Process in 2009

The New York Times takes a look at Senator Tom Coburn and all the legislation he's single-handedly holding up under the Senate's weird rules where one member can block a bill unless it's Chris Dodd trying to maintain some limits to presidential surveillance power. Tim Fernholz comments on efforts to put a stop to Coburn's obstructionism:

It'll be interesting to see how Harry Reid handles this one (the Times seems pessimistic about his chances for success) since it will be a preview of his ability to handle obstructionist Senators in 2009.

This is very right. During the Democratic primary there was a lot of emphasis on the relative level of commitment and general hard-core-ness of the different candidates as the independent variable in terms of what happens legislatively in 2009-2010. Realistically, though, if Barack Obama wins an enormous amount will depend on the procedural rules of the Senate and how the leadership and the Democratic rank and file interpret them. If a health care bill is handled through the budget reconciliation process (which you can't filibuster) then many things become possible that wouldn't otherwise be. More broadly, though I highly doubt this is going to happen, there's nothing stopping the Democrats from doing something along the lines of the proposed "nuclear option" and simply repealing the filibuster rule altogether. Alternatively, Tom Coburn could be allowed to hold up vast swathes of legislative activity. It really just depends on the extent to which Democratic members are interested in subordinating their own personal prerogatives as Senators to the larger effort to pass an ambitious legislative program.

Comments

he Senate's weird rules where one member can block a bill unless it's Chris Dodd trying to maintain some limits to presidential surveillance power

I've been wondering about that myself. If you're doing one of your request shows, could you explain how that works? Is it just Harry Reid pulling the rug out from under him?

Posted by Jim | July 28, 2008 11:33 AM

In interest of intellectual honesty, I don't think we can repeal the filibuster rules, so I'm not sure what plan B is.

http://strategy08.wordpress.com

Posted by Dan | July 28, 2008 11:34 AM

he Senate's weird rules where one member can block a bill unless it's Chris Dodd trying to maintain some limits to presidential surveillance power

I've been wondering about that myself. If you're doing one of your request shows, could you explain how that works? Is it just Harry Reid pulling the rug out from under him?

Posted by Jim | July 28, 2008 11:34 AM

God I hate Democratic Senators.

Posted by mpowell | July 28, 2008 11:36 AM

Plan A, actually, should be to not allow Republicans to filibuster without forcing them to do an actual filibuster. When the Senate allows them to calmly block everything that happens and when the media blithely report on this strange new requirement that every bill needs 60 votes to pass, then filibustering is easy and the Republicans take no political hits for it. Why wouldn't they filibuster everything?

but if they are force to actually stop all Senate business to block a bill to give expanded health care to children, well, then maybe they'll think twice.

Harry Reid sucks. We need a Senate leader with some cajones.

Posted by Rob Mac | July 28, 2008 11:41 AM

Basically, the only consequence Senators have to worry about is losing the comity of their colleagues for pulling stunts like Coburn has pulled. However, the culture of the senate is so focused on maintaining good personal relations between senators that no one is willing to "pull the trigger" and start treating Coburn like a pariah and a malefactor. If you want to run the senate on the basis of allowing senators to exercise or not exercise their privileges on the basis of maintain mutual goodwill, fine. But it's all meaningless unless it is shown that the "goodwill" can be taken away, if necessary.

Posted by Tyro | July 28, 2008 11:41 AM

"In interest of intellectual honesty, I don't think we can repeal the filibuster rules"

Of course we could.

The entire edifice of the Senate rules exists only with the forbearance of the majority.

But we won't repeal the filibuster, since given that Obama would be the most centrist Democratic President since Jimmy Carter, he has no real interest in pushing anything major enough through the Senate to make it worthwhile.

You need an agenda if you want to pass major contested legislation, and our nominee is expressly running on his lack of an agenda.

Posted by Petey | July 28, 2008 11:42 AM

If you're doing one of your request shows, could you explain how that works? Is it just Harry Reid pulling the rug out from under him?

Basically, Coburn places holds on *everything* he opposes. Under Senate rules, breaking one of those holds requires a lot of procedure and takes a fair amount of time out of the schedule, even if everybody else in the Senate supports the bill.

So these holds will only get overridden on issues where it's "worth" the effort. If you're going to take a week out of the legislative schedule, would you do it for the civil rights investigative funding bill?

Posted by John Bates | July 28, 2008 11:50 AM

That NYT article sure makes Coburn sound pretty sympathetic. First I learn he's the guy who's stood up to Ted Stevens and the rest of the horribly corrupt Alaska delegation. Then it says he's taking a public stand against a hodgepodge of happy-crappy measures that have nothing to do with each other but are packaged into one bill for sympathy. This includes "items to commemorate “The Star-Spangled Banner” and to try to curb pornography, cut drug use and help victims of Lou Gehrig’s disease." OK, sounds good to me. And the whole procedural fight is because he keeps putting holds on bills, which means the Senate would actually have to discuss them before voting. Next thing you know, the Senators will be expected to read the bills!

Posted by too many steves | July 28, 2008 11:50 AM

Basically, the hold process works because the Senate does much of its work by unanimous consent. If they can't get unanimous consent, they have to have extended debate on the issue, votes, etc. It can take days, if not weeks. Since the Senate is usually pretty busy with other stuff, they try to avoid these debates on anything but the most important (politically, speaking) measures are dealt with on a unanimous consent basis, at least up to the point of the final vote on the measure.

The same thing, basically, goes for filibusters. No one is really willing to go through a filibuster because it just takes up too much time. But if there was seriously something important, you might see them call the filibusterers out on it.

Posted by Charles | July 28, 2008 12:00 PM

The Dems won't repeal the filibuster rules for the same reason that the Republicans never did - they realize that someday, they'll be in the minority again, and they'll want the power at that point.

Posted by James Robertson | July 28, 2008 12:03 PM

"I've been wondering about that myself. If you're doing one of your request shows, could you explain how that works? Is it just Harry Reid pulling the rug out from under him?"

Other commenters seem to have the right idea. Basically, it's not *actually* a hold that prevents something from ever coming up for a vote. What it means is that if you really want to be a dick, even if you're badly outnumbered, you can force roughly 5-6 days of Senate time to be spent doing absolutely nothing while your run out your double cloture time (one on motion to proceed, one on the actual bill, 30 hours each time, plus a few extra hours for random stuff).

In practice, this virtually never occurs, because if everyone did it, the Senate would basically never get anything done. So, Coburn's holds on random minor bills are just threats to waste a week of Senate time, and so since Reid isn't all that confrontational, he generally just puts them aside until there's enough of them for an omnibus motion like the one starting today. That way, even if Coburn wants to run the week out, it'll be on 50 bills combined, not just one.

For FISA, since Dodd isn't a dick, he knew there wasn't really any point to using the 5 days he was allotted to to grind the wheels to a halt, especially since the session was ending so soon, so he agreed that if there were 60 votes for cloture, he wouldn't waste everyone's time.

Posted by Adam | July 28, 2008 12:24 PM

Harry Reid needs to grow a sack.

Posted by LFC | July 28, 2008 12:33 PM

If you're doing requests, I'd love one on how Harry Reid got to be Majority Leader. He seems like such a milquetoast.

Posted by Wampa One | July 28, 2008 12:41 PM

there's nothing stopping the Democrats from doing something along the lines of the proposed "nuclear option" and simply repealing the filibuster rule altogether

That's not true. It takes a 2/3 majority to change a rule of Senate procedure. The Republicans planned to do an end run around that requirement by voting that filibusters specifically on judicial appointments violated the Senate's constitutional requirement to advise and consent, because they denied nominees a straight vote. Complete bullshit, but it was their fig leaf. Democrats would have no fig leaf for abolishing the filibuster entirely.

Posted by Antid Oto | July 28, 2008 12:59 PM

Getting rid of the filibuster (or changing it to, say, 55 votes) would be my first priority. Put up a very popular bill (such as universal health care) that the Republicans filibuster. Then use this as a reason to "adjust" the filibuster rules to prevent obstructionism.

When the American people see all of the great legislation that gets passed and signed in a prompt manner, they won't give a damn about the whining from the Republicans. You just have to make sure every Democrat is on board, at least publicly, so there isn't some sniping from conservative Dems.

Posted by Existenz | July 28, 2008 1:05 PM

Yeah, I think Coburn's in the right here. What's so progressive about dispensing tons of money for random crap and running up the deficit so that big legislation like UHC can't get enacted?

Posted by jamie | July 28, 2008 1:28 PM

Isn't the filibuster rule part of the Senate rules established and voted on at the start of each session? Theoretically it might be possible to eliminate it then, though it would be another nuclear option.

Posted by KCinDC | July 28, 2008 1:56 PM

Yeah, jamie, the $10m allotted annually to the Emmitt Till Unsolved Civil Rights Crimes Act (passed House 422-3, 8 Present/NV) is a deal-breaker.

Coburn is an asshole who thinks that government doesn't work and intends to prove it by his actions.

Posted by pseudonymous in nc | July 28, 2008 2:19 PM

I know I'm showing my age here, but back in the days when I used to work in an office, we'd have two supply cabinets. One was for regular supplies like pencils and staples, and the other was for the forms: letterhead, requisitions, vacation requests, etc.

Coburn is the guy who found out that there was a lock and key on the form supply cabinet, and figured out that if he keeps that key, everybody who needs anything has to go through him. Oh, sure, he makes noises about needing to keep the letterhead secure, but what he really believes is that *he* is the only one with the proper judgement to do any business at all.

Everybody who wants to do anything either has to get his approval first, or go over his head to the boss. And honestly, who has the time to do that for a new "While You Were Out" pad?

Posted by John | July 28, 2008 3:35 PM

KCinDC: Yes, although I think the organizing resolution is filibusterable, which means it would take 60 votes to eliminate the filibuster, and if the Democrats had 60 votes, the whole point would be moot. In practice this usually means that Senate rules are not changed from Congress to Congress, while House rules are.

Posted by Antid Oto | July 28, 2008 3:43 PM

yeah, the senate's culture of mutual civility is totally on display via john mccain's campaign.

abolish the freaking filibuster already.

dem's couldn't use it effectively when they were in the minority, and can't control it as the majority party. what's the point of having it?

moreover, as the filibuster is one of the senate's (many) procedural obstacles to passing laws---blocking being the fdn of the cult of bipartisanship---abolishing this noxious rule ought to kick one of the legs out from under a longtime moderate GOP talking pt.

and where's mcsame (or collins or snowe) w/o the cover of moderation in the service of bipartisanship?

Posted by mencken | July 28, 2008 3:46 PM

I always find this subject interesting because it highlights one of the few major in-principle between Matt and me (a fairly hard-core libertarian). I feel like a lot of our differences come from different estimations of results (e.g. I think universal health care will lead to worse health outcomes at greater cost, and Matt thinks the reverse).

But in this case, I think it's a genuinely good thing that it's hard for the Senate to get stuff done. It should be hard to get stuff done; that's the whole point of the system, because making major changes at the drop of hat is a bad idea. And yes, I think that on measures I support as well; I support heroin legal over-the-counter, government spending at maybe a third of the present level, a reasonably high carbon tax and the near-abolition of anti-density zoning; but I'd have to oppose a bill that made all of those things happen over the next year.

Posted by Jadagul | July 29, 2008 12:06 AM

That's not true. It takes a 2/3 majority to change a rule of Senate procedure.

Take it to court. There is nothing in Article 1 Section 5 that says that. Maybe some creative lawyer could come up with why that rule means anything outside of Senate comity but I can't.

It's an outrage on a bunch of inside baseball rules of conduct but from a legal point of view it's nothing.

Posted by Ed Marshall | July 29, 2008 12:21 AM

But we won't repeal the filibuster, since given that Obama would be the most centrist Democratic President since Jimmy Carter

An n of 2--impressive claim! And it's still wrong! (I'll tell you what: if Obama's health care proposals are less progressive than Clinton's, I owe you a coke.)

Posted by Scott Lemieux | July 29, 2008 2:07 AM