One of the reasons many of us get so disgusted with politicians is that sometimes they seem to be playing 'gotcha' games rather than doing their jobs. The Hill posted an article yesterday that seems to fall into that category. Under the current Senate rules, a bill can be blocked in the Senate if 41 Senators oppose it. Three Democrat congressmen are attempting to change that.
The Hill reports:
"Three Democratic proponents of changing the Senate's filibuster rules are vowing to press their case in the 112th Congress despite the GOP takeover of the House, with one senator pledging to force the issue on the very first day.
"Sens. Tom Harkin (Iowa), Mark Udall (Colo.) and Tom Udall (N.M.) all told The Hill this week they are not backing down from their effort. The Senate's rules -- which are based on tradition, not the Constitution-- have frustrated Democrats for the past several years as GOP leaders have required a 60-vote majority even for procedural motions."
This is interesting to me as it occurs just as the Republicans are gaining a few more seats in the Senate. Frankly, I think the 60-vote requirement is good. It keeps really bad legislation from being passed (except in the case of healthcare where the goalpost was moved)
The Hill also reports:
""In the past year, we didn't do a single appropriations bill. That's our main job, to fund the government, and typically at least we do defense and intelligence appropriations. We didn't even do those. And we didn't do a budget. People are concerned about the deficit right now, well, if you don't do a budget you can't address the deficit. So there is a good case to be made for rules reform.""
I totally disagree with that statement. The reason the budget did not get passed was that the Democrats running for office did not want to have to campaign on their votes. Had a good budget been proposed, it would have been supported on both sides of the aisle and the filibuster would not have been an issue. The problem in this Congress has not been the filibuster--it has been bad legislative proposals that were unpopular with the American people. Had the Democrats had better ideas, they would have been able to pass legislation easily.
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