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You are here: Home / The Lukewarm Option

The Lukewarm Option

by Zandar|  July 8, 20137:38 am| 22 Comments

This post is in: Bring on the Brawndo!, Democratic Stupidity, hoocoodanode, WIN THE MORNING

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I’m sorry, but WIN THE MORNING pointing out that Harry Reid has 51 of 54 Democratic senators lined up for the filibuster “nuclear option” is complete hogwash.

How this all plays out will be determined behind closed doors at Senate Democratic Caucus lunch meetings, the first of which is on Tuesday. After huddling with his membership, Reid will determine which nominee comes to the floor first to face a likely GOP filibuster.

Reid has refused to answer questions on the topic even as Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) continues his campaign on the Senate floor to see if Reid will “keep his word” on not changing Senate rules in January — which Democrats are only too happy to turn on McConnell for promising “to work with the majority to process nominations.”

It’s still unclear whether Reid has the votes to change the rules, although the Sierra Club, Communications Workers of America and top Senate aides are confident Reid can marshal 51 members of his 54-member caucus to support at least easing the path for executive nominations such as Cabinet members.

There’s far less certainty on whether the caucus would like to tweak rules for judicial nominees as well.

Savvy readers will note this isn’t even the “nuclear option” where the filibuster is mercifully done away with, more like the “lukewarm option” where President Obama’s Cabinet nominees are the only up-or-down votes that would be affected by this.  And even this weak tea, as Greg Sargent points out, has little chance of surviving the “comity” of the Senate.

It’s simple math. Lautenberg’s passing means Dems now only have 54 votes in the Senate. (His temporary Republican replacement can’t be expected to back rules reform.) Aides who are tracking the vote count tell me that Senator Carl Levin (a leading opponent of the “nuke option” when it was ruled out at the beginning of the year, leading to the watered down bipartisan filibuster reform compromise) is all but certain to oppose any rules change by simple majority. Senators Patrick Leahy and Mark Pryor remain question marks. And Senator Jack Reed is a Maybe.

If Dems lose those four votes, that would bring them down to 50. And, aides note, that would mean Biden’s tie-breaking vote would be required to get back up to the 51 required for a simple Senate majority. That’s an awfully thin margin for error.

Which means every single Dem other than Levin, Leahy, Pryor, and Reed could blow it.  (Yes, I’m looking directly at you, Joe Manchin, Mark Begich, Mary Landrieu, etc.)   The bottom line is we’ve heard all this before, and each and every time Harry Reid and the Dems gleefully blow it because they perversely benefit from the Senate’s inaction on the tough issues as much (or more at times) than the GOP does.

And no, I don’t even think Harry Reid and the Dems can even get this done correctly.

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Reader Interactions

22Comments

  1. 1.

    PeakVT

    July 8, 2013 at 8:22 am

    Thanks again, Senate fossils.

  2. 2.

    c u n d gulag

    July 8, 2013 at 8:27 am

    Does anyone doubt for a second, that the first thing on the agenda of a Republican-controlled Senate, will be to eliminate the filibuster?

    If you don’t think it will be, please let me have whatever it is you’re drinking/smoking/snorting/ingesting/shooting-up – because “sharing, is caring.”

  3. 3.

    Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN)

    July 8, 2013 at 8:41 am

    @c u n d gulag: I think it depends upon whether or not Republicans realize that, in the long run, the filibuster is their friend rather than their enemy. Because I think that it is; preventing progress is relatively more valuable to them than to us.

  4. 4.

    cvstoner

    July 8, 2013 at 8:45 am

    The Senate is broken, and Congress has been gerrymandered to support a permanent Republican majority for at least another generation. The beast is dead.

  5. 5.

    lol

    July 8, 2013 at 8:46 am

    What? You’re saying that the reason Harry Reid didn’t wave his wand and make the filibuster go away at the beginning of Congress was because he didn’t have the votes for even a watered down version of reform? And that even now, a number of Democrats balk at doing anything. Why doesn’t Reid use his Green Lantern ring and make them support filibuster reform?

  6. 6.

    Zapruder F. Mashtots, D.D.S. (Mumphrey, et al.)

    July 8, 2013 at 8:46 am

    Well, I can hope.

  7. 7.

    NotMax

    July 8, 2013 at 8:51 am

    Glacial movement in the Senate is a feature, not a bug.

  8. 8.

    PeakVT

    July 8, 2013 at 8:55 am

    @cvstoner: I really hate thinking that we might not see action on anything important – climate change, the economy, voting rights, etc. – until after 2020, when the Democrats will (hopefully) take a lot of statehouses and fix the wrongs done after 2010. That might be the case, though.

  9. 9.

    MomSense

    July 8, 2013 at 9:08 am

    I blame Obama.

  10. 10.

    Belafon (formerly anonevent)

    July 8, 2013 at 9:09 am

    each and every time Harry Reid and the Dems gleefully blow it because they perversely benefit from the Senate’s inaction on the tough issues as much (or more at times) than the GOP does.

    I love hyperbole as much as the next person….OK, actually, I can’t stand hyperbole. The reluctant Dems are thinking to the time when they aren’t in control of the Senate. I understand the sentiment, and I think they are thinking back to a time when Congress functioned properly, or possibly toward a time when, if they aren’t in power, the Republicans pass laws at the national level like we’re getting here in Texas that will make it harder for non-Republicans to vote.

    How do you actually think Reid benefits from a system where people are constantly calling for his head, or where his margins in the Senate are so small that nothing can get done? We already have a party that represents doing nothing: the Republicans. As we’ve said before, why elect someone who is going to pretend to be a Republican when you can get the real thing?

  11. 11.

    Tone in DC

    July 8, 2013 at 9:11 am

    Sad, but true.

    I’ve only been paying attention to Congress actions (and their more voluminous inaction) since Junior took office in 2001. No, these oh so deliberative people like things as they are. They like ’em just fine.

  12. 12.

    David in NY

    July 8, 2013 at 9:25 am

    Alternatively: “The Popgun Option”

  13. 13.

    Omnes Omnibus

    July 8, 2013 at 9:28 am

    There is a possibility that the recalcitrant Dems do believe that the filibuster does more good than harm – that it can be used to stop a GOP majority from doing horrible things. The fact that they are probably wrong does not mean that they aren’t acting from a sincere broiled that their actions are beneficial.

  14. 14.

    Forum Transmitted Disease

    July 8, 2013 at 9:55 am

    I’m sorry, but WIN THE MORNING pointing out that Harry Reid has 51 of 54 Democratic senators lined up for the filibuster “nuclear option” is complete hogwash.

    If they have 51 “in the bag”, then they can certainly name them, right?

    Thought not.

  15. 15.

    mellowjohn

    July 8, 2013 at 10:14 am

    “A second flood, a simple famine
    Plagues of locusts everywhere
    Or a cataclysmic earthquake
    I’d accept with some despair
    But, no, you sent us Congress.
    Good God, sir, was that fair?”
    John Adams, 1776

  16. 16.

    Mike R.

    July 8, 2013 at 10:24 am

    My own Senator (Reed) who I have very high regard for has not committed one way or another and, sadly, I understand that he expects when the tables are turned that his republican counterparts will honor that same tradition. The rest of the world is all too aware that republicans, by nature, have become sociopathic domestic terrorists who will do what they’re paid to do.
    I’d actually be shocked if more than 45 Dems could be found to support even this limited exception. We’re not exactly talking profiles in courage here.

  17. 17.

    cvstoner

    July 8, 2013 at 10:41 am

    @PeakVT:

    I really hate thinking that we might not see action on anything important – climate change, the economy, voting rights, etc. – until after 2020, when the Democrats will (hopefully) take a lot of statehouses and fix the wrongs done after 2010. That might be the case, though.

    I think the time for waiting for leadership from Congress is long over. Leadership needs to come from the grass roots now if we’re going to survive somewhat intact as a people and nation.

  18. 18.

    Roger Moore

    July 8, 2013 at 10:59 am

    The bottom line is we’ve heard all this before, and each and every time Harry Reid and the Dems gleefully blow it because they perversely benefit from the Senate’s inaction on the tough issues as much (or more at times) than the GOP does.

    I think you’re placing the blame in the wrong place. Reid has actually tried to get filibuster reform through. A large majority of the Senate Democrats backed him. It’s a relative handful of blue dogs and traditionalists (together with all the Republicans, of course) who are blocking filibuster reform. If you want to place the blame, put it on the Senators who are actively blocking reform- Levin, Leahy, Prior, and Reed- rather than accusing Harry Reid or some amorphous group of “Democrats” of secretly not wanting reform.

  19. 19.

    catclub

    July 8, 2013 at 11:03 am

    @David in NY: Nukewarm option.

  20. 20.

    Villago Delenda Est

    July 8, 2013 at 12:04 pm

    @Forum Transmitted Disease:

    It would be shorter to name those “out of the bag”. I’m sure that Merkley, Warren, Franken, etc are in it. Let’s just talk about who is not in the bag. Or those close to the mouth of it where they can make a quick scurry out when they get cold feet.

    ELIMINATING the Filibuster should not be the goal. MAKING IT a public spectacle should be.

    Right now the Rethugs can do it and face no consequences of their intransigence. Force them to throw their temper tantrums on CSPAN 3.

  21. 21.

    Mnemosyne

    July 8, 2013 at 1:18 pm

    @Villago Delenda Est:

    After seeing Wendy Davis’s performance, I would be more than happy to have the US Senate adopt the rules of the Texas Senate for filibusters — must stay on topic, no leaving the floor even for bathroom breaks, etc. The people trying to block the vote should be the ones who have obstacles to overcome, not the ones trying to have a vote.

  22. 22.

    kindness

    July 8, 2013 at 1:50 pm

    I’d like to think Harry Reid is a better leader than Bohener is in the House. The real question is are Senate Democrats just as much a herd of cats as House Republicans. There I had hoped they weren’t but in situations like this they never seem to live up to my expectations and hopes.

    What to do?

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