DATE: 10 August 2010
TO: My Political E-Mail List
SUBJECT: Dems Will be Dems ... so End the Filibuster!
Below is my comment to a current HuffPost article by respected progressive activist Robert Borosage responding to published comments by White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs, criticizing the dissatisfaction by the “professional left” with the president’s many accomplishments:
Or as Will Rogers (“The Poet Lariat”) said, so many years ago: “Democrats never agree on anything; that’s why they’re Democrats. If they agreed with each other, they would be Republicans!”
Seriously, that is perhaps the most powerful argument for the Democrats, if their caucus still holds at least 50 seats in the new Senate next January, to change their rule, constitutionally, by simple majority (with V.P. Biden as president of the Senate, available to cast a tie-breaking vote if needed) requiring 60 votes for cloture on filibusters. As we’ve seen time and again these last couple years, in each of the “disappointments” for more progressive Democrats — especially in creating jobs, rightly the Number One concern of most Americans — Democrats will rarely if ever march in lockstep, like those in the GOP.
It shouldn’t take a supermajority of the Senate — already weighted in favor of smaller, generally more rural and conservative states — to pass legislation that most Americans want and need.
We can worry about what happens when we’re in the minority — as if the Party of No would ever show us any “mercy” — but as long as we’ve got the power, use the power: Use it or lose it, that’s what the electorate is saying.
Communication is a two-way street. It’s one thing to be great at delivering messages; it’s another to listen up to what your audience, the public, is demanding.
Doug
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