Sound Familiar?

I’m not quite sure I understand why a party with an 18-vote majority in the United States Senate feels it is handcuffed when it comes to passing major legislation. I know, I know, the Republicans can filibuster. That’s what the 60 vote deal is about. Cutting off debate so a vote can be taken. But when is the last time anybody actually filibustered (is that even a word?)?

The United States Senate’s Reference page on the World Wide Web defines filibuster as an “informal term for any attempt to block or delay Senate action on a bill or other matter by debating it at length, by offering numerous procedural motions, or by any other delaying or obstructive actions.”

The Senate rules permit a senator, or a series of senators, to speak for as long as they wish and on any topic they choose. When was the last time they did that? When did Strom Thurmond die?

I’ve got a four year old issue of Rolling Stone magazine laying around with an article by Tim Dickinson about President Bush’s “Deficit Reduction Act of 2005” (remember, this was in the days when Republicans controlled the Congress and the White House). Here’s part of what Dickinson wrote:

The net result of the Deficit Reduction Act will be a $50 billion increase in the deficit. In the bizarro world of President Bush's doublespeak bills, the new spending measure takes its place alongside the Clear Skies Act, which sought to increase air pollution, and the Healthy Forests Initiative, which opened America's woodlands to more clear-cutting. "If this is deficit reduction," says Bob McIntyre, director of the nonpartisan advocacy group Citizens for Tax Justice, "then up is down, down is up and George Orwell is president."

It wasn't easy for Republicans to get the measure through Congress. The final bill was hammered out in a closed-door, GOP-only session. Then -- when the spending plan was finally released to Democrats and the media after midnight on Sunday, December 18th -- House Speaker Dennis Hastert invoked "martial law" in the chamber, forcing representatives to pull an all-nighter and vote on the 774-page act after only forty minutes of debate. "Here you have one of the most consequential pieces of domestic legislation in years, with profound effects on millions of low-income Americans, and members of Congress were required to vote on it without even having a chance to read it," says Robert Greenstein, executive director of the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.

In the Senate, the measure seemed headed for defeat when a handful of moderate Republicans refused to support the cuts, which GOP Sen. Susan Collins of Maine blasted as "draconian." Majority Leader Bill Frist was forced to give Sen. Norm Coleman of Minnesota a $30 million subsidy for his state's sugar-beet industry, essentially bribing him to back the bill. "They have no shame," Minority Leader Harry Reid tells Rolling Stone. "These cuts are simply un-American."

Sen. Kent Conrad, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Budget Committee, decried the dearth of public scrutiny for a bill "written behind closed doors, filed in the dead of night and voted on at the crack of dawn." But Rep. Dave Obey, ranking Democrat of the House Appropriations Committee, isn't angry with his Republican colleagues for operating in the dark. "I don't blame them," he says. "If I put together a bill like this, I'd do it with the lights out too."

Geez, does any of that sound familiar?

So what happened next?

Vice President Dick Cheney was on a rare mission abroad, expressing his support for the millions left homeless by a massive earthquake in Pakistan, when he received a summons to return to Washington immediately. His vote was needed to break a tie on the Senate floor, where five Republicans had broken ranks to oppose the president's Deficit Reduction Act of 2005.

Racing halfway around the world on a trans-hemispheric red-eye, Cheney arrived on December 21st, just in time to cast the decisive vote. His "aye" gave Republicans a 51-50 victory on the budget cuts . . .

Go back and read that again. 51-50. Not 60-40. 51-50.

Okay, there are rules, and then there are rules. Budget bills are different than other bills, I think. And that was probably a budget bill. But the score in the Senate these days is 57 Democrats, 41 Republicans and 2 Independents, I think. And the Independents vote with the Democrats. There are ways to pass bills when you have an 18-vote majority. From what I understand, there are 30 million Americans without health care today, who can have health care if a bill is passed. Meanwhile, Congress is paralyzed. Nothing is getting done.

So just do it.