A Filibuster-Proof Majority?
How long has it been? You have to go all the way back to 1937 to find the last American President who enjoyed what was, in practice, a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate, according to Senate Associate Historian Donald Ritchie. That was when Franklin D. Roosevelt, having just won what was then the biggest re-election victory in history, permanently alienated Southern Democrats by trying to "pack" the Supreme Court with the addition of two more justices.
From then until the late 1980s, the two parties in the Senate were too fractious internally to really function as a filibuster-proof majority. (For much of that time, it took a two-thirds vote to overcome a filibuster; in 1975, the Senate changed its rule so that it could cut off debate if 60 Senators voted to do so.) In Jimmy Carter's first term, for instance, there were more than 60 Democrats in the Senate. However, conservatives such as James Allen of Alabama often voted more to the right than their Republican colleagues, while there were liberal Republicans such as New York's Jacob Javits who rarely sided with their own party.
So in practice, it was almost like there were four parties in the Senate, where lawmakers aligned as much by ideology as by partisan identification. Not until Ronald Reagan's day did the two parties start voting again in a cohesive bloc--and begin to give the President more partisan leverage, says Ritchie.
With Arlen Specter's switch (and assuming, as Joe notes below, that Al Franken ever gets sworn in), Barack Obama has the Magic 60 Votes -- and an opportunity that his predecessors would greatly have envied. But we are, after all, still talking about the Senate; it will never vote in lockstep. The dynamic now shifts. The two women Senators from Maine may not be quite so much the center of attention as they were during the stimulus bill debate. Where Obama and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid will have to keep their focus is on their own right flank. I suspect Ben Nelson will be getting a lot more TLC.
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1
Karen,
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Filibuster-proof majority?
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I'll believe it when that herd of cats called the Democratic party all vote as a unified bloc. -
2
Nelson, Nelson, Landrieu, Lieberman, Pryor. The Democrats are far from a filibuster-proof majority.
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3
Paul-NNTO,
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Great minds think alike, I guess. -
4
The post-impact era has begun.
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Taxa that survived the initial impact are now beginning to die off.
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The Chixchulub asteroid may not have killed off the dinosaurs, but the same can't be said for the election and the Republicans! -
5
afguy and P-NNTO: that was sort of my point. they won't march in lockstep. but democrats--and republicans--have voted far more in unison since the 1980s than they did in the decades that preceded that. which means obama has a far bigger advantage over the senate than any president since FDR.
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6
afguy-you win! By a minute.
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7
First,this gives the Dems a lever to get Franken seated notes KagroX.
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Second, KT's point reemphasizes that this is a direct result of the Civil Rights act. Segregationist democrats switched parties. Moderate NE Republicans were gradually eliminated as the party as a whole moved in the direction of the segregationist southerners. The basic reason for the death spiral is the continued concentration of the homophobic, racist, reality-despising base.
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The party's only hope for a future rests with the traditional media's need for a she said on the other side of the he said. But even that's a feeble reed, as the Republican leadership talks crazier and crazier. There has to be some point when Gingrich is too embarrassing to put on. -
8
@KT,
If you're going to go to the effort of providing us historical perspective perhaps you can add how long it's been since actual filibusters were required to occur. What year did the 'virtual filibuster' rules we now operate under come into being?
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I'm not being snarky, I really don't know and suspect that you do (or could find out easily.) -
9
I agree with all of you that it won't make a filibuster proof majority, but this is one hell of a surprise!
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10
I'm not disagreeing with you KT. But I wonder if the reason may end up being the opposite of too partisan.
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Reid is far too um, compliant, with the republicans and less likely to force things through with the power he, and the Democrats, have.
Bad form and all. -
11
Kt - I asked the other day but maybe you missed it- was your gig on CBC's Sunday news program a regular stint? Enjoyed your being able (and Joan, too) having enough time to really answer questions. More than you actually get sometimes on Washington Week.
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12
Karen,
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The earlier vresions of both parties seem to vote their honest consciences more than this group does. Today is more about party unity.
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I guess that's why some of the past leaders' names stay with me so much more than those today. I considered them honest and honorable, no matter their party registration. -
13
And they seemed to listen to and respect each other at the end of the day.
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14
I think jayack is absolutely right. The process of the old guard anti-Black segment migrating to the right has continued, first evacuating the Democratic party, moving it leftward and pulling the GOP rightward, then, as they held sway there for the past 30+ years, finally are being isolated on the far right as the general populace gradually abandons the ideals they held.
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Sorry, jayack, if I've just rehashed some of what you said, but you have hit it on the nail head. -
15
This sort of reminds me of Jacoby Ellsbury's stealing home. Since J.D. Drew got a hit Jacoby would have (presumably) come home and scored anyway. But his steal demoralized the Yankees and ended up serving as a metaphor for the series. The significance of Spectre's switch might end up being more important symbolically than in any substantive way.
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Nate Silver has a good take, as usual. He had given several scenarios for why PA was going to have a Democratic senator next time anyway.
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The Republicans are already taking Spectre down (As Mrs. Greenspan just said (tongue firmly in cheek): "I sense a theme emerging." Pat Toomey is on MSNBC saying Spectre is going to hand over the "government" to the Democrats. -
16
Pat Toomey is on MSNBC saying Spectre is going to hand over the "government" to the Democrats.
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Funny that they had no such qualms when Shelby and others switched parties (from "D" to "R") in the past. -
17
PD: I have written on this subject of actual filibusters vs fake ones in this space on several occasions.
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http://swampland.blogs.time.com/2007/12/13/the_filibuster_vs_the_pseudofi_1/
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http://swampland.blogs.time.com/2007/07/17/oh_for_heavens_sake/
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I think you have to go at least as far back as the 80s to get a real filibuster. The rules change in the 1970s probably made it a lot easier to do the fake ones. -
18
Spectre at the Swine flu hearing: "I'm sorry I can't stay longer, but this is a complicated day for me." Laughter "That's not a laugh line....but you can laugh. not for me to say." Man he's lugubrious.
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19
Ben Nelson is about to start getting a foot in his arse. Its easy to hide from not voting for cloture when you still need Republican votes, but now when he or other ConservaDems vote against cloture he will be on blast to all Dems in his homestate and nationwide. I don't know that Nelson or Bayh REALLY want that kind of spotlight.
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20
kathy--
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i hadn't done CBC for a while. they are very nice, however, and i would be happy to do it again. just not too often on a sunday morning. -
21
I think either way, the time is now to get rid of Lieberman. We can afford it.
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22
Rep Joe Sestak: "When I got into politics I ran for something, not against something. So I'm going to be interested to see what Arlen's running for."
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Sestak said he's going to have to wait to decide whether to run. If the opponent was Toomey, "that would be one thing." -
23
KT - thanks for the info. I'll keep an eye out (but at 5:30 Monday morning!)
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24
KT: I'd attribute the faux filibuster's prevalence much more to Harry "He-man" Reid than to the rules change that enables his habitual wimp-out.
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25
Keep in mind as well, sg,that this is a generational issue.If you were born in 1945, you grew up under segregation and societal homophobia. That has to influence the way many people, in adulthood, view these issues. OTOH, if you were born a generation later, in 1965, your grew up witnessing conflict, but with the rejection of segregation and disenfranchisement as a social norm. if you were born in 1985, you grew up watching the Real World on MTV, where black and gay were completely normal and accepted.
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This is what Meghan McCain was talking about at the Log Cabin republican speech, that the party's base is dying out, offering people under 45 nothing that is appealing to them. The timing of the exposure that all the small government, free market positions were actually lies, plus the demonstration that they suck on national security was particularly unfortunate for them. They'll be in the teens in self-identification in 18 months. And then they'll lose 4-6 more seats. And then maybe Collins and Snowe will so grossed out with their colleagues that they also bail.
- ktumulty New Blog Entry, "McCain and Palin: Just Like The Old Days" - http://tinyurl.com/yawemfd - 14 hours ago
- ktumulty New Blog Entry, "Re: And Here We Go..." - http://tinyurl.com/ylxqgns - 1 day ago
- ktumulty @TeresaKopec @mikemadden Major conflict in our house: Texas v. Wake Forest. Our past against our future. - 1 day ago
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