No More Senate Super Majority Illusion
There is very little upside to the election of a Republican Far Right Senator to replace the late Senator Ted Kennedy
(D-MA) for Democrats, progressives and reformers. My list is very short: (1) everyone should now understand that we
never had a real workable Senate Super Majority to begin with despite all the media hype, (2) watering-down progressive
legislation has now been shown to produce electoral defeat for Democrats and (3) Democratic candidates at all levels can
now clearly see that they will suffer if Democratic House and Senate members do not start acting more aggressively in
opposition to Republican actions and spin.
The Senate Democrats should never let Senator Joe Lieberman (I-CT) caucus with them. Lieberman was rejected by
Connecticut Democrats at the polls. He was not elected as a Democrat. He often opposes the Democratic legislative agenda
in the Senate. Lieberman supports and campaigns for Republicans. Letting Lieberman join the Democratic caucus raised unrealistic expectations without adding his vote behind the
legislation Democrats were trying to pass! For Democrats, the fictional 60th Senate Democratic member illusion was a
“lose, lose” proposition.
Of course, some elected Democratic Senators remain unreliable votes. Neither Senator Ben Nelson (D-NE) nor Senator
Blanche Lincoln (D-AR) are guaranteed yes votes on most progressive legislative issues. It is obvious that relying on a
60 member Super Majority to pass legislation is and always will be a mistake. A simple majority vote of Senate members
can reduce the number of Senators it takes to end a filibuster. I suggest moving to 55 instead of the current 60, as a
reasonable compromise, unless Senate Republicans stop threatening to filibuster everything Democrats want to do in terms
of passing laws and budgets. Ending filibusters entirely would be a better approach.
Watering-down healthcare reform left the Democratic base discouraged for basically nothing in return. Republicans remain
devoted to defeating all real healthcare reforms. Corporate Democrats filled the Senate version full of compromises that
left independents unhappy with the results. If we had no filibuster threat, the Senate could have given us a much better
product to sell to the voting public.
Republicans can be counted on to do everything possible to disrupt debate and progress on legislation in the Senate. It
pays for them. It helped defeat great Democratic candidates in state and local elections in Pennsylvania, New Jersey and
Virginia in 2009. With the election of Scott Brown to the Senate in January 2010, the Republicans smell blood. Their
shark instincts are in full attack mode.
Republican tactics and spin make bipartisan compromise basically impossible! It is time to tell the public to forget it
and why!
Democrats should never have let the idea that “Obama and the Democrats own the economy” to gain traction. Anyone with
even a little bit of honest understanding of how an economy operates should have been responding to every statement
along this line. Our message should have been that the Republican economic train-wreck started about 30 years ago and would take at least
2 full Presidential terms to fix. This answer is good politics and actually true. Obama should have been publicly attacking Republican efforts to
undermine his agenda as attacks on the American middle class designed to benefit greedy corporations. It would have been
good politics and is true! There is still time to correct our messaging.
Every local Democratic officeholder and/or candidate in America needs to put pressure on Senate Democrats to move
aggressively to pass legislation with a real economic populist approach. Local Democrats should demand an end to the
filibuster blackmail. It is time to move to regulate and tax imported manufactured goods. Bring our factory jobs back
home. Pass the Employee Free Choice Act without watering it down. Raise taxes on the wealthy. Pass a second stimulus
bill. Regulate abuses on Wall Street including executive pay at publicly traded corporations.
Make economic populism the core principle behind our Democratic Party. Show we are not the “Republican-lite”
alternative. Be aggressive, forceful and brave. Be winners! Be real Democrats!
Written by Stephen Crockett (host of Democratic Talk Radio http://www.DemocraticTalkRadio.com and Editor of Mid-Atlantic Labor.com http://www.midatlanticlabor.com ).
ENDS