A Few Milestones

From The Seminal today, a few points to ponder. Diane and I have been invited to post at The Seminal and I have been privileged to have a few posts up there.

We have so negative a party of wingers that they've gotten more filibusters than the Music Man had trombones!

This Monday marked the 77th filibuster by Senate Republicans against legislation in the 110th Congress, obliterating the record for an entire two-year session of Congress. For those who wish for clarification, a filibuster in the Senate is when one Senator or a group of Senators hold the floor during debate and don't let a vote occur, keeping debate going indefinitely. To stop a filibuster, 60 votes are needed in what is called a cloture vote — after which 30 hours of debate are still allowed before a final vote is taken. With only 51 members of the Democratic caucus — and really only 50 members when foreign policy is invoked — getting any truly substantive bills through the Senate has become difficult.

In the past two weeks Republican filibusters have included:

* The Climate Change Bill — While the Republican leadership claimed they were objecting to limiting the debate, their claim is dubious since they supposedly wanted the bill to be debated for weeks, knowing that the Democratic leadership needed floor time for other business as well.
* The Consumer First Energy Act – would have repealed tax benefits given to the oil industry in 2004 and 2005 and redirected funds to renewable energy. Obviously upsetting Big Oil is not what Republicans want to do.
* Reversing Medicare Cuts — Payments to doctors for Medicare reimbursements is set t fall over 10% on July 1st. Republicans claim their objections are about how the bill will be paid for.
* Extending Unemployment Benefits by 13 Weeks – This would be a temporary extension of unemployment benefits with the understanding that getting a new job as the unemployment rate rises is a difficult task.

Overall the filibusters by the Senate Republicans have included preventing votes on: A Voting Representative for Washington, DC; Fair Pay legislation; Putting restrictions on the number of troops in Iraq and length of stay; and, Restoring habeus corpus rights. As Democratic Whip Senator Dick Durbin explained on the Senate floor yesterday:

Mr. President, this month the Senate Democrats have tried to confront many problems which face families across our Nation. From lowering taxes and addressing high gasoline taxes to ensuring quality health care for America's seniors and providing a helping hand to American workers who have been unemployed for more than 6 months, time and time again, the Senate Republicans have refused to give us an opportunity to address these issues. Republican obstruction has gone so far in the Senate that they will not even allow the Senate to debate legislation anymore, refusing to admit that these important concerns are worthy of Senate debate.

The filibuster is an important tool of the minority to prevent the tyranny of the majority and potential excess. but in the current Congress it seems as though the Republicans have decided that the filibuster is an important tactic to prevent anything substantive from getting done before the election.

This is a dismal showing, and the voters need to take note. It is past time that the country had real representation, and the right wing isn't providing it.

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Rep. Donna Edwards was sworn in to represent the 4th Congressional District of MD today, on Juneteenth. A wonderful moment.