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It's ultimately up to senators to decide whether to reform their chamber's dysfunctional rules, especially when it comes to filibuster abuses, but they're not the only ones who want some say in the process.
On Wednesday, President Obama threw his support behind Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid's (D-Nev.) reform efforts, which was a move likely intended to rally Democratic support. Yesterday, House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) weighed in with a very different perspective.
Shortly after 5 p.m. today, John Boehner's office released a statement pre-condemning a change to the filibuster. The key threat: "Any bill that reaches a Republican-led House based on Senate Democrats' heavy-handed power play would be dead on arrival."
In other words, if a Senate majority passes legislation, but the Speaker doesn't like how the legislation was passed, the House won't even consider it. How constructive of him.
As a practical matter, it's worth keeping in mind that bills approved by the Senate Democratic majority are probably "dead on arrival" anyway in the Republican-led House. For that matter, it's also pretty likely that Boehner is bluffing -- in the unlikely event there's legislation he wants to pass, and it was somehow approved by the Senate, it's hard to imagine the Speaker trashing it purely out of spite over Senate procedural questions.
Regardless, Boehner's comments yesterday reinforce a larger question about whether the Republican leader is "the most reasonable, responsible person" in Washington, as he recently identified himself.
Just over the last week or so, the Speaker said he wants to resolve the fiscal fight by going after health care reform, wants to get a debt-reduction deal without providing any real details, fully intends to deliberately hold the global economy hostage (again) unless his arbitrary and non-negotiable terms are met, and now promises to kill all Senate legislation passed through procedural mechanisms he doesn't like.
The 113th Congress ought to be a joy to watch, right?
As for the fate of filibuster reform in the upper chamber, the outcome is still in doubt, as "nine Democratic senators sit on the fence about the proposed reforms."
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Joe 'DINO/Repuke-Lite' Donnelly is going to be a major pain in the @ss to the democrats in the senate.
You would rather have had the other guy?
Boehner needs to be strung up by his heels and dipped in suntan oil repeatedly, head first. Give him a good looooong treatment, so he's orange all over.
Mostly the usual suspects, although Feinstein and Levin sure make me want to scream sometimes...
The trouble with ignorance is that it picks up confidence as it goes along.
- Arnold H. Glasow
;-)
Boehner thinks himself the King of Congress...a legend in his own mind...when in reality he shows himself to be a petty game player where the good of the country plays a very small low level part. When has he even produced a workable plan or offered a solution to any of the nations problems or challenges. It's all about 'control' and who can kick whose butt.
Boehner really is that shallow and so is Cantor and Ryan. They are the real problems to fixing our nations problems. In fact the republican party has reduced themselves to name callers and rock throwers producing strife and divisiveness with all their blame damage. They have done more to demoralize and demean America than to help her grow. The GOP is now the POG(pissy old goobers) ("Now get off the House lawn Senate Dems") Republicans have become an embarrassment and need to fix their rampant stupidity and anger.
Dead on arrival if the Senate legislation withstands fillibusters, and dead on arrival if the fillibuster is dead.
Legislation is dead on arrival in the play pen Boehner has reduced his Chamber of Congress to. This is not news.
You remember that rally where the kid's fingers were getting frostbitten and the Romney campaign would not let the people leave the rally?
It was Bucks County, PA. Now here is what is weird about Bucks. Obama won there, but there were no coat tails and the Dem Congressional candidate lost there. The GOP candidate got to be on stage with Romney, but the Dem was out in the cold. Obama won there 50 to 48, but she lost 57 to 43%. This is the same district (basically unchanged) that in 2008 elected a Dem 57 to 42.
What was the National Republican Congressional Committee doing? Running an effective campaign: "Radical Kathy".
Meanwhile, the DCCC pulled its advertising from Bucks (source). The DCCC was a no show. Try searching Boockvar on msnbc, or cnn or any of the other national networks. These races in aggregate were THE story of the 2012 race.
We were told that the GOP legislators would be made to pay for their votes in Boehner's congress.
Well, it simply didn't happen. Bucks county voters turned out for Obama, but somewhere in the Organizing for America phone scripts, it was not regarded as important to defend Boockvar, or attack her opponent for his ridiculous obstructionist voting record of in Boehner's congress.
Not their job. So no one rallied to help Kathy. Real heroism, real political savvy there. This is how Boehner is able to do what he is doing now with no election consequences. But no one wants to walk the story back upstream.
This THIS is the real story.
This is the same district (basically unchanged) that in 2008 elected a Dem 57 to 42.
That happens to be impossible, since the Republican legislature gerrymandered all congressional districts in Pennsylvania so that there are only two "Democratic majority" districts left (in the middle of Philadelphia and Pittsburgh respectively). Did you not see the two congressional maps Ed showed on his show a few weeks ago? One from 2008, one from the 2010 "redistricting"? There are no "basically unchanged" congressional districts in Pennsylvania.
You are correct and I just got done retracting that in another thread.
I wish I could find the article where I read that information, because after I looked up the lines to confirm, I found out how mistaken my understanding was. (see excellent overlay map tool here- plug in values for district 08 and compare 2001 to 2012 final). I suspect what I read was that PA08 had not significantly changed (voter composition meaning, not district line meaning).
Whatever the source of the error, it was a mistake on my part to simply repeat something I read without confirming for myself. I was doing a lot of research on over a dozen races prior to the election but it's like saying the sun was in my eyes. It was my F-up. Sorry.
The point remains that Obama carried the district 50-48, while the Dem, Kathy Boockvar was annihilated 57-43. So redistrcting does not explain her loss.
GOP Incumbency, an RNC attack campaign, a Romney visit and lack of a well established OFA style ground organization supporting Kathy's candidacy I think does.
Being unknown to enough members of the new district could certainly contribute to her loss. There are many voters who do not realize today's GOP is vastly different from the one of 20 years ago and they split tickets to show their "independence".
Which is unfortunate in today's politics.
Congressional Reform Act of 2013
1. No Tenure / No Pension. A Congressman collects a salary while in office and receives no pay when they are out of office.
2. Congress (past, present & future) participates in Social Security. All funds in the Congressional retirement fund move to the Social Security system immediately. All future funds flow into the Social Security system, and Congress participates with the American people. It may not be used for any other purpose.
3. Congress can purchase their own retirement plan, just as all Americans do.
4. Congress will no longer vote themselves a pay raise. Congressional pay will rise by the lower of CPI or 3%.
5. Congress loses their current health care system and participates in the same health care system as the American people.
6. Congress must equally abide by all laws they impose on the American people.
7. All contracts with past and present Congressmen are void effective 1/1/14. The American people did not make this contract with Congressmen. Congressmen made all these contracts for themselves. Serving in Congress is an honor, not a career. The Founding Fathers envisioned citizen legislators, so ours should serve their term(s), then go home and back to work.
Maybe it is time. THIS IS HOW YOU FIX CONGRESS!!!!!
please include the senate and the President with this list, they all need to be held to the same standard as the people they impose their crap on. When asked if he would join all Americans in Obama care and give up his plan Obama would not answer, he knows it is a crappy plan for us.
The President is in Obamacare by virtue of having health insurance. You know whats a "Crappy plan"? Not having ANY health insurance at all and having to go to the emergency room for stupid things that a regular Doctor could treat in their office.
Like you "know" it's a crappy plan for us?
Congressional Reform Act of 2013
1. No Tenure / No Pension. A Congressman collects a salary while in office and receives no pay when they are out of office.
2. Congress (past, present & future) participates in Social Security. All funds in the Congressional retirement fund move to the Social Security system immediately. All future funds flow into the Social Security system, and Congress participates with the American people. It may not be used for any other purpose.
3. Congress can purchase their own retirement plan, just as all Americans do.
4. Congress will no longer vote themselves a pay raise. Congressional pay will rise by the lower of CPI or 3%.
5. Congress loses their current health care system and participates in the same health care system as the American people.
6. Congress must equally abide by all laws they impose on the American people.
7. All contracts with past and present Congressmen are void effective 1/1/14. The American people did not make this contract with Congressmen. Congressmen made all these contracts for themselves. Serving in Congress is an honor, not a career. The Founding Fathers envisioned citizen legislators, so ours should serve their term(s), then go home and back to work.
Maybe it is time. THIS IS HOW YOU FIX CONGRESS!!!!!
Mike McCoy**
You would end up with career lobbyists running Washington as all newly elected reps would have to use experienced insiders to know where to go and how everything runs etc. Think it through. You would only empower a Washington infrastructure who would run things from behind the scenes without a public face we could point to or blame.
How can we make this happen? I think you are really on to something!
Worst Speaker of the House, ever.
Newt was worse, but he certainly takes the crown for most resembling a baked apple, in appearance and in mind.
Newt, the big ball of puff pastry, actually got legislation passed. He is crazy, and Tigersharktoo assumes, not very filling, but he did get legislation passed.
The current speaker probably only passes two things, one liquid and one semi-solid.
Thank God for the Speaker. The Dems are a joke. Call their bluff and let Obama destroy his second term.
you have something constructive or are you just flaming?
There are apparently 328 ROCKS in NJ's head.
Apparently he's one of the few who believes Ol' Orangie's line that he is the sanest, most levelheaded repub you'll ever meet. That's like saying Jack the Ripper is absolutely the nicest serial killer you'll ever meet.
NJROCKS238: What do you mean by "let Obama destroy his second term"? How does a president's term get destroyed without doing considerable collateral damage to the country?
Go stick your head back up your rectum where you keep it, Mr. Sheep-fornicator.
That result will be the "Obstructionist Republicans". They put their party and personal career before this Country. President Obama put forth a starting proposal, now where is the Republicans proposal?
Has not figured out that his words no longer carry much weight with all the holes in his support.
Best House Speaker in ages. Stand up to the power hungry Dems. They just want to tax and spend us into the poorhouse. Wait.. we're already there!
Speak for yourself, slacker.
Seriously? The best? Is today opposite day? So to you it was a good thing that he led the most obstructionist Congress in history? It was good that he would rather see the economy flounder than pass any legislation that would improve it, just so that the President wouldn't look successful? The guy who stressed jobs, but didn't pass any jobs bills or come up with any of his own? You RWNJs always spout, unjustifiably so, that "Obama hates America" yet have no problem with a party that wants the country to fail, so that it can regain the presidency? And what's with this tax and spend nonsense? Bush had to borrow to pay for his 2 unnecessary wars, tax cuts and increased medicare costs but that was okay with you? It used to be that both parties got along for the benefit of the country, now the GOTP only wants their way or no way, for the good of the party and the country be damned, so who's power hungry?
Go stick your head back up your rectum where you normally keep it, you sheep-fornicating asswipe.
But thanks for the daily demonstration of how low you have to flunk the IQ test to be one of you scum.
Enjoy getting trolled? :D
ROCKS:
And these are the only two comments he/she has posted.
The trouble with ignorance is that it picks up confidence as it goes along.
- Arnold H. Glasow
;-)
I feel a tiny bit sorry for Boehner. It's been said that leading Democrats is like herding cats. With the fractured traditional and tea party Republicans that Boehner has to lead it is more like herding gnats.
Really, at this point Mr. Benen/msnbc, you can call this guy "3 sheets Boner" or "Vodka & Orange Julius" ("Captain Screwdriver"?!) in all communications from now on. I think it is now perfectly appropriate and entirely reflective of the respect this individual is "entitled" to and it certainly wont look bad on you or anyone else to go more vile. It's not like we be calling him a "Kenyan", or a "socilaist", or a "community organizer".
Oops, this is why I'm not an editor. It's "socialist" darlings.. Maybe I'm a teabagger now, sans the lobotomy, anyway shut up and pay your taxes Captain Screwdriver! You lost and you're a total loser..
Raging Boehner!
Huh. Huh. Huhhuhhuh.
The trouble with ignorance is that it picks up confidence as it goes along.
- Arnold H. Glasow
;-)
Since "it's worth keeping in mind that bills approved by the Senate Democratic majority are probably "dead on arrival" anyway in the Republican-led House" his threat should not be a consideration in filibuster reform. It would still be worth it so that nominations aren't held up by filibuster.
The Democrats on the fence should consider the decreasing likelihood of them being the minority in the future, considering the favorable voter demographics and increasingly unpopular extreme platform of the GOTP.
No one wants to face it, but it's just the flat out truth: modern House Republicans, on average, are just flat out dumber--and a lot dumber--than they used to be. Boehner? Cantor? The teahadists of 2010? By and large, they're just flat out dumb. Intellectual incurious, astonishingly resistant to the effects of whatever education they technically had, openly disdainful of the entire concept of "policy," a worldview shaped and constrained entirely by bumper sticker slogans and tweets and stubbornly ignorant dogma. That's the kind of base they spent so many years creating, patronizing, manipulating and sneering at in private and now, democracy being democracy, they are its mirror image.
No one in the media wants to face it or admit it. It's seen as impolite or snobbish or, worst of all, elitist, to acknowledge that the average IQ of a GOP Congressman has declined precipitously over the last twenty years and that this has real-world consequences for the ability of our government to function. We saw the same polite averting of eyes under GWB--the ultimate harbinger of things to come--and now, here we are, repeatedly being brought to the brink of disaster because one house of Congress is controlled by people who are just plain dumb.
Academia protects society from people who acquire positions that are beyond their intellectual capacity by turning them into associate deans. Big Business used to do the same thing by going broke until the big banks somehow turned into sanctuaries for them. Both political parties used to go to great lengths to keep dumbasses with good political skills sealed off from the actual power. But then, like the banks, the dumbasses acquired a critical mass within the Republican Party that allowed them to take control of it. And so, here we are, once again brought to the brink of economic disaster because the GOP primary voters reward people for being dumb and punishes them for being intelligent.
So very well said, Steve.
There are a lot of stupid people in the world, but you still have to be careful about who you call stupid. In this instance, it is critical that we call out the growing stupidity. Because if we don't call stupid, stupid, stupid will continue to be a cog in the wheel.
I am sooo looking forward to the mid-terms!
Well, champion anti-intellectualism long enough and... this is the result.
The trouble with ignorance is that it picks up confidence as it goes along.
- Arnold H. Glasow
;-)
Hey Bonehead, you were sent back to Washington to do the PEOPLE'S work, not to be an obstructionist cry-baby, put your big boy underwear on and do your job!! Meeting with the press and whining everyday isn't your sole responsibility!
At risk of being officially declared a broken record, all of this merely reinforces Charles Pierce's observation that with the modern conservative movement, nothing is ever over, and no agreement they make can be trusted.
Fine...play the game Boner. You are ridiculous. We'll do it without you. Period. By GOD we are going to fix this.
These are the words of a man panicking for what's left of his reputation. Thanks to the obstructionist tactics in the Senate, which let's face it usually get way more press because of the audacity of a minority being able to thwart the will of the majority, the House often gets a free pass for their ridonkulous behavior, except for when they yet again try to repeal Obamacare or place unnecessary restrictions on abortion or insist Planned Parenthood get no funding for abortions which they already don't.
If suddenly the Senate Repubs can't filibuster as much as they used to, the House Repubs will be in a position where their behavior will be much more noticeable. If they insist on not bringing Senate bills up for a vote, whilst simultaneously passing bills that don't have a shot in the Senate because they're right wing wet dreams, they will now be seen as the obstructionist douche bags in the Senate. Guys like Boehner might not mind that, especially since the redistricting makes so many House seats safer from a Dem takeover
But not all of them.
The handwriting is on the wall, and if there's anything akin to some kind of revolution in the GOP it will be in the House, as what few cooler heads may exist there (who are in less-than-safe districts) will be more open to negotiating with Dems to support bills so they're not voted out of existence. Seeing NJ Gov Christie's fortunes rise by playing nice with the President (though let's face it, NJ was underwater and the state needed as much emergency cash as possible what choice did Christie HAVE?) is going to resonate, they will see there's potentially political capital to be gained from bucking their party.
The House and Boehner need to keep their noses out of the Senate. None of their damn business.
Excellent idea, Boehner. I can't think of a more effective way to give the House to the Democrats in 2014.
But the Dems have to parlay Boehner's statements into votes and Dems have real problems when it comes to messaging. Obama should be using Boehner's statements against him and the Republicans for threatening to bring Congress to a standstill. The public does not want to hear that one party is refusing to do anything or compromise. And that is where Obama and the Dems can beat the Republicans over the head with Boehner's statements. The president should galvanize public opinion to end the gridlock and push the Republicans to do what they do not feel inclined to do because of partisan politics--work.
According to The Hill article, the 9 who are not yet saying yes to the change in Senate rules are veterans of the Senate: Feinstein, Pryor, Levin, Baucus, Reed, Inouye, Kerry, Rockefellar, B. Nelson. We need to "persuade" these leaders that they must vote for the change in Senate filibuster rules this first day of the new session. The Senate tradition has been broken by Republicans' abuse of those rules to stop discussion, deliberation, and democracy. To not change the rules would be allowing the tyranny of the minority to continue. Democrats can survive a Republican Senate if and when that happens in the future. We can live with 51/49 votes regardless of the majority influence. What we can't live with is a continuation of this logjam that keeps appointments from approval, stops funding programs that need financial support, and denial of the will of the American people. These nine were elected to lead. Not wanting to "break away from Senate traditions" is not much different than not wanting to "break away from Grover's pledge". Supporting and passing the Udall, Merkle, Harkin bill is "change we can believe in."
Feinstein - never a Democrat ever. George Moscone still wishes she'd been run over by a bus.
Baucus - never a Democrat ever.
B. Nelson - never a Democrat ever (but he won't be there in January, thank goodness)
Reed - mostly never a Democrat.
Levin - mostly keeps his head up his rectum.
Pryor - has yet to ever provide evidence he actually has a brain.
Inouye - proof of what happens when you stay around too long. Not to mention he's senile.
Kerry - what ever happened to the John Kerry I knew in 1971?
Rockefeller - never a Democrat ever. His name has always said it all.
"...it's hard to imagine the Speaker trashing it purely out of spite over Senate procedural questions."
I think we need to stop assuming anything is "hard to imagine" when it comes to the Republican party nowadays.
the current fillibuster rules in the senate have allowed the GOP to stall the senate completely and they have passed the least number of bills in senate history this current congress. Reid just aims to return the rules to what they were in the past so if you want to fillibuster your required to be on the floor and cant just phone it in.
Unfortunately, for America, Boehner and McConnell have become addicted to pushing us into the abyss every time something doesn't go their way. Once they learned that they could get the credit rating downgraded without getting themselves assasinated, they figured that this is a fun new toy to play with and they'll just whip it out whenever it pleases them.
I think we need to put these clowns on a performanced based pay arrangement. We won't pay them till the end of their terms, based on how effective they were in the time they were there. The majority of them are already wealthy compared to nearly everyone else in America, plus they have all that insider trading information that keeps the money comming in. So it's not like they need the taxpayers money anyway.
It's time to haul out the black helicopters and arrest the Republican Party.
"Mike McCoy" Congressional Reform Act is perfect.....lets do it...!
"Any bill that reaches a Republican-led House based on Senate Democrats' heavy-handed power play would be dead on arrival."
Boehner's comment reinforces a larger question about whether the Republican leader is "the most reasonable, responsible person" in Washington, as he recently claimed to be.
Well, there goes bi-partisanship, down the tubes.. and rightfully so.
Who would want to work with this two-faced, lying, deceitful, egotistical wannabe of a real, honest legislator, anyway? Who does he think he is, Mitch McConnell? One lies, the other one swears by it.
With them in mind, let's go off to those same tubes and puke.
Once one accepts that Boehner's sole aim now, just as it has been ever since he was first elected Speaker, is to remain Speaker, his actions and statements are completely understandable. We'll only see a "saner" Boehner should the Republican caucus decide to face reality.
Sorry about the downer...