I realize that I am now beginning the kind of post that will lead eemom, burns, and JMN to call me a hyperbolic extremist whose blog posts would have no place in a court of law, but contrarian bullshit like this is why I stopped reading Kevin Drum three or four years ago. Here, he claims that it’s good that establishment media now treats a 40-vote minority (enough to filibuster) as a majority:
Here, I’m on the Post’s side. Like it or not, the reality of congressional politics has changed. The Senate is now a 60-vote body, and it’s the vote on a cloture motion that’s the important vote. For all practical purposes, the cloture vote is the vote on the bill. So my complaint would be just the opposite of Fallows’s. Instead of insisting on a Schoolhouse Rock version of reporting, I’d prefer it if the media routinely reported on the actual reality of legislation today. If you want to report accurately, you should (a) report the cloture vote as a vote on the bill itself, (b) you should make clear that 60 votes are required to pass a bill, and (c) you should report the partisan breakdown of the voting — something that used to be routine but now only occasionally appears in reports of legislative activity.
The Senate has only become a body that requires supermajorities within the past few years. Most readers are not aware of how big a change this is. They may not even be aware that the change has taken place at all. They may be unaware that (a) most Senate bills now require 60 votes for passage and (b) that this was not the case for the previous 200 years of American democracy.
This is not unlike the tortue issue. Many people were probably unaware that waterboarding represented a break with previous American interrogation policies. Were the papers supposed to tell readers that waterboarding is just something that happens now?
Perhaps the biggest political story of the past 15 years is the way in which Republicans have changed the rules, from having the Supreme Court decide elections, to pre-emptive wars, to turning the DOJ into an arm of the RNC, to using torture as an interrogation method, to turning the Senate into a body that requires a supermajority for passage of bills (EDIT: before this is used as further proof of my unseriousness, Democrats also filibustered a great deal in 2005 and 2006).
To shrug and say “shit happens, reporting should just reflect the new rules” seems to me the height of insanity and something that you would only say if you were more in love with the brilliance of your own contrarian wit than in conveying the truth to your readers.
PeakVT
You probably should read his update.
Short Bus Bully
I think it’s also fair to recognize that all these changes only apply to REPUBLICANS. The moment the R’s get the Senate back all this shit will go away and we’ll be back to passing laws as normal.
smintheus
Of all the bloggers for MoJo to hire, they select the depressing milquetoast.
As to his case that supermajorities are simply the new reality in the modern Senate, it falls apart when you consider that Democrats don’t pull that garbage when they’re in the minority.
bystander
????
I’m confused. Not the first time, won’t be the last.
Mark K
He is either the biggest wuss on the planet or a Republican mole.
Baud
I disagree with Drum because it’s technically incorrect to say that 60 votes are necessary to pass a bill, as opposed to taking a vote on whether to pass the bill. I know the public wouldn’t care too much about procedural nuances such as that, but paid reporters should be accurate in their presentation.
Dougerhead
@bystander:
Sorry, when I wrote about semi-serious people, my inner Yglesias flares up. I corrected it. Thanks for the copy editing, I need it sometimes.
Wannabe Speechwriter
Kevin responds-
http://motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2011/10/senate-60-vote-body
Dougerhead
@Baud:
That too. He wants them to write in a specific context that is neither technically accurate (bills require 50 votes for passage, a parliamentary backdoor ups it to 60) nor historically informative (cloture votes did not used to be such a big deal).
Dougerhead
@Wannabe Speechwriter:
It’s very unconvincing. If he does a follow up that makes more sense, I will link to it.
Amir Khalid
@dougerhead:
This doesn’t look right. Did you intend to say that the Republicans have turned the DOJ into an arm of their party?
Dougerhead
@Amir Khalid:
Thanks, I corrected it.
General Stuck
Actually, it began shortly after dems took over the senate in early 2007, and has escalated ever since, to the point where it has become normalized as routine senate business. Harry Reid helped let this become the norm by, for a period of time, formally operating under rationale of speeding things up, not even making the wingers have a cloture vote, and just setting the final vote at 60.
Myself and others noted this bullshit, and after obama was elected, Reid changed it back to having actual official cloture votes, ergo making the wingers own their obstruction of filibustering everything. But the damage was done, and the new pair-a-dime was set in the MSM CW, and now for the rest of the country. It will be interesting to see how dems and the wingers act when the wingers take back over the senate at some point. I am certain the wingnuts will dust off the old “up or down vote” meme – Harry Reid nuking an extra appalling obstruction technique this past week, does create some hope they realize this is a war of scorched earth tactics per legislating. And don’t go wobbly being the good guys anymore. That is, or should be, past tense for the world as it is.
bystander
@Dougerhead:
No apology necessary. The correction makes perfect sense. Thanks. Still, there was always the chance there were some subtleties in the original phrasing that whooshed right over my head.
gbear
It could also be that they’re just, you know, lazy fuckers.
Or they just want to be on the side that’s winning (and we all know what a drag it is to read them…)
Dougerhead
@General Stuck:
Yes, Democrats helped effect that change. I will correct the post before the more pedantic (I don’t mean you) come to excoriate for not adding that in.
burnspbesq
That first sentence screams “here is something to which I need not pay any attention.” But I did anyway.
Why do you insist on beating the plaque that says a horse once died here?
Short Bus Bully
@Wannabe Speechwriter:
That response of Kevin’s makes sense. Doesn’t change the validity of this post either.
Dougerhead
@burnspbesq:
The screen name “burnspbesq” screams the same to me. (EDIT: Unless it’s a music thread.)
Wannabe Speechwriter
I can see the logic in Drum’s argument-for the last 4 years, there’s essentially been a 60 vote requirement to pass a bill. Pointing out how it was in 2005 may not be the best course of action. So, reporting on how it’s now a de facto 60 vote requirement to get bills in the Senate passed may be the best course of action to get people to think “is this the best way to run the Senate?”
My problem with that argument is, if you’re going to start to question the 60 vote threshold not as some new problem but as some structural problem, why stop there? Why not question the institution of the Senate itself. Why should I in California have the same number of Senators as the folks in Wyoming, which is 1/70th my size? Why should we have such a divided government, whereas most developed democracies have parliamentary systems? If you’re going to question the 60 votes from a structural standpoint, it’s actually just the crap icing on the shit cake of our government. If you want to push the argument the biggest problem is not our outdated Constitution but rather the insanity of the GOP, then it’s better to stick to how the last 5 years of GOP fillibusters are unprecedented…
Yutsano
@Dougerhead: Ouch dude.
General Stuck
@Dougerhead:
Being my new policy is to try and not get involved in other folks disputes on this blog, but I agreed with you. and
Not even in the same ballpark with how often wingnuts filibustered beginning in 2007, where they broke, or shattered all records for a single two year congress, in less than a year. They have completely misused this provision for affording the minority some rights. But not to usurp wholesale the voters decision to put the other party in the majority, with governing primarily as that majorities whim, until voters give the reins back to the GOP. They are exploiting good faith rules in an utterly seditious manner, in a body that in large part, runs on tradition and comity, and consistency,
schrodinger's cat
[email protected]
I may not agree with you about long division but on the topic of the cravenness of MSM I am with you.
jeer9
This should not be a news flash but … Kevin Drum is less than worthless.
You Don't Say
Who cares when you stopped reading Kevin Drum?
Mark S.
I don’t know, at least in his update he says the 60 vote requirement should be drilled in people’s skulls until they get pissed off about it:
I don’t remember, but I want to say Drum was of the opinion that the filibuster was unconstitutional, but I might be confusing him with someone else.
burnspbesq
@Dougerhead:
Your loss. Closed-minded and thin-skinned is a pretty suboptimal way to go through life.
patrick II
Every time I see someone support obeisance to the “new reality” I think of this:
and think of what easy marks we are.
patrick II
OT, but just a few minutes ago a Milwaukee pitcher tried to throw a high fastball past Pujolz in a playoff game.
Dougerhead
@burnspbesq:
Should have left it at “your loss”, would have been a good comeback. The sanctimony of the next sentence veered into self-parody.
bystander
@jeer9:
I’m curious why you say this. I have my own issues with Kevin, but they tend to follow my notion that he’s always just a little behind the curve… Not that he’s worthless.
Dougerhead
@Wannabe Speechwriter:
I dislike his response, it’s almost worse than the original post. It’s the usual “you think what I said was milquetoast centrism but really it’s radical”. Straight out of the TNR/Matt Yglesias playbook.
eemom
As noted earlier, YOU were the one who brought “The Courtroom” into yesterday’s discussion.
Mike in NC
Thanks, Harry!
opal
It’s all Big Dawg’s fault.
That triangulating bastard should have kept his dick in his pants.
Bruce S
Your blog posts would have no place in a court of law.
Just saying…
The prophet Nostradumbass
@Mike in NC: Yeah, Reid’s totally responsible for the behavior of the Republicans. It’s all his fault.
slag
Damn. Does this mean the cat blog wars are over? Usually, I’m a pacifist, but there was purring involved here. Purring.
cleek
that sounds nothing like Kevin Drum.
eemom
also too, the disingenuity of this attack is noteworthy on various levels, including but not limited to:
1. Your thesis here, i.e., that Kevin Drum is “insane” and/or a “contrarian,” has nothing to do with what we were arguing about yesterday.
2. What we were arguing about yesterday — at least, what I was taking issue with — is the, yes, ridiculously hyperbolic statement that all mainstream journalists are drive by the absolute and well-founded certainty that they WILL lose their jobs if they speak the truth.
3. You later tried to backwalk it, but #2 is, in fact, what you started out saying — not the much squishier, less hysterical “journalists fear being labeled as liberals.”
4. I hate the eemessemm just as much as you do. In fact, I would venture to say I hate them MORE than you do — since I, unlike you, don’t spend every minute of my life obsessing over their every drekulous utterance. That doesn’t mean I’m going to condone the same insane, unfounded, witch-hunt-esque type demonizations that we usually see coming from the OTHER side, employed in the service of —
Wait. Let me back up. WHAT is it that you’re trying to accomplish here again?
darkmatter
What really pisses me off is that Drum not only utterly fails to mention why 60 votes are needed in the Senate in the first place, but never even says that the level of Republican Filibustering is unheard of in the history of the Senate.
I didn’t even see in his column and rebuttal any mention that the 60-vote supermajority was then, as it is now, a complete sham.
Rick Taylor
There isn’t a pundit in the world who doesn’t annoy me on occasion. Well, except for Molly Ivins of course–she was a saint.
liberal
@Wannabe Speechwriter:
Uh, the cost of fixing the filibuster is a lot less.
Kola Noscopy
Why does anyone expect the fucking useless MSM to make a big deal out of the “new reality” when the fucking elected Democrats, who are the ones allegedly being screwed here, don’t even do so?
From what I can see, Reid and Obama and company treat this bullshit as if it’s “all good,” so why the hell should the press report otherwise?
Dougerhead
@eemom:
It’s awfully easy to wind you up. I mean that as a compliment.
MM
@You Don’t Say:
To think it matters when you decided Kevin Drum was an impurity seems to me the height of insanity and something that you would only say if you were more in love with the brilliance of your own purity of essence than in conveying anything useful to your readers.
Dougerhead
@MM:
Knew this would bring out the trolls.
Kola Noscopy
@The prophet Nostradumbass:
No, you dumbass, Reid is not responsible for the behavior of the Republicans. But he IS responsible for his own milquetoast non-response which allows them to control the Senate from a minority position.
Which indicates to me his doing EXACTLY what he intends to do.
Yutsano
test
EDIT: weird. WP isn’t allowing me to post one thread up. FYWP.
LightsOut
Jeez, what is it about liberals that we pile on each other at a moment’s notice? For those of you commenting on Drum without having read his posts, just take a deep breath, go over and read them, and then come back and vent if you must. But he basically agrees that the overuse of the filibuster is a mess.
What he’s guilty of is having a probably bad idea for fixing the situation (I agree more with Fallows) and of expressing it poorly. Hammer him for that, but realize that on substance he AGREES with most of you, including you, Dougwhatevertherestofyournameisthismonth. He writes about the insanity of the GOP on a daily basis to the point where he gets almost as shill as Cole. (Ok, not Cole, but maybe mistermix.)
Sorry for the rant. It’s not meant to be a super-pro-Kevin-Drum comment. More like “Can’t we (liberals) all just get along?!?”
Wannabe Speechwriter
@liberal: True. However, this gets into an issue with many in the blogosphere. Some people blame our problems on structural issues. “If only we had a a Parliament” the TNR types will cry. To this I have some sympathy-hell, I once held this view. If we could transplant the constitution of Germany or Australia or Canada onto America, I’d be down with that. However, while our system may be the most dysfunctional, all systems have a level of dysfunction. In fact, Belgium has done the best out of the developed democracies in the last few years because of that dysfunction-
http://www.lrb.co.uk/v33/n17/john-lanchester/the-non-scenic-route-to-the-place-were-going-anyway
Basically, they haven’t had a government in over a year, which means they haven’t instituted those horrible austerity measures everyone else has.
The issue with our horrible political system is the radical GOP. They use every trick at their disposal to push their Galtian/Jeebus agenda. Does our institutional failings help them do this? Yes! Does the media enable them? You bet! In the end, we are going to have to deal with these issues. However, we should never forget the main focus-stopping the radical right, not debating procedure…
andrewsomething
I never realized there was this much Kevin Drum hatred around. I only recently started reading him regularly, and have found him fairly enjoyable. That said, the post referenced here and his follow up made very little sense to me. I don’t really get his attempted nuance.
Something he wrote the day before on the same subject makes a bit more sense:
Triassic Sands
Kevin Drum can be maddening. I’ve always been surprised that he is the blogger Mother Jones chose to blog on politics, since I’d expect that magazine to go for someone with much stronger lefty credentials.
Next year, the Republicans are likely to regain the majority in the Senate. If they also win the presidency, the only thing standing between us and total insanity rule may be the willingness of Senate Democrats to demand sixty votes. With the stakes as high as they are (the end of health care reform, social security, Medicare, and Medicaid to offer just the tip of the iceberg), my guess is that Democrats may come to appreciate the sixty vote threshold. To counter that, I’d expect the GOP to abandon their recent position and do whatever they can to change the rules of the Senate.
@Wannabe Speechwriter:
The Senate was never intended to offer equal representation to large and small states. That was one of the devices used to get smaller states to agree to the new structure of our government. Worse still, Senators were originally chosen by state legislators, not citizen votes, and it’s no secret that state legislators are generally really lame. Many serve in poorly paid, part time positions and are elected by people who pay little attention to whom and what they’re voting for.
The real weakness in our system is not the government’s structure; rather, it’s the quality of the electorate. Any country that can muster a majority to put a bunch of reactionary lunatics (aka the Republicans) in charge can’t be saved by switching from a presidential system to a parliamentary one. Parliamentary systems frequently result in tiny splinter parties having inordinate power, because of the need for a major party to attract allies to reach a majority. In all likelihood, in a parliamentary system we’d currently have someone like Boehner as prime minister and we’d have nothing to protect us from full-bore Republican plutocracy. The libertarians and TeaBaggers would likely be separate parties and might well have a lot more power than they have now. That couldn’t be good for us.
Our system works quite well, generally, when lefties hold large majorities in both houses and the president is also a lefty. No system can protect us from the stupidity and ignorance that characterize most American voters.
Lee Hartmann
Drum says “was so badly misconstrued in comments that I obviously expressed myself poorly.”
As I wrote there, the alternative was that most understood
exactly what he was saying, and told him he was full of it.
Wannabe Speechwriter
@liberal: True. However, this gets into an issue with many in the blogosphere. Some people blame our problems on structural issues. “If only we had a a Parliament” the TNR types will cry. To this I have some sympathy-hell, I once held this view. If we could transplant the constitution of Germany or Australia or Canada onto America, I’d be down with that. However, while our system may be the most dysfunctional, all systems have a level of dysfunction. In fact, Belgium has done the best out of the developed democracies in the last few years because of that dysfunction-
http://www.lrb.co.uk/v33/n17/john-lanchester/the-non-scenic-route-to-the-place-were-going-anyway
Basically, they haven’t had a government in over a year, which means they haven’t instituted those horrible austerity measures everyone else has.
The issue with our horrible political system is the radical GOP. They use every trick at their disposal to push their Galtian/Jeebus agenda. Does our institutional failings help them do this? Yes! Does the media enable them? You bet! In the end, we are going to have to deal with these issues. However, we should never forget the main focus-stopping the radical right, not debating procedure…
Test, this seemed to not be working…
BBA
The 60-vote requirement isn’t going away. That would require Senators to willingly give up their own power for the sake of the common good.
At this point, we can only pray that McConnell never hears about how the Polish parliament used to work.
The prophet Nostradumbass
@Dougerhead: and the word Hamsher didn’t appear anywhere in your post!
The prophet Nostradumbass
@Yutsano: It ate one of my comments on this thread, as well.
eemom
what is happening to my comments???
Kevin Drum
If Doug can’t stand me, that’s fine. But come on, folks. I’ve written endlessly about the filibuster in the past. I can’t count the number of posts I’ve written detailing whose fault it is, how routine it’s become, how many filibusters we get each year, and, yes, the fact that I think it’s unconstitutional.
And exactly what has this gotten us? Squat. So maybe we should try something different, like repeating over and over and over the butt simple message that the Senate is now a 60-vote body. Perhaps eventually that will start to get people scratching their heads.
I know this is different. Until recently, I wouldn’t have thought this was the right strategy myself. But just let it sink in a bit and it might make more sense.
Alternatively, maybe I’m wrong. It wouldn’t be the first time.
Dougerhead
@eemom:
It happened to everyone. No idea.
Yutsano
@Kevin Drum: Methinks it’s time for another blogger ethics panel. Or something.
Hill Dweller
Even if every bill could pass with a simple majority, the Senate is still a very undemocratic legislative body because of the way it over-represents rural states and under-represents bigger states. Granted, they try to mitigate that with the House, but the Senate has always been where good legislation goes to die. Throw in the recent 60 vote requirement, and it becomes the farce it is now.
Then you have the ridiculous confirmation process, which the Republicans have also broken. But they’ve haven’t paid a price for any of it.
Yutsano
@Dougerhead: It’s still happening. At least to me. FYWP.
mclaren
But oh, so effective at butt-snorkeling the powers that be. A sure path to power and prestige.
“Today, the roundup of the Jews began, heralding a glorious new era for the Fatherland. These sorts of things happen, and reporting here in the Reich should just reflect the new rules of the glorious New Germany…”
“Today, the roundup of kulaks and Trotskyites began, ushering in a magnificent new era for the Soviet Union. These sorts of things happen, and reporting here at Pravda should just reflect the new rules laid down by our great Hero of the Soviet Union, Josef Stalin…”
“Today, the Cultural Revolution began, filling the streets with mountains of corpses of suspected counterrevolutionaries. These sorts of things happen, and reporting here at the People’s Ministry of Information should just reflect the new rules laid down by Chairman Mao…”
“Today, the killing fields began to fill with skeletons. These sorts of things happen, and reporting here at the Khmer Rouge Cultural Information Center should just reflect the new rules established by Pol Pot…”
Always the same. The lickspittles who act like that will be the ones who survive the purges and the Grand Inquisitions and the McCarthy-style witch hunts. A smart move, providing you have no conscience and no self-respect.
jl
I disagree with Drum. The news media should report the facts, and if people are not aware of the facts, or how things work, the news media should explain so people understand the significance of the facts. At least in situations where the facts are as clear as Senate procedure.
Which party ‘started it’ makes no difference, or that both parties are guilty of leading the country to this impasse makes no difference.
Senate procedure allows 1/3 of one of the two legislative branches to block legislation. That is not the same has holding a majority rules vote on legislation.
I remember reading that Jefferson asked Washington what exactly what the point of having a Senate was, since the House was representing the people. Washington said to it was to cool legislation that might too extreme. That is not what is going on now.
mclaren
@eemom:
They have been meted out a fate worthy of their content.
Dougerhead
@mclaren:
Everyone commenting here becoming spamified. I will try to fix this!
cleek
@Lee Hartmann:
that’s definitely not my reading of the situation.
brantl
@burnspbesq: Because he doesn’t want to read stupid shit, said with this same condescending tone? I’m with him.
brantl
@jl: 1/3 of a hundred member body isn’t 40 votes. That would be 2/5, or darned if that isn’t coincidental
.
SRW1
@Rick Taylor:
I’d add the ex-OW and ex-PA blogger who occasionally seems to visit this blog — like she did a few days ago — though I think she didn’t consider herself a pundit.
Barry
I agree with mistermix; Drum is now on my ‘looking for a Washington Post gig’ list.
What’s irritating is that this is Mother Jones, not ‘Even the Liberal New Republic’.
Sophia
In his Calpundit days, Kevin Drum was slow-motion heart-breakingly 100% wrong in the lead up to the invasion of Iraq. Him and Josh Marshall. It was fucking depressing. Marshall won me back by continuing to produce news, not just opinion. I still haven’t forgiven Drum and assume the only reason he has a significant number of readers today is because most of those people weren’t reading him back in 03.
I realize it’s odd to say this on Cole’s blog. But Cole was a republican at the time. It made some sense that he’d go along with the Iraq Adventure.
And as long as I’m dumping my blog opinions on an old thread, I’ll throw in that I pretty much stopped reading Yglesias because at a certain point his refusal to proofread was just too much in the contemptuous display of privilege department. Constantly reading mistakes will make the reader more likely to repeat those mistakes. Yglesias’ blog is like malware for the English language.
Dougerhead
@Kevin Drum:
Thanks for stopping by, even if we disagree, sorry about the technical hiccup.
Brian
@Doug: Kevin Drum is one of the best bloggers working in politics, I think. He may produce measured responses, but that’s a feature: not everybody should be dashing off outraged asides and feigning ignorance of political philosophers to foment discussion (although there’s a place for that). Taking time to consider various sides to an argument helps avoid echo chamber effects.