government of, by and for the party

     I don't know how many of you watch the Sunday morning news/talk shows.  I once was a devoted watcher, sometimes even switching back and forth actively between Meet the Press and Face the Nation.  I even watched Fox News Sunday regularly.

     Over the past 6 months, my Sunday morning viewing has become less regular, in large measure because the politicians who appear on them have, for the most part, been doing it so long they have become expert in obfuscation and non-answers--and, again for the most part, hosts have let them get away with that.

     I was reminded last Sunday (Jan. 23) of why I used to watch these shows so faithfully.  On Meet the Press, host David Gregory's first guest was the new Republican majority leader in the house, Eric Cantor of Virginia.  Cantor is obviously in a position of real power now, but he has been touted as one of the Republican party's most important "young guns," a metaphor I find both completely expectable and sadly foreboding.   During the interview, Gregory pressed Cantor on several issues, most of them related to the Republican House members' "Pledge to America" that they will cut 100 billion dollars from the budget deficit in their first year.

       There are two portions of that interview that I found especially revealing of the empty rhetoric the GOP used to give Obama the "shellacking" he acknowledged in the last election.  What that election made clear is that you can get elected by tossing red meat to the masses.  What this interview reveals is that the party either has no clear idea of how it is going to fulfill those promises, or, as the cynic might observe, has no real intention of doing the kind of governing those promises would require.

       This first excerpt deals directly with the Pledge to America's promise of a 100 billion dollar cut:

        MR. GREGORY:  Everybody's talking about the State of the Union address, and the president is already previewing it.  This is a portion of the message that he will deliver on Tuesday. Watch.
(Videotape, yesterday)
PRES. BARACK OBAMA:  And so my principle focus, my number one focus, is going to be making sure that we are competitive, that we are growing, and that we are creating jobs not just now, but well into the future.  And that's what is going to be the main topic of the State of the Union.
(End videotape)
MR. GREGORY:  Being competitive, in his mind, also means some additional targeted spending in some areas to make America competitive, as well as cuts, as well as dealing with the deficit.  Here is the headline in The New York Times this morning, the way they describe it:  "Obama to Press Centrist Agenda in His Address.  A Retooled Presidency.  Balancing Deficit Cuts with New Spending to Create Jobs."
Is that a vision you can support?
REP. CANTOR:  David, you know, I'm, I'm really interested to see and hear what the president has to say.  I, I, I think he's got a real chance to lead here.  But the question is, did he listen and has he learned from the last election?  I think that the vision the president laid out over
the last two years is one very much focused on increasing government spending and trying to spawn action from a Washington-based perspective. And, and what the people have said is, "Enough.  We've got to shrink government, we've got to cut spending, and we need to really look to the private sector to grow jobs."
MR. GREGORY:  But he's saying, he's saying now there's got to be a combination of some spending to keep America competitive, and also cuts dealing with the deficit.  Is that a vision you can support?
REP. CANTOR:  What we've said is our Congress is going to be a cut and grow Congress; that we believe we've got to cut spending, we've got to cut the regulations that have stopped job growth.  When the president talks about competitiveness, sure, we want America to be  competitive.  But then when he talks about investing, I think even someone from the White  House this week had said that this is going to be a cut and invest White House.  We want to cut and grow. Because when we, we hear invest, when--from anyone in Washington, to me
that means more spending. And any...
MR. GREGORY:  Right.  Well, well, let's just be clear.  You don't believe that there's a balance that you have to get right in terms of investing in the economy to help it innovate, to become more competitive.  That's not a vision you agree with.
REP. CANTOR:  David, where--what I would say is the investment needs to occur in the private sector.
MR. GREGORY:  Not by government.
REP. CANTOR:  And, and for too long, and for too long now there's been uncertainty on the part of investors.
MR. GREGORY:  Right.  OK, well, let's, let's pick up where Republicans have left off.  Cut and grow, that's the mantra.  You campaigned on a pledge to America last September, and this is a part of what you said, it was very clear:  "We will roll back government spending to pre-stimulus, pre-bailout levels, saving us at least $100 billion in the first year alone and putting us on a path to balance the budget and pay down the debt." And then you came into office and you said, "Well, we're not going to hit that $100 billion figure." And here was the headline on Friday in The Washington Post:  "GOP bloc in the House calls for deeper cuts," and the sub-headline:  "Campaign pledge divides the party." You're arguing about just how much to spend.  I thought this was already worked out.
REP. CANTOR:  David, let, let's step back a minute and look at sort of the whole sort of continuum of the spending challenges.  We're, we're going to really have three bites at the apple here as far as approaching reducing spending and the size of Washington.  As far as the mess in the past, we're going to have this debt limit increase vote that will come, and that is dealing with the rampant spending that's been in place in this town for some time that's gone on overdrive in, in the last couple years.
MR. GREGORY:  And I'll get to the debt limit, but this is a targeted question.
REP. CANTOR:  But as far as the decisions that we make now, it is about the continuing resolution vote that will come up in the next month or so, right?
MR. GREGORY:  Right.  But $100 billion, or not $100 billion?
REP. CANTOR:  And, and we've committed to say $100 billion in reductions, which brings spending down to '08 levels.
Now, we also are in the position where we are starting to even deliberate on that five months into the fiscal year.  We are intent on making sure, on an annualized basis, that we are hitting the '08 levels or below.  And so every member will have the chance to come to the floor, to talk about whether they believe that '08 levels are enough to cut, because some members actually want to see us do more.  And I agree, we ought to look in every way possible to reduce spending as much as possible.
MR. GREGORY:  It seems like it's a straightforward question, though.  Are you going to live up to the $100 billion pledge?  I assume you've put a lot of thought into that...
REP. CANTOR:  David...
MR. GREGORY:  ...$100 billion figure.  Can you make it or not?
REP. CANTOR:  Absolutely.  On an annualized basis, we will cut spending $100 billion.
MR. GREGORY:  You do it this year as you pledged?
REP. CANTOR:  On an annualized basis...
MR. GREGORY:  Which means what exactly?
REP. CANTOR:  Well, again, David, look where we are.  We are where we are because the Democratic majority, last Congress, didn't pass a budget, right? They didn't do it.  So we're in a continuing resolution environment.  So now we've got an interim step to take to make sure that we reset the dial and bring spending back down to '08 levels.

     Ok, so we still don't know what "annualized basis" means, and Cantor declines to even address the notion that meeting or not meeting the "Pledge to America" was dividing the party.  The Michelle Backmann/Rand Paul Tea Party wing of the party clearly has the 100 billion dollar cut graven in stone.  The rest of the Republican party had no problem advocating that during the election cycle, but is now decidedly vague on how--or even if--it will happen.

      The second portion of the interview I found revealing came when Gregory brought up Social Security, which all through the election season Republicans pilloried as a perfect example of government spending that has created the huge budget deficit.

MR. GREGORY:  Let's talk about Social Security.  A couple weeks ago Majority Leader Reid in the Senate was on the program, and I asked him about whether Social Security is in crisis.  This is what he said.
(Videotape, January 9, 2011)
SEN. HARRY REID (D-NV):  When we start talking about the debt, the first thing people do is run to Social Security.  Social Security is a program that works, and it's going to be--it's fully funded for the next 40 years.  Stop picking on Social Security.  There are a lot of places that
we can go to...
MR. GREGORY:  Senator, are you really saying the arithmetic on Social Security works?
SEN. REID:  I'm saying the arithmetic in Social Security works.  I have no doubt it does.  For the next...
MR. GREGORY:  It's not in crisis.
SEN. REID:  No, it's not in crisis.  This is, this is, this is something that's perpetuated by people who don't like government.  Social Security is fine.
(End videotape)
MR. GREGORY:  If you disagree with Leader Reid, are you prepared to raise the retirement age, means test benefits or, in another way, seriously tackle the entitlement of Social Security?
REP. CANTOR:  David, what we have said is we've got a serious fiscal train wreck coming for this country if we don't deal with these entitlements.  And so entitlements are something that we need to begin to work on.  Now, for me, the first entitlement we need to deal with is the
healthcare bill, is the Obamacare bill, you know.
MR. GREGORY:  All right, we'll get to health care.  I asked you about Social Security, though.
REP. CANTOR:  Absolutely.  And, and so we have got to focus on what we can do together.  Now, as you--as, as that just indicated, the Senate is not willing to do anything under Harry Reid.
MR. GREGORY:  Well, what are you willing to do?  Means test benefits, raise the retirement age?
REP. CANTOR:  David, we've--we have a program that we have seen one of our members, Paul Ryan, the chairman of the Budget Committee, put together called the "Roadmap."
MR. GREGORY:  Mm-hmm.
REP. CANTOR:  And he and Kevin McCarthy and I wrote a book together, and in that book we reserved a chapter for a discussion about Social Security, about Medicare, and how we can begin to at least discuss to do that.
MR. GREGORY:  But what are you for?  Leader, I'm asking you what you what you're for.
REP. CANTOR:  Well, what, what I'm telling you we're for, is we're for an active discussion to see what we can come together and do.
MR. GREGORY:  How long do we need to discuss Social Security and what is happening?  It's been discussed for years.
REP. CANTOR:  Well...
MR. GREGORY:  How about--and the irony of Paul Ryan being introduced, the budget chairman, and he's doing the response to the State of the Union, he is the one who's proposed draconian cuts to Social Security and to Medicare...
REP. CANTOR:  Well, David...
MR. GREGORY:  ...and Republicans don't stand behind him.
REP. CANTOR:  David, that's not true.  I just told you that we put a chapter in our book about it because the direction in which the Roadmap goes is something we need, we need to embrace.  Now, let me tell you this.
MR. GREGORY:  Raising the retirement age, means testing benefits, those are specifics.  That...
REP. CANTOR:  The fundamental--the starting point in any plan has got to be we need to distinguish between those at or nearing retirement.  Anyone 55 and older in this country has got to know that their Social Security benefits will not be, will not be changed.  It is for all the younger people, those 54 and younger, we're going to have to have a serious discussion.  Now, with Harry Reid talking about the fact that he doesn't want to even discuss it...
MR. GREGORY:  Mm-hmm.
REP. CANTOR:  ...that's not leadership.

       There are a couple of observations worth making here.  First, Harry Reid is absolutely correct when he says there is no "crisis" in Social Security.  Every actuarial table around shows that, for at least the next 30 years, the Social Security Trust Fund will take in more than will be needed to meet its obligations.  That doesn't mean that what will happen 30 years from now when that is no longer the case doesn't need to be addressed.  In Congressman Ryan's "Roadmap," he calls for Social Security to be privatized--for the money now being sent to the SSTF through FICA to be invested in private 401(k) type plans.  This of course is the same route George W. pushed at the start of his second term, which would have resulted, had it been passed, in the loss of virtually all retirement money when the stock market imploded in 2007.  Social Security was created to provide a "safety net" for retirement, while any responsible stock broker will tell you  the private market is a crap shoot.

     The second thing worth noting here is that Senator Reid's response to Gregory's question is succinct and unequivocal.  "I'm saying the arithmetic in Social Security works. . . it's not in crisis.  This is something perpetuated by people who don't like government."

     Cantor's response on the other hand rambles on for several minutes.  First he tries to conflate Social Security with other entitlement programs, some of which, like Medicare, are a huge contributor to the budget deficit, and others of which, like what Cantor refers to as "Obamacare," will, according to the Congressional Budget Office, actually reduce the budget deficit.  When Gregory refuses to allow that, ("All right, we'll get to health care.  I asked you about Social Security, though"), Cantor blames the Democrats ("the Senate is not willing to anything under Harry Reid"), which of course is not what Reid said.  He simply observed that there is no immediate crisis.  When Gregory pressed him, ("Means testing, raise the retirement age") the best Cantor can come up with is that he and other young guns have written a book that has a chapter in it on Social Security.  Gregory then pressed harder, asking him "But what are you for?  Leader, I'm asking you what you're for?"  Cantor's non-answer was to note that there needs to be an "active discussion."

       Cantor didn't want to talk about what's in his book because he knows what's there is more talk about drastically slashing government involvement in Social Security and drastically increasing private sector involvement--and he knows that's a non-starter with all but the Republican red meat base.

       What Cantor did say in this interview was that spending and the budget deficit were the American people's number one concern, and that the big  question for Obama is "did he listen" to what the people said in the last election.  Those of course have been the twin pillars of the Republican mantra since November.  And as with so many aspects of the GOP mantra, Cantor wasn't really interested in inconvenient truths.  For example, a very recent CNN poll found that barely 20% of Americans consider the budget deficit a pressing enough problem to justify cuts in Social Security or Medicare.  Barely 25% favor balancing the budget it means cutting education.  Incredible as it must sound to Cantor and his colleagues, over 50% of the country supports continuing at least current levels of government support to the arts, science and anti-poverty programs. 

        Which leads me to what I find most disturbing about this interview: what it reveals about the party now controlling one chamber of the federal government and a majority of state legislatures is that it really isn't interested in doing the governing the country wants.  This is a party that is all about winning elections by tossing red meat to its rabid base and persuading, if I might call it as I see it, the dimmer lights amongst us to vote against their best interests by telling them that everything government does is bad and everything business does is good.  It is a party that campaigns on generalities like "cut 100 billion dollars," but once in office either forgets about that pledge, or, if forced to be specific, focuses almost entirely on cutting social programs or health care programs or education, while standing firm on the need to protect the rich and its corporate patrons.  To be sure, Democrats can be charged with some of the same obeisance to the wealthy and the powerful, but not generally to the exclusion of everyone else.

       Most disturbing of all, the lack of country-first vision that Cantor's interview manifests is not a 2010 anomaly.  It's representative of a GOP strategy that has been consistent at least since Reagan announced that government was the problem not the solution: to wit, a very conscious and at times very organized effort to dismantle everything about government that is designed to protect the have-nots from the haves.  The consistency, and the systemic nature of this strategy is very well documented in a book entitled "The Wrecking Crew" by Thomas Frank.  I highly recommend it. 















    

on civility and the need for truth

            Since Barack Obama was elected in 2008, Glenn Beck has used his television and radio shows to call the president, variously, a “socialist,” a “fascist,” a “muslim,” and a non-citizen.  Though Beck’s shrieks have been the loudest, they have been echoed by Rush Limbaugh, Michele Malkin, Sean Hannity, Bill O’Reilly and nearly every major player in the Tea Party movement.

            Beck et al have also advanced the notion that Obama has a secret agenda to either destroy the American economy or nationalize it (which depends on Beck’s mood du jour apparently), and yet another secret agenda to suborn American sovereignty to some “one-world” government, not to mention the President’s most insidious secret agenda, to take our guns away from us.  The Limbaugh/Hannity chorus has joined in all those accusations as well.

            Beck has even accused Obama of being a racist, insisting on both his own show and O’Reilly’s, that the President “hates” white people.  The Limbaugh/Hannity chorus has thus far eschewed going that far, but all of them pointedly avoided disavowing Beck.

            And then there is the Tea Party, whose admiration for the coiled snake “Don’t Tread on Me” has made it practically the movement’s logo.  These are the people who regularly show up at public meetings with pictures of Obama sporting a Hitler mustache, placards calling the President every buzzword bad name ever imagined, and, oh yeah, carrying assault rifles.

            There is no question that liberals and progressives despised George Bush.  There is no question they considered him unfit for the job, but even after it became patently clear that Iraq had no weapons of mass destruction and that the Bush administration had, if not explicitly lied, at least cherry-picked facts and grossly distorted truth, no liberal stood up in the halls of Congress and shouted “You lie” at the W.

            When the Bush administration rammed through a tax cut bill that gave a lopsided majority of the cut to the top 5% of incomes, liberals howled with righteous indignation, but they didn’t take to the airwaves of MSNBC to proclaim the apocalypse or the end of America as we know it.

            Perhaps most germane to today’s environment, they did not, in the run-up to the congressional elections of 2002, put gunsights on the districts of Republicans who had voted for the Bush tax cut.  Nor did they send them death threats or vandalize their offices. 

            That level of vitriol did not creep into the national discourse until January of 2009 when Obama was sworn in.

            I rehash all this because, since January 8, the Fox Republican machine along with Limbaugh and virtually every Republican officeholder has blathered indignantly about how Jared Loughner was clearly a deranged young man who had probably never heard of Sarah Palin or Glenn Beck or Rush Limbaugh.  And in that they are probably right.  Even more loudly, they have proclaimed  that there is absolutely no evidence to link anything said by any member of the conservative movement to Loughner’s action.  He was, they strongly contend, a “lone wolf”—as though that designation relieves the rest of the society from any responsibility for what happened.

            The right became nearly apoplectic in early 2009 when the Dept. of Homeland Security issued a report expressing grave concern about the proliferation of “right-wing extremist” groups and warning that violence up to and including insurrection was a distinct possibility from many of them.  Clearly the Obama administration, and DHS director Janet Napolitano had targeted  the conservative movement.  That’s what Beck, Limbaugh, Hannity and virtually every member of Fox noise proclaimed.  What they didn't mention was the report had been commissioned by the Bush administration, and all the material it contained had been gathered before Obama was even elected, much less inaugerated.

            What the right didn’t dispute was the existence of the armed militias, birther groups, neo-nazi groups and skinheads that the report identified.  They didn’t dispute them because the groups did exist and were becoming increasingly vocal about the need to “take back the country,” a phrase Beck and Palin had done much to popularize.

            One of the things that the report warned about was the inevitable emergence of “lone wolf” violence in an atmosphere so colored by martial rhetoric and images and so poisoned by the demonization of authority and government figures.

            I am more than willing to concede that Gabby Giffords and 20 other people were not shot on January 8 because of any specific thing Loughner heard from Beck or Palin or Limbaugh.  My guess is that most liberals and progressives would make that concession.

            What I would like to see in return is a willingness on the part of Beck, Palin, Limbaugh, Fox noise and the Tea Party in general to disagree as strongly as they want on matters of policy but stop making every disagreement both personal and somehow apocalyptic.  I would like to see them all agree to restrict what they say publically to things they have actual facts in hand to back up.  Stop arguing that Obama is not a citizen, for example, when every piece of physical evidence needed refutes that charge.  Stop claiming that Obama is planning to ban all guns (or imprison their owners in a FEMA concentration camp in Oregon, as Beck spent multiple programs claiming), when absolutely nothing he or anyone in his administration has said, done or even written about would indicate any such intention. Stop calling the Affordable Care Act socialized medicine when in fact it is the greatest boon to the private medical insurance industry any reasonable person could imagine.

           And cool it with all the militaristic rhetoric.  Stop talking about "Second Amendment remedies,"
the need to "reload" or the possibility that it's time for us all to become "armed and dangerous."

             There’s been lots of talk since January 8 about the need for more civility in the national discourse.  I wouldn’t argue that point, but in very large measure, the lack of civility we see everyday would disappear if all sides would agree to discuss, even debate, not partisan talking points or emotional buzzwords or dire conspiracies for which no shred of real evidence exists, but simply facts.  

            What I would most like to see is a proclamation from Roger Ailes at Fox that henceforth his pundits are not allowed to express an opinion on the air that has not been thoroughly fact-checked.  In one of my former lives, I worked in the newspaper business and then, as now (everywhere but Fox), nothing went in the paper that was not cleared by my editor, and his only concern was that I had proof that everything in the article was true. 

            Fox’s claim that editing the content of its opinion shows would amount to censorship is nonsense.  Just as there is no right to yell fire in a crowded theatre, there is no right to say things that  you know aren’t true  to millions of people, or even things you can’t prove ARE true. 

           

            The civility everyone professes to want in today’s discourse would be greatly served by a universal agreement to stick to, as Joe Friday used to say, “just the facts.”

            

politician--serve thyself

            As everyone knows, Arizona congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords was shot through the head Saturday and remains in critical condition.  Six other people were murdered, including a federal judge, a nine year old child and 79 year old woman.  Scores of others were wounded, many critically.

            You would anticipate such an atrocity touching off a strong political reaction, or more precisely, a strong reaction from politicians.  Calls for example for legislation to require television networks to fact-check everything their pundits put on the air; calls for increased support of outreach programs aimed at identifying and helping deranged people like Jared Lee Loughner; maybe even, God forbid, calls for stricter controls over who can possess firearms and what kind of firearms they can have.

            I don’t claim to have access to every statement made by every member of congress, but in the 72 hours since the shooting, I have scoured every media outlet I do have access to seeking calls for any of the above and have found . . . NONE.

            More disturbing, and perhaps illustrative of why politicians rank far above used car salesman on the smarminess scale for most of us, what I have found is calls coming from both sides of the aisle demanding more protection for . . . you guessed it . . . POLITICIANS!

            A few examples: James Clyburn, a Democrat from South Carolina (almost an oxymoron I know) suggested that congressmen should not be subjected to security inspections at airports like the rest of us because that puts them in an exposed and vulnerable position.  Republican Dan Burton of Indiana has called for a plexiglass wall to be installed across the front of the public gallery in the House chamber.  Democrat Robert Brady of Pennsylvania wants to make it a federal crime to use language or symbols that could in any way be seen as threatening to federal officials. 

            The closest thing I have seen to a call for tighter regulation of firearms comes from Republican Peter King of New York.  He wants a law that would ban possession of a gun within 1,000 feet of a member of Congress or other “high profile” government official.  Clearly, if such a law were in place, Congresswoman Giffords would not have been shot; nor, presumably, would John Roll, the federal judge who was killed.  Such a law would not however have protected Christina-Taylor Green, the 9 year old, nor any of the other “civilians” who were grocery shopping that day.

            What’s come from Congress so far is a lot of calls for things that would make its members safer, but not one thing that might offer greater protection for the rest of us.  Specifically, I have not seen one congress person suggest that maybe it’s time to rethink how ridiculously easy it is for anyone to become the proud possessor of a deadly weapon.

            The “third rail” reason no politician wants to take the obvious step is of course the National Rifle Association.  The NRA bases its mindless opposition to ANY form of weapon restriction on the Second Amendment to the Constitution.  Wayne LaPierre and his NRA cohorts recently welcomed Chief Justice John Roberts and his conservative Court cohorts into their bed.  They did that as a consequence of D.C. v Heller, in which a 5-4 decision ruled Washington’s prohibition of gun ownership a violation of the Second Amendment and hence unconstitutional.   This effectively made any future imposition of a federal ban on guns impossible, but in practical terms, its more important impact was to make it impossible for any local government to do so.

            As I noted in my last blog, arriving at that conclusion required throwing out 200 years of jurisprudence which had said clearly that the Second Amendment did not—and was never intended to—grant a right to private gun ownership.  The way in which Justice Scalia, writing for the majority, tiptoed around that inconvenience is fascinating.  Here’s the relevant section of his opinion:

                        The Second Amendment is naturally divided into two parts: its prefatory            

                        clause and its operative clause.  The former does not limit the latter

grammatically, but rather announces a purpose.  

Let’s stop there for a moment and examine Scalia’s contention.  The Second Amendment reads, “A well-regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.”  Grammatically, the use of commas to set off the phrase “being necessary . . .” make it an appositional phrase, the only purpose of which grammatically can be to limit the thing to which it is in apposition.  Grammatically, setting that phrase in apposition to “militia" does precisely what Scalia says it doesn't do--make the first clause the contingency upon which the second clause depends.  The first clause does not in other words “announce a purpose,” it establishes a condition upon which the need for a second clause is based. 

            Scalia is perhaps not so ill-schooled in grade school grammar that he doesn’t know that, so he tries to slide around it by concluding as follows:

The Amendment could be rephrased {emphasis mine}, “Because a well-regulated militia is necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.”

Presumably, when the Constitution doesn’t say what you want it to say, if you are a Supreme Court Justice, you can simply rewrite it.  But even rewording the Amendment doesn’t justify the conclusion Scalia and his four mates reached.  Whether the purpose of a right to own guns is to insure a well-regulated militia or the condition upon which that right rests is the need for a well-regulated militia, the fact is that—since 1903 at least—we have neither had a militia nor needed one.

If you simply read the Amendment the way it was written, those two facts abrogate a right to keep arms.  Even if you allow Scalia to rewrite the Amendment, however,  the lack of a militia negates the purpose served by allowing citizens to bear arms.

Unless one of the Court’s hardcore conservative activists dies or resigns in the near future, there is not going to be an outright ban on private gun ownership.  What the Tucson horror could (should?) prompt lawmakers to do is look at ways in which the lethality of gun ownership could be mitigated.

The most obvious, and necessary, such restriction would be to make possession of any semi-automatic or automatic weapon anywhere a felony that carries a hefty sentence.   No one needs a Glock 9 or an AK-47 for target practice or shooting quail, nor do they need it to go to the grocery.  Making possession of such a weapon in public a highly-sentenced felony would allow police to take criminals and deranged people carrying such weapons off the streets even if they hadn’t used them yet.  That would at least partially answer the NRA shibboleth about “if guns are made criminal, only criminals will have guns.”  They may have them, but they’d have to use them from inside a federal prison.

In line with that restriction, it should be made unlawful to manufacture or sell any ammunition that could be fired from a semi-automatic or automatic weapon, except to authorized military or law enforcement agencies.  Bullets are pretty easy to conceal, so how would that be enforced?  By coding every bullet so that if one is used, it can be traced directly to the manufacturer.  Ammunition manufacturers, hit with civil or even criminal charges every time one of their bullets is fired from an illicit weapon would soon decide it was in their best interest to be very solicitous about to whom they sell.

Supporting that restriction, it should also be made illegal to manufacture or sell the clips semi-automatic and automatic weapons require—again except for police or military use.  Absolutely, the extended clips, like the one Laughner used, which carry 30 rounds,  should be banned.

The NRA would argue of course that restrictions like those listed above would keep law-abiding citizens from having lethal weapons, but not criminals.  In the short term that’s true.  In the long term, however, restricting sale of such weapons and ammunition and clips to government agencies, would have the effect of taking them away from criminals as well.  It doesn’t do much good to have a Glock if you have no bullets to put in it.  The fact that it might take a decade or longer to rid the streets of weapons with no purpose other than killing human beings is really not an argument against doing it.  If anything, it makes doing it soon even more important.

A mandatory two week “waiting period” should be put in place, so that a weapon could not be physically possessed for at least two weeks after it is purchased.  That would allow time for thorough background checks, which, in Laughner’s case, would almost certainly have turned up evidence of mental/emotional problems.  Most importantly, that provision should be applied to “gun shows” as well as to licensed gun dealers.  The fact that anyone can walk into a gun show, approach a booth that may be selling stolen weapons, plop down some cash and walk out 30 minutes later with a Kalyshnikov is ridiculous.  The total lack of restriction on gun shows makes it easy for criminals to “launder” weapons, and equally easy for maniacs to purchase them.  Beyond the waiting period, gun shows should be required to run background checks on every vendor they allow to set up shop, and be required to insure that every weapon being offered for sale is a legal weapon.

It should be illegal to conceal any firearm.  Whether you are carrying it or driving with it, it should be in plain view.  Anyone walking or driving in a public area with a firearm should be required to have his/her license to own that firearm immediately available to law enforcement.  Failure to produce a license upon demand should be a felony offense.

None of these suggestions would in any way impinge on a hunter’s right to keep a shotgun or a hunting rifle, nor a homeowner’s right to keep a non-automatic weapon in his house for protection.  What they would do, over time,  is substantially reduce or nearly eliminate the tens of thousands of gun-related deaths that are suffered in this country every year.  Granted a good number of those deaths are the result of thugs shooting at thugs about which it’s not hard to say good riddance; but far too many of them are 9 year old children attending a town hall because they are fascinated by politics.  Wouldn't it be nice if our congressmen would show as much concern for them as they do for themselves?

glocks and the right-wing hysteria machine

            The sadness of this weekend’s shooting spree in Arizona is overwhelming: a moderate Democratic congresswoman doing an open air town hall with her constituents; a federal judge just stopping by to say hello; a nine year old girl in attendance because she loved politics; as many as 20 other people—all either dead or seriously injured by an apparently unhinged thug who had just legally purchased a Glock 9 millimeter semi-automatic weapon.

            I’ll come back to that purchase in a moment, but what strikes me as almost equally as sad is how quickly Republicans and Tea Party leaders leapt to whatever podium they could find to insist the vitriolic, often violent rhetoric they and their compatriots have engaged in since Obama’s election had nothing to do with the incident.

            Indeed, if you watched the Sunday morning talk shows,  it seemed apparent that the conservatives appearing on them had been issued two talking points.  First, the shooting of Congresswoman Giffords was the deranged act of an unstable young man and should in no way be associated with the myriad calls to violence the spokespeople knew their friends on the right had engaged in.  Second, and this almost seemed more important to some of them, the shooting should not be used as an excuse to launch another attack on gun rights.

             Let’s assume for the moment that Jared Loughner is a nut case.  If so, he can take his place along side Richard Paplowski, Dannie Baker, Michael McLendon, James Cartwright Jim David Adkisson and perhaps most famously, Scott Roeder—all of whom raised their ugly heads since 2008, and all of whom were responsible for senseless killings.  Paplowkski shot 2 Philadelphia policemen to death and seriously wounded several others.  Baker killed 2 Chilean exchange students and wounded 3 others.  McLendon simply opened fire with an automatic weapon in the middle of a small Alabama town and killed 10 people.  Cartwright killed two Sherriff’s deputies. Adkisson interrupted a performance of Annie at a Universal Unitarian church and killed 2 people.And Roeder of course murdered Dr. George Tiller.

            Paplowski was convinced that the government was going to take away his guns, Baker was certain that Obama was trying to do away with America and put this country under some vaguely imagined New World Order.  McLendon appears to simply have been angry that we had a black president, Cartwright was ex-military and also sure that his guns were going to be confiscated.  Adkisson hated all liberals.  Roeder killed Dr. Tiller because he performed abortions.

            The common thread among all these maniacs was a close tie to right wing ideology, or perhaps more accurately, right wing hysteria-mongering.  Why were Paplowski and Cartwright worried about their guns? Maybe Glenn Beck and Bill O’Reilly constantly trumpeting the notion that the Obama administration had a secret agenda to do just that had something to do with it.  Beck, you may recall, did a number of rants on his program about secret FEMA camps the administration was setting up to essentially imprison gun owners.  Why did Roeder target and murder Dr. Tiller?  Maybe O’Reilly endlessly referring to him as “Tiller the baby killer” had something to do with it.  Why did Adkisson shoot up a church?  Perhaps because UU is a well-known liberal gathering spot (the church in Knoxville had a Gay’s Welcome sign), and Sean Hannity, Michael Savage, Bill O’Reilly and Bernard Goldberg had all written books explaining how liberals were akin to the anti-Christ.

            The point here is  that words do matter.  And while it could very well be true that each of the people mentioned above would have done what they did if Fox didn’t exist, it’s also true, as CBS’ Bob Schieffer said Sunday on his web site, “Those with sick and twisted minds hear us too.”

            In Washington state, federal officials recently put away a 64 year old man who threatened, in unbelievably vile language, to kill Senator Patty Murray because she voted for health care reform.  Was this the action of a rational man?  Clearly not.  What’s concerning is that obscenity’s aside, the language the man used in making his threats was taken almost word for word from rants about health care Beck had made on the air repeatedly.  Among the words taken from Beck—“the war is just beginning.”  It was also Beck who resurrected the incredibly vile rants of Cleon Skousen—the ‘50’s era John Birch supporter—who said a cabal existed that would put a one-world government in power.  See Dannie Baker above.

            Nor is Fox punditry the only problem.  Tea Party darling Sharron Angle's (in)famous suggestion that “second amendments remedies” may be coming, Sarah Palin putting crosshairs on Giffords’ congressional district, John Boehner saying of fellow congressman Steve Driehaus, “he may be a dead man,” Rep. Michelle Bachman calling on the people of Minnesota to become “armed and dangerous,” Texas GOP congressional candidate Stephen Broden remarking on television that violent overthrow of the government is “on the table,” or Alan West (at the time a Republican candidate) letting this morsel go, “You better be ready to fight for this country. . . You need to leave here understanding one, simple word.  That word is: bayonets . . . You leave here today—charge,” that kind of rhetoric has no place in political discourse, or any other kind of discourse.

            George Will, normally a conservative mind I fully respect, argues in his most recent Washington Post column that because there is no direct connection between right wing rhetoric and crazy actions by crazy people, we should impugn no connection whatsoever.  With all due respect to Mr. Will, that is intellectual sophistry of the worst kind.  What is evident, at least to me, is that when unhinged people hear their delusions, paranoid fears or twisted fantasies appearing to be validated by public figures, they become more likely to feel that acting on those delusions is in fact a public service.  If anyone remembers the Oklahoma City bombing, its perpetrator, Timothy McVeigh, was explicit about his sense that he had done the country a favor by attacking its government.  The possibility that any of these people may have done their heinous acts had they spent the preceding 10 years in a cave is irrelevant.  They didn’t spend a decade in a cave and they did hear Sarah Palin say, “Don’t retreat, instead—RELOAD!”

            To be fair, the kind of overheated rhetoric the right is engaging in now is not all that different than the overheated rhetoric that came from the left during the Vietnam era.  It was destructive then, and it still is.

            Now, about that Glock.  Loughner walked into a gun store in Tuscon on Nov. 30 and asked for a semi-automatic pistol.  He could prove he was 21 and nothing showed up on the “instant” background check, so he was sold a weapon that has a very high rate of repeat fire and carries a 30 bullet clip. He was able to do so because the law banning semi-automatic weapons expired in 2004, and neither the then Republican congress or the since Democratic congresses have had the nerve to stand up to the National Rifle Association and reinstate it.

            The rationale behind banning semi-automatic weapons, which occurred as a result of President Reagan being shot, was that the only reason for such weapons to exist is to kill as many people as possible in as short a time as possible.  Hunters don’t need to be able to fire 30 rounds a minute.  

            The NRA worked for years to repeal that ban, and finally got their way when it expired.  Their argument for repealing, or not renewing the law, was threefold: criminals can get semi-automatic weapons, so law abiding citizens need to have them to protect themselves; banning semi-automatic weapons is the first step on to the slippery slope leading to a ban of all guns; and of course, the second amendment.

            The first is a “catch me if you can” argument.  Criminals can get semi-automatic weapons because the NRA was successful in blocking a provision in the law that would have criminalized the manufacture of such weapons except for police or military use.  Granted that wouldn’t have gotten rid of the Glocks already in circulation, but by now most of those wouldn’t work any more.

            The second is the favorite argument of every demagogic movement.  Universal health care is the first step toward socialized medicine; the takeove of General Motors is the first step toward nationalized industry.  It’s an effective argument because you can’t prove it’s wrong.  If universal health care is defeated because of the slippery slope argument, you can’t prove that the slope wouldn’t have been slippery.  It’s essentially a “fear of the unknown” argument, but its no less specious for being effective.

            The second amendment concern is what gun rights advocates have been hiding behind for years.  Until the Roberts court inexplicably threw out 200 years of Supreme Court jurisprudence, they were only able to do so by intimidating state legislatures into not putting gun restrictions in place.  If you haven’t read the Bill of Rights recently, the entire second amendment reads as follows: A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.

            The framers, who were very clear and very specific in all their writing, constructed that sentence so the second clause, “the right of the people . . .” was clearly contingent upon the first clause, “A well regulated militia . . .”  The war for independence had been fought almost entirely with state militias, and every state in 1791 continued to maintain a militia.  There being no federal repository for weapons at the time, nor any federal army to amount to anything  it not only made sense that individuals—who might be called to service on very short notice—should not only be allowed to own a weapon, but should be encouraged to do so.

            The last state militia passed into history in 1903 when the Militia Act organized the various state militias into the National Guard of the United States.  Under the provisions of that law, each state maintains a National Guard unit that is subsidized by the federal government and constituted as a reserve component of the United States Army or the United States Air Force.  In each state, the National Guard unit is under the direct command of the state governor and can be called to active duty in response to emergencies, disasters, civil disorders, etc. Each state’s National Guard unit can also be called to active federal duty by the president.

            Since 1903, the federal government has taken on itself the responsibility of arming and otherwise equipping Guard units.  It has also placed responsibility for the “security of a free state” on the active duty United States Army, Navy, Air Force and Merchant Marine.  It would follow logically—and in fact does follow logically—that the fact a “well regulated militia” is no longer necessary means that it is also no longer necessary for private citizens to bear arms.           

            The right to own a Glock, in other words, is not one of those “unalienable rights” Jefferson wrote about.  Gun ownership, in a word, is not within the purview of the federal government, and hence—according to the Constitution—is something that can be dealt with by any state as it sees fit.  Until Robert, Scalito, Thomas and the boys took over.  They somehow reimagined the words of the second amendment so that they guarantee any citizen who wants one the federal right to own a gun—a right no state can override.

            Whether the Roberts’ court ruling is in itsefl unconstitutional is subject for another blog.  The point here is that two things about Arizona’s gun laws contributed to Saturday’s disaster.  Responsibility for one of them can be placed in the halls of Congress; responsibility for the other is directly on Arizona.  The Congressional responsibility lies in not outlawing private ownership of semi-automatic weapons; Arizona’s culpability lies in its allowing concealed weapons to be brought into public places (a feature of its law unfortunately shared by a number of other—mostly southern—states).  Had Jared Loughner approached the Safeway on Saturday with his Glock in plain view, someone would probably have noticed and sounded an alarm. 

Had he not been allowed to own a Glock—if he had only been able to purchase, say, a .38 revolver—Congresswoman Giffords might still have been shot, but Loughner would not have been able to rip off 30 rounds and most, maybe all, of the other people who were killed or wounded would have been just fine.  

Needless to say, if he hadn’t been able to purchase a weapon at all . . .  Ah, well, we can dream.

the house of Boehner and H.R. 2

            Some observations today about the new, John Boehner led House of Representatives.  As promised (and discussed briefly in my last blog), House Republicans made their first order of business an overhaul of the House’s procedural rules that didn’t just amend the “pay-go” rule that dated back to Clinton (except for the 4 years the Republicans controlled the House under Bush), it eviscerated it.

            Under the House’s new rules, any increase in discretionary spending cannot be paid for by a tax increase or new tax; rather, it must be offset by a corresponding decrease in some other discretionary program.  So, if, for example, the House wanted  to vote in a continuation of a program that enables low income families to receive a full rather than a partial Child Tax Credit, it could not pay for that by closing wasteful tax loopholes for multinational corporations that shelter profits on Caribbean islands.  Continuing that program would count as an increase in spending, and hence could not be paid for by effectively increasing corporate taxes.

            Here’s the pernicious part.  Under the new House rules, tax breaks for multinationals could be expanded without offsetting that reduction in revenue by cutting spending somewhere else.

            In other words, increased spending cannot be allowed to increase the budget deficit, but decreased revenue due to tax cuts can be allowed to do that.  The GOP rationale for why deficit financing is OK if it’s caused by tax cuts but not OK if it’s caused by spending increases? Well, they actually haven’t produced one yet unless you count more voodoo economics  about how making the rich richer grows the economy.

            As Reuters News Service noted, “To simultaneously pave the way for both deficit-financed tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans and termination of critical tax-credit measures that keep several million low-income working parents and their children out of poverty represents a set of priorities that can aptly be described as worthy of Ebenezer Scrooge.”  Merry Christmas America.

            Then there’s H.R. 2, the new House’s second biggest priority.  H.R. 2 is a bill that repeals ALL of the Affordable Care Act (the official name of the health reform legislation passed last year).  The Sunday morning talk shows were awash last week with House Republicans brandishing their party’s two new catch-phrases—“job killing” and “big government”—in reference to what they derisively refer to as Obamacare.

            Before taking a look at exactly what the GOP would get rid of, let’s understand one thing: the Affordable Care Act will actually make employer-provided insurance less expensive for all large businesses by lowering the ceiling on what insurance companies can charge in premiums.  Small businesses with 50 or more employees will be required to provide insurance for their workers, but only if their workers haven’t gotten insurance on their own.  Businesses with 25 or fewer employees will also have to provide insurance, but will receive federal credits of up to 35% for doing so.  Republicans have long been good at the Chicken Little thing—the sky is falling—but here they are going that one better and arguing that the sky may not be falling yet, but it surely will.  In point of fact, there is no empirical evidence to suggest that the employer insurance mandate of the Affordable Care Act will have any impact on jobs at all.

            One of the big strategic blunders the Democrats made with health reform was phasing so much of it in over time.  That gave the Republicans and their Fox News spokespersons lots of time to poison the public well as to what exactly was in the bill and create negative perceptions of it.   In addition to calling it a job-killer, they’ve pointed to the 900 billion dollar cost of the bill over the next 10 years.  What they’ve ignored—actually repudiated—is the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office letter they received early last week which told them the net effect of the bill on the budget would be reducing its deficit by approximately 235 billion dollars by 2021, and by something on the order of 1.2 trillion dollars in the decade following that.  And the CBO numbers DO factor in the increased expenditures the bill requires. 

            Now think about this for a second.  If the GOP were to succeed in repealing the Affordable Care Act, that would INCREASE the deficit by 235 billion over the next 10 years.  Their new rules say that anything that increases the deficit must be paid for by reduced expenditure somewhere else.  That would seem to create a conundrum for Boehner and the boys.  A reality check has already caused them to back off their Pledge to America promise to cut 100 billion from the budget, but repealing AC A would require them to cut 235 billion.  What’s a poor Republican to do?  Not to worry.  Page 26 of the new House Rules specifically exempts repeal of ACA from the “cut as you go” plan.  Do you wonder sometimes how these guys can stand to look in the mirror?

            Now let’s look at some of the things they would repeal. 

Young adults, including adopted children and step-children, can remain on their parents’ plan until the age of 26.  Previously, they came off automatically upon turning 19 or graduating from college. 

Children under the age of 19 can no longer be denied insurance because of a pre-existing condition.  By 2014, that rule will apply to all Americans.

People who have valid insurance plans when they get ill can no longer be denied compensation when they file a claim.  Prior to ACA insurance companies  regularly searched for any error or technical mistake in the original application and used any minor thing they found to deny compensation.

Patients now have an external appeal process for insurance company decisions.  Prior to ACA, if an insurance company denied coverage or compensation, the only appeal was to the company itself.

Preventive care services appropriate to age must now be covered without a co-pay or deductible.  These include tests for blood pressure, diabetes, cholesterol, cancer screenings such as mammograms or colonoscopies, osteoporosis, all routine vaccinations, and regular well baby and well child visits from birth to age 21.

"Wellness" checkups for senior citizens must now be covered.

The “doughnut hole” of Medicare Part D will be partially closed  immediately and fully closed by 2020.

Out-of-network emergency room services must now be covered.  Previously, if you needed emergency room care and the only hospital available was not in your plan’s network, the insurance company could require exponentially higher co-pays.

One very important aspect of ACA is that, as of January 1, insurance companies will be required to spend 80% of every premium dollar on actual health care.  The almost immediate effect of that will be either lower premiums or rebate checks for insurance holders.  This one is a major target of Republican congressmen because it strikes directly at their insurance company patrons’ bottom line.

Perhaps the most important thing that ACA does, and which the GOP would repeal, is essentially save Medicare. For the last 5 years at least, economists have been warning that the flood of baby boomers reaching Medicare age was going to cause Medicare’s insolvency in the very near future.  The ACA addresses that problem in four very important ways—none of which will impact the low or middle income retiree.  First, starting in 2012, the Medicare Payroll Tax (which all retirees pay now) will be expanded to include a 3.8% tax on investment income (not pension plans) for individuals taking in more than $200,000/year ($250,000 for families).  Second, beginning in 2018, insurance companies (not the insured) will pay a 40% excise tax on high end insurance plans worth more than $27,500 annually for families ($10,200) for individuals.  Third, and sorority girls everywhere will hate this one, a 10% excise tax will be levied on indoor tanning services.  Finally, the huge taxpayer subsidies currently being given to private insurance companies for so-called Medicare Advantage plans will be curtailed. 

ACA also requires each state to set up an insurance exchange—essentially a pool of insurance plans all meeting minimum coverage standards, from which those currently without insurance can pick their plan.  Those who currently have insurance would have the option of keeping the plan they have (they would not, as Republican disinformation would have it, be forced to give up the plan they have)—or, if they so desired, changing to a plan from the exchange.  Moreover, unlike the hundreds of unfunded mandates the Bush administration laid on state governments, ACA provides federal grant money for states to use in establishing the exchange.

There are a few other things in ACA, but these are its major bones.  They don’t address every problem in our health care system, but they address many significant ones and do a good job of solving or at least minimizing the adverse effects of those problems.

Oh, yeah—there is the mandate that everyone must have insurance by 2014 that has the Tea Party wingnuts and GOP propaganda machine frothing at their collective mouths.  Couple of points here.  First, the “mandate” is not literally a mandate.  It’s option A.  Option B is to pay a $695 per year fine.  Second, ACA provides substantial subsidies to assist low income individuals and families handle their premiums.  Third, the insurance exchanges from which the policies will come guarantee that premiums will be as low as possible—that’s the free market at work, which every wing nut should love.  Fourth, the insurance industry will pick up 32 million new customers—which, again, all free marketers should love.  Finally, how can anyone argue that the country will not be better off with 32 million people who are now either completely without medical care or dependent entirely on tax payer subsidy at emergency rooms suddenly having access to adequate medical care for which they—not the taxpayer—are paying?  Not to mention, of course, the lives of those 32 million will have significantly higher quality.

But is the mandate consitutional?  Notwithstanding one Bush appointed federal judge in Virginia, of course it is.  The Tea Party argument is that government is forcing people to participate in a program and pay for that participation.  Well, yes it is.  Just as it does with Social Security.  Just as it does with the income tax.  For that matter, just as it does with a driver's license.  Whether the Roberts Supreme Court will decide to once again throw decades of precedent out the window is a legitimate concern, but if it simply rules in a manner consistent with all other Supreme Court rulings, the insurance mandate is constitutional.

In a political climate dominated by a party whose primary concern is perpetuating its own power and enriching its already wealthy benefactors, plus a cable network and talk radio world whose primary missions appear to be delivering whatever disinformation guarantees Republican hegemony, we have entered into an era where facts are almost irrelevant.  That’s a sad commentary on our country, and perhaps a sadder commentary on those of us who have allowed it to happen.  If the right-leaning citizens of this country would occasionally at least look at what their leaders are telling them and fact-check those directives to see if what is being sold as “bad” is really bad for THEM, or if what is being sold as “good” is really good for THEM, they might be surprised by what they discover.

filibuster musings

            No rant today, just some musings on the Senate procedural rule commonly known as the filibuster.  The word filibuster derives from a Spanish word, filibustero, which translates loosely as “pirate” and was used by the Spanish in the 18^th century to describe American adventurers—most of them from Southern states—who worked to overthrow Spanish rule in Central and South American countries. In political parlance, it came to mean pirating discussion of legislation to delay its passage.

            Article One, Section Five of the U.S. Constitution states, “Each House may determine the rules of its proceedings.”  It then goes on to provide a relatively short list of specific instances where a supermajority (2/3 rather than one half) is required for passage.  Notably, changing either House’s procedural rules is not one of those instances.

            Indeed, the filibuster was not an option for the first U.S. Senate that gathered in 1788.  In that body’s procedural rules debate on any bill could be ended by one Senator’s decision to “move the previous question,” a device in Robert’s Rules of Order that, once moved, requires an up or down vote on the question being debated.

            In 1806, Senator Aaron Burr argued that, since the motion had been used only once in the preceding four years, the provision allowing it should be expunged from the Senate’s rules.  The Senate agreed and rewrote its rules, this time not providing any specific mechanism for ending debate.  It was, thus, in 1806 that the possibility of one Senator delaying vote on an issue by taking and refusing to yield the floor became possible.

            It remained a theoretical option until 1841 when Kentucky Senator Henry Clay tried to close debate on a bill to charter the Second Bank of the United States with a simple majority vote.  Senator William King rose to object, and when enough fellow Senators sided with King to convince Clay that they could indeed keep talking “for the winter,” Clay backed down.

            In 1892, the Supreme Court ruled in United States v. Balin that Senate rules could be changed by simple majority vote.  Because the Constitution clearly gives the Senate the right to write its own rules, the Supreme Court decision did not require Senate rules to be subject to a simple majority vote, it simply allowed them to. 

            It was not until 1917 that the Senate formally wrote into its rules what was required to end debate on a bill.  The so-called “Cloture” rule was adopted by a Democratic Senate at the urging of President Woodrow Wilson, who was enraged that a group of 12 Senators had managed to kill a bill that would have allowed Wilson to arm merchant vessels to protect them against German U-boats.  That rule called for a 2/3 majority of those voting to end debate.

            During the 1950’s and 1960’s, virtually every attempt at civil rights legislation was filibustered by Southern senators.  This led Senator Mike Mansfield, the Senate Majority Leader, to put in place what was called the “two-track” system, meaning that multiple bills could be on the Senate floor at the same time, with each being assigned specific days and/or times of day to be debated.   Mansfield’s motive was to prevent a filibuster from bringing Senate business to a halt, but by making it no longer necessary for filibusterers to hold the floor indefinintely, the practical effect of the two-track system was to make filibusters easier to mount.

            In 1975, then Senator Walter Mondale led a movement to revise the Senate rules again so that cloture could be accomplished by a 3/5 majority of  Senators sworn—generally meaning 60 out of 100.  To get that lower number however, Mondale and his group had to make two compromises: a) the vote had to achieve 3/5 of the members of the Senate, not of the Senators actually voting; b) they had to leave  in place the portion of Rule 22 which required a 2/3 majority to change Senate rules.

            You may remember in 2005, then Republican Majority Leader Bill Frist responded to Democratic threats to filibuster several of George Bush’ judicial nominations by advancing the idea that Vice-President Dick Cheney, in his capacity as President of the Senate, could rule that filibustering a judicial nomination was unconstitutional because the Constitution grants the power of judicial nomination specifically to the President, with the advice and consent of the Senate.  His contention was that, in this instance, the term “consent” meant consent of the majority, not consent under Senate rules.  That would have effectively blown away the power of the filibuster, hence Mississippi Senator Trent Lott’s description of it as the “nuclear option,” a thought that so frightened members of both parties that 7 from each side formed the “gang of 14” and negotiated a compromise.

            I’ve run through all this history because it seems clear to me that, historically, the filibuster was put in place and kept in place to insure that the minority would have an opportunity to voice its objections to a bill, perhaps sway public opinion, or at the least, create time during which negotiation and perhaps compromise could occur.  Indeed, that is how the filibuster has been used in every Senate except the one just ended. 

            In the 111^th Senate, the 100+ cloture votes to end filibusters set a new record.  As voluminous as that number of votes is, it actually doesn’t give a true picture because it doesn’t include the numerous bills the Democratic leadership never brought to the floor at all because of Republican threats to filibuster.  What we have witnessed over the past 5 years has been the use of filibusters not to delay legislation but to defeat it, a practice for which there is no historical precedent.

            When the 112^th Senate convenes later this month, Majority Leader Harry Reid will have in front of him a petition signed by every member of the Democratic caucus calling for reform of the filibuster rule.  The Republicans will argue (have already begun doing so, in fact), that existing Senate rules require a 2/3 majority to make any changes in those rules.

            This is a specious argument for two reasons.  First, as noted above, the Constitution gives the Senate the exclusive right to create its own procedural rules and does not include doing that among the list of things that require a super-majority.  Second, and maybe more important, it is a long-established principle of English and American common law that one legislature's procedural rules cannot bind its successors.  Hence, even though the Senate rules passed in 1975 require a super-majority to change the rules, a new Senate has Constitutional authority, and Supreme Court affirmation of that authority,  to change that rule via a simple majority.

            It will be interesting to see what Senator Reid does with his party’s petition.