Tag Archives: political parties

Democracy and the Senate

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Here are some interesting statistics and behaviors, courtesy of Brian Reardon and Eric Ueland in a recent Wall Street Journal op-ed.  They quote a Politico article:

[S]ince Democrats seized power in fall 2006, Republicans have turned to the filibuster far more frequently. The majority has averaged about 140 cloture motions in both the 110th and 111th Congress. And Democrats are on pace to repeat that feat again this Congress.

Then they look behind those numbers.

Consider this example.

On March 19, Robert Menendez (D, NJ) introduced legislation (S2204) to promote renewable energy with the cost offset by a tax hike on large oil producers.  The normal process would have been for this legislation to be referred to committee for action.

Majority Leader Harry Reid bypassed the committee process, however, and using something called Rule 14 had the bill placed directly on the Senate calendar.  Two days later, he started the process to call up the bill by moving to “proceed to it” and immediately filed a cloture petition to end debate on that motion.

The following Monday, the Senate then voted 92-4 to curtail debate on the motion to proceed to the bill.  The next day, as soon as the bill was before the Senate, Mr Reid offered five consecutive amendments and one motion in order to effectively block the consideration of any competing amendments or motions.

He then filed a cloture motion to close out debate on the bill.  Two days later, the Senate rejected cloture on a party-line vote and moved on to other business, leaving the Menendez bill adrift.

They continued:

The very first bill considered by the Senate after the election of President Obama and a filibuster-proof Democratic majority was adopted under exactly the same truncated process used for S2204—Rule 14, cloture, block out any competing amendments, cloture.  Since that time, the Senate has voted on cloture repeatedly, yet has very little to show for it:  by some measures, 2011 was the least productive session in modern congressional history.

And 2012 is shaping up the same way.  Meanwhile, there are 27, or so, jobs-related bills passed by the House that Reid won’t even let his cloture system bring to the floor to be voted down by his fellow Democrats.

Hmm….

Two Kinds of Politics

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We have two kinds of politics that seem to be coming to a head in this presidential campaign season: the politics of class warfare and envy and the politics of respect for individuals and for the collective wisdom of American citizens.

On the one side, we have, as one pundit puts it

…to a very real degree, 2008’s candidate of hope stands poised to become 2012’s candidate of fear.

And of jealousy.

This campaign is aimed at those John Agresto described, in a Wall Street Journal op-ed about a related matter, who

…wish to have what others have worked for, those who think there should be “preferential options” for their kind and those they favor, those who believe that they are entitled to have their desires satisfied, [who] only see other people as means to their ends and not as ends in themselves.

They can only see that others have what they do not, that others possess what they want, and they command the redistribution of these things to themselves.

This is a campaign of class warfare, of redistribution for no other reason than that some have and others want it, and of increasing the dependency of Americans on government; and votes are to be had here.

On the other side, we have a campaign of real hope and change, a campaign of a return to a government that fosters individual responsibility and individual opportunity for themselves and their families.  Their campaign centers on a return to a small government that does not presume to do for Americans what we can do for ourselves: these campaigners, these candidates, trust Americans, individually and collectively, to make the right choices for themselves far more often than government can for them.

This is a campaign in favor of lower taxes all around, less government spending all around, less government regulatory interference in the affairs of private citizens and our businesses—all to leave more money in the hands of those who’ve earned it.  And thereby make everyone better off.

As one campaigner has put it,

Dependency is death to initiative, to risk-taking and opportunity.  It’s time to stop the spread of government dependency and fight it like the poison it is.

A Choice of Words

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In a discussion of the wisdom of holding to Charlotte, NC, as the site of Democratic Party’s September national convention, Democratic National Committee spokesman Brad Woodhouse said,

We can’t go back to a map where we’re not growing the electorate, but where we’re shrinking it.   So we have to be in places like North Carolina.

He made his remark in an environment of then-candidate Obama having carried the state by 14,000 votes out of 4.2 million cast in 2008, a Republican legislature having been elected in 2010, the Democratic Party’s incumbent governor deciding not to stand for reelection in 2012, the state’s unemployment being the 5th worst in the country, the state’s voters having passed an amendment banning same-sex marriage just before Obama announced his support for gay marriage, and so on.

Woodhouse’s sentiment is certainly sound.  The Democratic Party can’t, politically, be seen to be in retreat in the face of these setbacks.  But notice the phrasing he chose.  “we’re not growing the electorate,” “we’re shrinking it.”

The electorate, it seems, consists of Democrats and Progressive agenda supporters.  The electorate—all Americans eligible to vote—doesn’t include Republicans, Conservatives, or anyone opposed, or merely indifferent, to the Progressive agenda.

Hmm….

Right to Vote and DoJ

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The Federal Department of Justice has written a letter to letter to Florida’s Secretary of State, Ken Detzner, ordering him to stop trying to purge the Florida voter rolls of ineligible “voters.”  Interestingly, the order is predicated on technical, procedural grounds: five counties in Florida still are subject to the National Voting Rights Act of 1964, and Detzner didn’t say, “Mother, may I?” to DoJ before attempting the purge.

Never mind that an early inspection of the state’s rolls turned up as many as 182,000 folks registered to vote who may not be US citizens.  Never mind that, as the spokesman for the Florida Department of State, Chris Cate, said,

Bottom line is we are firmly committed to doing the right thing and preventing ineligible voters from being able to cast a ballot[.]

Never mind that the state has had in place for months a request to the Department of Homeland Security to match the state’s driver’s license records with the DHS’ databases to facilitate the assessment of citizenship and thereby of voting eligibility.  The DHS has been unresponsive.

This move comes on the heels of Attorney General Eric Holder’s racist speech which he gave to the Council of Black Churches last Wednesday concerning voter eligibility.  The Wall Street Journal had some choice words concerning those racist words from our AG; I won’t go into that here.

But such attacks, together with Advancement Project Co-director, Penda Hair’s ironic remark, which included this

We commend the attorney general of the United States Eric Holder for ensuring that the right to vote, the fundamental pillar of our democracy is protected for all American citizens

make the larger point here.  In the name of protecting the sanctity of an American voter’s ballot, Progressives are actively attacking it.  They pretend not to see that if ineligibles aren’t prevented from voting, the votes of honest Americans are diluted or outright cancelled by ineligible, false, votes.

Al Franken (D, MN), for instance, was elected to the US Senate in 2008 by 312 votes out of 2.9 million votes cast.  In 2004, President George Bush carried Florida by 537 votes out of nearly 6 million cast.  Identifying ineligible voters and getting them off the rolls matters.

I have to ask: what’s the Progressives’ real objection to an honest voter roll?

Presidential Ego

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To be the leader of a large business, and especially of a great nation, it’s necessary to possess an outsized ego.

Here’s an example of an outsized ego, courtesy of Haaretz:

…Obama…met about 20 Conservative Jewish community leaders [prior to the White House Medal of Freedom award ceremony that afternoon]….

There were some questions directed at the presidents concerning his thoughts on the role of religious leaders in a more civil political dialogue, which then lead to the inevitable question—how does he feels about Israel?  Obama joked that [White House Chief of Staff Jack] Lew always warns him it will get to “the kishkes question.”

Obama remind[ed] his guests that he had so many Jewish friends in Chicago at the beginning of his political career that he was accused of  being a puppet of the Israel lobby.

Obama…stressed he probably knows about Judaism more than any other president, because he read about it—and wondered how come no one asks Speaker of the House of Representatives John Boehner or Senate minority leader Mitch McConnel about their support to Israel.

William Kristol, writing in The Weekly Standard after the meeting, had some comments.

1. The reason no one asks John Boehner or Mitch McConnell about their support for Israel is … because they really do support Israel.  The reason people ask Barack Obama about his support for Israel is because his support for Israel has been equivocal.  [Blogger’s note: I think Kristol is being generous here.  I would have said Obama’s support has been indifferent.]

2. It’s truly pathetic that Obama has to reach for the tired (to say the least) trope that some of his best friends were Jewish.  Actually, one wishes more of his best friends were pro-Israel Christians.  They might have had more luck convincing him, a fellow Christian, that he should be pro-Israel.  [Blogger’s note: Well, he did have Bill Ayers, Bernadette Dohrn, and Jeremiah Wright.  But then, they were just folks in the neighborhood and a guy in a church.]

3. And the claim that Obama knows more about Judaism than any president?  His vanity boggles the mind.  One could begin by citing Adams and Madison, who knew Hebrew, or Harry Truman, who knew Jewish history … but it’s silly to dignify this claim with a rebuttal.  In thinking about the presidents since Truman, though, I’d guess the president who knew the most about Judaism was Jimmy Carter, who taught Sunday school and had a deep interest in religion.  [Blogger’s note: But, but—Obama read a book!]

To be successful as that leader, though, it’s also necessary to have an accurate picture of one’s self and of one’s place—both vertically, as one of many in a long history of predecessors creating and building that entity; and horizontally, as a part of the entity and just one of its many members.