One man’s obstructionist is another man’s freedom fighter.
U.S. Senate Republicans have been called out for supposedly blocking President Obama’s top domestic priorities throughout 2009. The Obama White House and liberal news organs have been quick to fix the “obstructionist” label on the opposition party in light of where the president’s legislative agenda currently sits. And there’s history here.
Under Republican presidents, Democrats have been accused of using parliamentary procedures to frustrate initiatives that would otherwise have a majority of votes. The critical difference here being that Republicans did not have a sympathetic news media. The New York Times over the past several months has given plenty of press to obstructionist charges directed against GOP leaders, especially in the Senate. This has been most evident in the coverage following up on the State of the Union address.
Most of the articles accept the premise of White House arguments, while ignoring a key fact.
As Americans for Limited Government (ALG) points out, Senate Republicans “have sustained one single, solitary filibuster against his agenda. Just one out of nearly 3,000 Senate bills introduced since Obama took the oath of office.”
Instead of merely repeating the Democratic talking points, should be asking how a party with a filibuster proof majority failed to advance its majority initiatives. There’s an opening here for a solid New York Times report that put a considerable amount of daylight between its news section and the ubiquitous editorial comments on Republican obstructionism.
Consider New York Times columnist Paul Krugman who had this to say on ABC’s “This Week” program:
“Because we have a system in which you cannot at this point get anything done without 60 points in the Senate. I mean, what I’ve been thinking about right now is at this point, the House of Representatives has passed a health care bill and has passed a strong financial reform bill. It has passed a strong climate change bill. In any other advanced democracy, that would mean that all of these things would have happened. But in the U.S. system, it takes 60 votes in the Senate to accomplish anything and because the Democrats nominated somebody in Massachusetts who didn’t know her Red Sox, that entire agenda has run aground — incredible.”
Later in the program George Will reminded Krugman that the Senate was deliberately set up as a distinct institution that would slow down and cool the passions of the lower chamber.
“Let me respond a bit to Paul’s disapproval of the 60-vote supermajority. The Republicans didn’t invent it. The Democrats have used it with great vigor, and will probably want to do so again when the Republicans control the Senate. Yes, the Senate is different from the House. The founders planned it that way. I know of nothing, Paul, that the American people have wanted intensely and protractedly that they didn’t eventually get. What the Senate does is slow things down, and we have more to fear from government haste than from government tardiness.”
There’s a legitimate debate about the merits of the filibuster, especially as it applies to judicial nominations. But in reality Republicans standing alone have not been in a position to stop anything. The president himself made this very point in his SOU address, even as needle Republicans for non-existing obstructionism.
“To Democrats, I would remind you that we still have the largest majority in decades, and the people expect us to solve problems, not run for the hills. And if the Republican leadership is going to insist that 60 votes in the Senate are required to do any business at all in this town — a supermajority — then the responsibility to govern is now yours as well. Just saying no to everything may be good short-term politics, but it’s not leadership. We were sent here to serve our citizens, not our ambitions. So let’s show the American people that we can do it together.”
Aside from the single sustained filibuster, Republicans have not stopped anything. The president’s own Senate Democrats have provided the critical margin of votes necessary to block major legislation on energy, health and labor law. That’s a story that still needs to be told.
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