{"id":3287,"date":"2010-11-05T03:15:12","date_gmt":"2010-11-05T10:15:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/?p=3287"},"modified":"2010-11-05T03:15:12","modified_gmt":"2010-11-05T10:15:12","slug":"editorial-after-the-election-filibuster-reform","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/2010\/11\/05\/editorial-after-the-election-filibuster-reform\/","title":{"rendered":"Editorial: After the Election, Filibuster Reform?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"filibuzzards\"There is a caucus of Democratic Senators.  It has no name.  Nobody admits membership.  But it is there.  We see this, because we have seen its stamp on most of the legislation that the Senate has not passed in the last two years.  It should be called the Cowardly Caucus.  Right now the Cowardly Caucus is quivering with fear over filibuster reform.  They know an overwhelming majority of the American people support it.  They know that President Obama has called for it.  They are whining, \u201cWhat if moderate Democrats (DINOs) side with Republicans in an up or down vote?\u201d  Their fears are probably correct, but I say that Democrats should proceed with filibuster reform by changing the Senate Rules on day one.  Here\u2019s why.<\/font><\/p>\n

The Senate needs to stop being the place where legislation goes to die.  If that means the other side gets some of theirs through, so be it.  If it hurts Americans, that will give voters an incentive not to return Republicans and DINOs to office, and to support Senators that they see fighting for them.<\/font><\/p>\n

Democrats still hold a majority in the Senate.  They have the stick of stripping plumb committee assignments from recalcitrant Democrats, who refuse to support the people, if they would but have the courage to wield it.<\/font><\/p>\n

Democrats still hold the White House.  Obama can veto anything egregious that reaches his desk.<\/font><\/p>\n

If we don\u2019t fix this now, Republicans will do so in 2012, because we will have handed them all three branches of government, unless voters see Democrats fighting for them.  Allowing Republican Filibuzzards to block everything, crippling the nation, through continued abuse of the filibuster, is the easiest way to keep voters thinking that all Democrats belong to the Cowardly Caucus.<\/font><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

There is a caucus of Democratic Senators.  It has no name.  Nobody admits membership.  But it is there.  We see this, because we have seen its stamp on most of the legislation that the Senate has not passed in the last two years.  It should be called the Cowardly Caucus.  Right now the Cowardly Caucus […]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3287","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-editorial","category-politics","category-19-id","category-5-id","post-seq-1","post-parity-odd","meta-position-corners","fix"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3287","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3287"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3287\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3287"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3287"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3287"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}