Today the headline will read, “Democrats lose 60th seat”, which is true. But when we are thinking about those 60 seats we do have to remember that the Democrats in the Senate did not have 60 votes very long. Sen. Franken, who became the 60th member of the Democratic caucus, was only sworn in on July 8th. That is 166 days to today, if we add in the two weeks or so it will take to certify Senator-elect Brown that will make the 60-seat majority only 180 days long.

In some ways, we never really had a 60-seat majority. Leaving out the weak-sister Democrats like senators Nelson and Lincoln, there was always the problem of so-called Independent Democrat Joe Lieberman. Knowing as we now do that he was the first pick for Vice Presidential running mate for John McCain it is hard for anyone to really count him as a Democrat in anything but name.

"Originally posted at Squarestate.net"

It has also been clear that he is out to stick it to any progressive agenda items. To say that Sen. Lieberman is a petty small man who should have no place in national politics is a truism on the lines of the Sun rises in the East. It was a mistake to include him in the caucus and to give him the kind of power he has within the Committees. Still I can see the desire to have the iconic 60 seats in the Senate, the fabled “filibuster proof majority” after a couple of years of Republican obstructionism.

The Senates handling of the Health Care Reform debate certainly has a lot to do with the angry mood of the nation right now. It allowed not only the far right cooperate and grass roots Wingnuts to spread lies and misinformation for too long, the constant compromise down to less and less of what the public wanted also angered the left of the Democratic base to the point of rebellion. Forcing the bill through faster would have helped in both of these cases, but this is history, and history can not be changed, only learned from or ignored.

Going forward the Senate has an opportunity to make needed changes that will allow the country to be governed more effectively.I have come, reluctantly, to the conclusion that the need for a super majority to end debate is undemocratic and should be ended. This is not an easy thing to advocate, since if the 60 vote rule had not been in place during the Bush administration there would have been far more damage done to the country, but the fact is as long as the Republicans are willing to use it as an obstructionist tactic on every issue, we can not actually run this nation.

Just look at what a 2/3 vote for the budget has done to California. A small, but focused majority has managed to drive to the edge of bankruptcy the eight largest economy in the world. This is what is likely to happen to the nation as a whole if we do not make changes in the way one half of the Congress does business

The 60-seat majority is the Maltese Falcon. We had it but we could not use it or keep it. It is time to stop chasing the stuff that dreams are made of and get down to reality. It is flatly insane that a 9% majority cannot pass its agenda. Using the so-called nuclear option is a politically hard choice. The act of declaring the filibuster unconstitutional and allowing all debate to end with 51 votes would be the stuff of every single Republican ad nation wide, for every office. It would, to some extent validate the Wingnut idea of the government being taken over by Liberal-Socialist-Anarchist-Communist-Nazi-Antichrists. We would be stripping them of the power to dictate the terms of legislation out of proportion to the actual number of seats they hold.

The other major problem is it would make the passage of legislation more wild and wooly. It would remove a brake that has, from time to time, prevented the United States from making real legislative mistakes (think of how many restrictive anti-choice laws might have passed if this were the norm previously).

Still, there are more than one upside point to doing this; we would free up Democrats from Conservative states to vote in ways that might allow them to hold on to those seats. More we would not have to care as much about Sen. Lincoln’s or Sen. Nelsons re-election, since we don’t have to have them to pass legislation any more.

It would return a more directly democratic form of governance to the Senate. This actually wouldn’t be so much of a return as a new direction, given the history of the Senate.

It would make a bold statement to the base of the party that the elites and long term elected officials have heard our anger and are doing something about it. This, of course assumes there would be more liberal legislation passed, but that seems likely as the number of liberal Senators would not change, but their voting weight would increase.

This change would remove an impediment that prevents the Senate from doing the peoples work and give a more clear line of site to who is actually doing that work and who is standing in the road.

Finally, this would allows us to kick the most odious Democrat in name only out of our caucus. We could tell Sen. Lieberman, thanks for all the shit you have caused for us, your services are no longer needed, there is the door, Joe, and you have been downsized.

Will the Senate have the will power to do this? Past performance tends to indicate that they will not. They are too attached to their privileges and their history. Still there is a chance that the President, seeing what a shambles his agenda has become by being hands off will send his Vice President, to the Senate to change things. It would be a good start.

The time has come to give up the Falcon. It only brings ruin to those who chase it. The Democrats in the Senate should learn this lesson, else the voters in the form of a hugely fat Sidney Greenstreet will come and crush them in November.

The floor is yours.