold as our example, I wonder whether he felt he needed party support to get re-elected, so he would go only so far in provoking party leaders, but no further. In the end, whatever support they rendered was clearly inadequate, and as you note, his support of their awful health insurance bill probably cost him his seat.
Perhaps we need a senator or two who care more about restoring the power of the institution, than their own re-election. From your post here, it appears one senator could make a lot of headway in that direction if they so chose.
At this point, I don’t care who makes the attempt or what their motivation is, we desperately need a restoration of the separation of powers and the checks and balances therein. In a fair fight on policy, I am confident progressives would win more than they lost.
Randy got something right, he should return his check.
You’ve, perhaps inadvertently, made a strong case for term limits here. A lot of this is surely attributable to simple albeit planned organizational inertia and the inevitable hierarchical stratification based on seniority. Much of this corruption of the democratic legislative process would likely be put in jeopardy with a recurring significant influx of new legislators who aren’t invested in its arcane processes.
Better candidates, bottom up organizing, taking to the streets – yes.
Term Limits – no.
Term Limits are for people who have given up.
It just appears reading the piece that what little in house clarity there is regarding the Byzantine and arcane procedural processes are possessed by newcomers to the body and that incumbents quickly either become enured or simply succumb to the temptation/hope that one day they will be the ones behind the closed doors playing at cynical power politics. Even though it offends my democratic sensibilities probably as much as yours I don’t see much downside to mandating flushing out the rot every six years as the Senate appears not to function any longer as a democratic deliberative body and seems more work as a rubber stamp for whatever sausage making is worked in secret by the embedded party elites.
And yeah, despair of any likely structural solution is always near at hand.
Important Development in the Senate:
At 3:32 p.m. today (just now), Senator Reid came to the floor, after clear indications from multiple Republican Senators, speaking on the floor since the Senate convened at 2:00 p.m., that the cloture motion vote this afternoon on proceeding to the Libya resolution was going to fail (all Republicans speaking so far today, aside from McConnell who focused on his renewed invitation to the President to meet on the debt deal, spoke against the cloture motion, for varying reasons but mostly because they want to address the debt limit and Senate budget as the top priority: Senators Wicker, Corker, Lugar, Sessions & Hutchison; only one Democrat has spoken so far, aside from Reid who also focused on the debt deal, and he – Wyden – spoke about the Korean free trade agreement). Reid said he’d just consulted with the Republican leader, and they both agreed that the Senate needs to focus on the budget situation this week, not Libya.
So Reid has now unexpectedly vitiated the pending cloture motion, and withdrawn his motion to proceed to S.J. Res. 20. Instead the Senate will hold a vote at 5:00 p.m. on rounding up Senators for the week’s work, essentially, while “meetings continue” somewhere. I’ll have more details about developments earlier today, in an upcoming reply to ondelette above.
http://c-span.org/Live-Video/C-SPAN2/
“Maybe examine what happens on another bill. … So maybe some of those names are on there because they just wanted to cut off debate on that bill in particular.”
Except that due to the way that Reid operates the Senate (as those Senators well know), there likely won’t be any other bill on Libya brought to the floor for debate – and if this subject doesn’t deserve full Senate debate, I don’t know what subject does. After showing complete indifference, or hostility in Paul’s case, to attempts to debate Libya on the Senate floor since March 19th, Reid suddenly became very solicitous (based on the few visible public actions) about an unwritten, yet-to-be-filed Libya resolution on June 16th, just before the supposed 90-day window of the War Powers Resolution expired, as I noted here. So Senators, I think, are very aware of the import of this procedural move with regard to the attacks on Libya.
Reid’s cloture gambit Thursday is certainly a long-repeated pattern by the Democratic caucus – I documented the same maneuver during the debate on the controversial FISA Amendments Act, on which Chris Dodd had placed a hold. With the help of 16 Democrats, Harry Reid blew right past Dodd’s hold, filing, as happened here with the Libya resolution, a cloture motion immediately after he made the motion to proceed to the FAA legislation. [Underlining the familiarity of this pattern, just after the Senate convened today at 2:00 p.m., following leader remarks by Reid and McConnell, Harry Reid repeated it: He momentarily withdraw his motion to proceed to S.J. Res. 20, in order to make a motion to proceed to a non-binding Sense of the Senate bill he introduced last week (as a political punching bag for the Senate to vent about, I guess), and again immediately filed a cloture motion to "bring to a close debate" on that motion to proceed to his Sense of the Senate resolution, after which he then withdrew the motion to proceed and renewed his other motion to proceed to S.J. Res. 20... I heard most, but not all, of the 17 names on Reid's cloture motion on the Sense of the Senate motion to proceed, as they were read off: Harry Reid, Dick Durbin, Chuck Schumer, Frank Lautenberg, Al Franken, Jack Reed, Sheldon Whitehouse, John Kerry, Jeff Merkley, Debbie Stabenow, Pat Leahy, Ben Cardin, and five others.]
Here’s the entirety of Reid’s non-binding bill, S. 1323, on which he’s now filed cloture:
As indicated further below, there was an unexpected U-turn this afternoon in the plans of Majority Leader Reid for S.J. Res. 20. About one hour after the moves I detailed above in this comment, Reid returned to the floor to vitiate, entirely, the cloture motion, and to withdraw the motion to proceed, to S.J. Res. 20, on which the Senate had been scheduled to vote at 5:00 p.m. today, as indicated in the diary (a resolution that will, I’m sure, live to see another day). [Co-sponsor John McCain, speaking shortly before 5:00 p.m. today, indicated that he suggested and supported Reid's move to vitiate the cloture motion, and to delay consideration of S.J. Res. 20.]
In place of S.J. Res. 20, Reid again moved to proceed to S. 1323, his non-binding bill, as posted above, that does nothing to advance a Senate budget into, or through the Senate Budget Committee, and subsequently on to the floor. In addition, Reid indicated, at 3:30 p.m., that “perhaps a Republican alternative” to S. 1323 will also be considered. Note that under the rules, unless waived or made moot, a cloture vote (on the motion to proceed) will be held on S. 1323 on Thursday (Rand Paul just indicated that he’s prepared to vote immediately on S. 1323, which he termed frivolous).
“The reason perhaps we don’t know this is because we haven’t had debates in so long we don’t know what people think anymore?”
I’m sure that’s a contributing factor.
“[T]he Congress is to blame for a great deal.”
Undoubtedly. You get no argument from me there.
“[S]till I see indications that even if [Congress] operated like a Swiss watch, it might continue its full throated approval of those things for which it is to blame.”
Given the present incumbents, that wouldn’t surprise me, but at least if the Senate was operating as intended, Senators would have the opportunity, as phred rightly notes below, to counter misguided thinking or misstated facts by their colleagues, and there would be a clear public record of who stands where and why, forced into public view by a focused, contested committee deliberation and floor debate, pro and con.
Excellent points.
I know! I feel like I ride the short bus when powwow posts a diary.
Who among us can translate this jibberish?
Thanks for this post powwow.
I seem to remember a lot of energy going into a discussion of changing the rules of the senate surrounding the filibuster.
I would gather from your post that a senate determined to do nothing can manage that quite successfully without ever resorting to the filibuster.
Just goes to show that you have to understand the rules as actually implemented, in order to achieve real reform, if you don’t understand how it ‘really’ works, you can’t be sure of ‘reforming’ anything.
Now we know the ‘real’ answer to a lot of our questions…
…they’re not doing anything to push for progressive reforms because they’re not really doing anything at all.
The Senate adjourned for the night at about 6:15 p.m. today, after holding a vote, for more than an hour, on whether or not to round up Senators for a real (“live”) quorum call. That vote passed 83-8, establishing a quorum, whereupon the Senate promptly adjourned…
Before adjourning, Reid put a bill to raise the debt limit (S. 1326) through the paces, under Rule 14, to be placed on the Senate Calendar tomorrow without committee consideration, ready for a motion to proceed.
The agenda for tomorrow is debate on the motion to proceed to Reid’s Sense of the Senate resolution (S. 1323, posted in a comment above) between 10:00 a.m. and 12:30 p.m., followed by a Senate recess from 12:30 p.m. until 2:15 p.m. (the usual Tuesday Party Caucus luncheon recess transferred to Wednesday), and then more debate on the motion to proceed to S. 1323, limited to ten minutes per Senator, until 6:00 p.m. A whole lot more of nothing but rhetoric (if that), in other words, pending further developments.
“I would gather from your post that a senate determined to do nothing can manage that quite successfully without ever resorting to the filibuster.
Just goes to show that you have to understand the rules as actually implemented, in order to achieve real reform, if you don’t understand how it ‘really’ works, you can’t be sure of ‘reforming’ anything.“
Indeed, and exactly.
Translation of my translation:
There is a way for Senators (that is, a single Senator) to overcome the Fake Quorum Call barrier that the Party leadership has erected around the Senate floor (speeches excepted), by making a “point of order” (basically: “Are we following the Senate rules/precedents here, Presiding Officer”?) immediately after another Senator “notes the absence of a quorum” (for the purposes of reimposing the Fake Quorum Call) for, say, the tenth time that afternoon.
What I left out in that explanation (though the details are linked) is that real quorum calls, unlike the Fake Quorum Call, are strictly limited in number under Senate rules (as well as being quite inconvenient for Senators who are off doing other things while the Senate is “in session”). But, like other rules governing Senate floor debate (such as the “two-speech” rule), if no one makes a “point of order” to enforce the rule(s), certain rules will not be strictly enforced on a routine basis – for the convenience of Senators (resulting in the abuse of, for example, the Fake Quorum Call), and because some rules have real relevance only when the Senate is engaged in heated or contested floor debate.
The limits on real, or live, quorum calls (which actually come to an end, and must demonstrate that a quorum is present to avoid the need to vote to compel attendance, or to adjourn the Senate) are established by reference to whether or not “business” has been conducted on the floor since the last quorum call or roll call vote established a quorum (that’s what this link analyses in depth, with regard to enforcement of the two-speech rule in a real filibuster).
Debate and speeches aren’t “business,” under the rules and precedents, so presumably the Parliamentarian would rule, through the Presiding Officer, that the Senate must transact some sort of business on the floor before another (fake or otherwise) quorum call could be implemented under the (enforced) rules and precedents, should some brave Senator actually make such a point of order to challenge the abuse of the Fake Quorum Call. And that, in turn, would make the Senate floor “live” again – with the Presiding Officer, absent floor debate, required to put the pending question, if any, to a simple-majority vote of the Senate (which, in this day and age, would be an ‘experience,’ the immediate response to which would probably be a motion by Party leadership that the Senate “recess” forthwith).
I had meant a bill on a topic other than Libya. Jeff Merkley is one of those who was on the Op-Ed with Rand Paul about Afghanistan, now you’re ticking him off with John Kerry and Harry Reid on the Sense of the Senate cloture vote for S.J. Res. 20 on Libya. See what I mean? Motives are really hard to assign on that particular one. Maybe they shift on all of them, the only two constants are Harry Reid and Mitch McConnell.
Under the circumstances, it’s hard for the mathematician in me to draw too broad a conclusion from it, a bill with less controversy, might reveal more about the Senate and less about how fractured Libya as an issue spreads the loyalties.
Kinda makes you wonder if the Founding Fathers (those crazy guys with their crazy ideas about freedom of speech, religion, assembly) might not have had their heads totally up their asses when they created a Senate NOT elected by popular vote?
Though sounding a bit like not-ready-for-prime-time players, there does seem to be some belated movement on the overdue Senate budget resolution, via Senate Budget Committee Chairman Kent Conrad (who’s apparently been working on his own backroom deal for some time, although evidently only with the Democrats on his committee):
[Notice that the Senate Budget Committee website follows a disturbing new trend in Congress of separating a committee of jurisdiction in the Senate (or House) into two groups, defined by Party, that's unjustified by any jurisdictional structure or other institutional requirement - to the extent, in the Senate Budget Committee's case, of using what are effectively two different websites for the members of one committee, with no single page listing all Budget Committee members together in one place.]
my working hypothesis, for those senators who may have flashes of motivation other than pure self-interest, is that it would be easy to manipulate them by threatening actions that would harm their constituency.
all that’s needed — when ruthless power is unconstrained — is to understand what one’s opponent cares about and then threaten that.
it’s the politics of a playground bully. or organized crime boss.
unless members of congress can organize to support each other in standing up against the crime boss / bully, they are easy to pick off one-by-one.
and with the spy tools available to the executive, how in the world could members of congress ever, even if they wanted to, organize against their own party leadership?
very late to the thread… just wanted to add my thanks and my rec.
thanks powwow!
x
Thank you, and my pleasure, selise.
xx