Nuggets-- Mostly Gun Control

Good news: Ken is out of the hospital and his operation was a complete success. Hopefully, he'll be back in this slot soon. Meanwhile: bit and pieces I missed the last couple of days

Arkansas ConservaDem Mike Ross Is Back

Corrupt Blue Dog Mike Ross is throwing his hat into the ring in Arkansas' gubernatorial race. The Republican in the race is right-wing fanatic Asa Hutchinson and the Democrat running is former Lt. Gov. Bill Halter. Ross hopes to position himself in between, just like his entire sordid career in Congress was, where he had the distinction of voting more frequently with the GOP than with the Democrats-- and doing that more often than almost any other Democrat in history. Why doesn't he run as an independent?

Bipartisan Background Checks Defeated

Maybe if 92% of Americans supported the bill, instead of a mere 91%, it would have passed. But the NRA triumphed over the American people in the Senate yesterday. Democrats Mark Begich AK), Mark Pryor (AR), Heidi Heitkamp (ND) and Max Baucus (MT) joined the NRA voters and abandoned their own constituents. Voters in Arkansas, Alaska and Montana will have a chance to react in 2014. The amendment, which needed 60 to get through the GOP filibuster, only wound up with 54 votes (55 if you include Reid). I might add, that in 2008 Blue America endorsed Mark Begich and helped him raise money. Blue America won't be endorsing him for reelection and will leave him to the corporations and right wing interest groups he's been sucking up to to help him raise money. We'll look closely at any Democrat who decides to primary him (and Pryor and Baucus). The Blue America-backed Senate candidates for 2014 all favor serious gun control.

And Speaking Of Obstructionist Filibusters...

This was 2009 gem dug up by Ed Kilgore a couple days ago: "My personal feeling is that supporting a filibuster against your own party and your own party’s president should be treated as a serious and rare measure on major issues of conscience where the sacrifice of some of the prerogatives of seniority are a small price to pay. So maybe that price really should be paid. But at a minimum, the practice of thinking of cloture votes as identical to substantive votes, and tolerating defections on the former as just the same as the latter, needs to come to an end. There is no sixty-Senate-vote requirement for the enactment of regular legislation in the Constitution or in the Senate rules. We don’t need lockstep Democratic unity on policy initiatives. We just need unity on the simple matter of allowing the Senate to vote." Will there be any consequences? From Senate Majority Leader Reid? From the DSCC? From Obama? No, no, no. But from voters? We'll see, won't we?

DCCC Perfidy... Again

Moments after the 4 Democrats voted with most of the Republicans to kill background checks, the DCCC tweeted "GOP just blocked background checks. Disgusting. We can't let this stand. Stand with us now." They are hoping to make money on the vote-- money they will use to help reelect devoted NRA allies and gun control opponents on their Front Line list, particularly Blue Dogs Jim Matheson and Mike McIntyre, each of whom is expecting $2 million from the DCCC this cycle. If you contribute a dollar to the DCCC most of it will be skimmed off the top for the corrupt hacks who run it the operation from year to year. Most of the rest will go to support Democrats who voted with the GOP on issues like gun control, women's Choice, marriage equality, war, and economic justice.

Last Words On Senate Gun Votes

Gabby Giffords wrote a powerful OpEd for the NY Times immediately after the vote yesterday. She started like this:

Senators say they fear the N.R.A. and the gun lobby. But I think that fear must be nothing compared to the fear the first graders in Sandy Hook Elementary School felt as their lives ended in a hail of bullets. The fear that those children who survived the massacre must feel every time they remember their teachers stacking them into closets and bathrooms, whispering that they loved them, so that love would be the last thing the students heard if the gunman found them.

On Wednesday, a minority of senators gave into fear and blocked common-sense legislation that would have made it harder for criminals and people with dangerous mental illnesses to get hold of deadly firearms-- a bill that could prevent future tragedies like those in Newtown, Conn., Aurora, Colo., Blacksburg, Va., and too many communities to count.

Some of the senators who voted against the background-check amendments have met with grieving parents whose children were murdered at Sandy Hook, in Newtown. Some of the senators who voted no have also looked into my eyes as I talked about my experience being shot in the head at point-blank range in suburban Tucson two years ago, and expressed sympathy for the 18 other people shot besides me, 6 of whom died. These senators have heard from their constituents-- who polls show overwhelmingly favored expanding background checks. And still these senators decided to do nothing. Shame on them.

And she ends ominously: "Mark my words: if we cannot make our communities safer with the Congress we have now, we will use every means available to make sure we have a different Congress, one that puts communities’ interests ahead of the gun lobby’s. To do nothing while others are in danger is not the American way."


The most serious bill was Dianne Feinstein's amendment to get military-style assault weapons off the streets. It failed 40-60; the GOP didn't even have to filibuster that one because the NRA controls enough Democrats so it had no chance. Every Republican except Mark Kirk (IL) opposed it; the Democrats who crossed the aisle into NRA-land on that one:

• Max Baucus (MT)
• Mark Begich (AK)
• Michael Bennet (CO)
• Joe Donnelly (IN)
• Kay Hagan (NC)
• Martin Heinrich (NM)
• Heidi Heitkamp (ND)
• Tim Johnson (SD)
• Angus King (I-ME)
• Mary Landrieu (LA)
• Joe Manchin (WV)
• Mark Pryor (AR)
• John Tester (MT)
• Mark Udall (CO)
• Tom Udall (NM)
• Mark Warner (VA)

Kind of takes your breath away, huh? The anti-democratic, anachronistic Senate should be abolished or turned into an advisory body like the House of Lords. Members should wear powdered wigs.

Undermining Democracy-- As American As Apple Pie

From the very beginning of the American experiment, conservatives have worked diligently-- and successfully-- to "temper" the urges for democracy. A "republic" is not a "democracy." And the kinds of restrictions that conservatives have always wanted-- and continue to want-- on who gets to vote and who doesn't is antithetical to the notion of democracy.

The whole idea of the way the Senate was set up-- and why-- was specifically aimed to counterbalance any notion of democracy-- which is still does... and quite effectively. The Brits were mature enough to pass the Parliament Act of 1911-- over a century ago, for the math-challenged-- which significantly restricted their version of the Senate, the House of Lords, from thwarting the will of the people.

The 1911 Act was a reaction to the clash between the Liberal government and the House of Lords, culminating in the so-called "People's Budget" of 1909. In this Budget, the Chancellor of the Exchequer David Lloyd George proposed the introduction of a land tax based on the ideas of the American tax reformer Henry George. This new tax would have had a major effect on large landowners, and was opposed by the Conservative opposition, many of whom were large landowners themselves. The Conservatives believed that money should be raised through the introduction of tariffs on imports, which they claimed would help British industry. Contrary to British constitutional convention, the Conservatives used their large majority in the Lords to vote down the Budget, but for the Liberals built on the widespread unpopularity of the Lords to make reducing the power of the Lords an important issue of the January 1910 general election.

The Liberals returned in a hung parliament after the election: their call for action against the Lords had energised believers in hereditary principle to vote for the Conservatives, but had failed to generate much interest with the rest of the voting public. The Liberals formed a minority government with the support of the Labour and Irish nationalist MPs. The Lords subsequently accepted the Budget when the land tax proposal was dropped. However, as a result of the dispute over the Budget, the new government introduced resolutions (that would later form the Parliament Bill) to limit the power of the Lords. The Prime Minister, Herbert Henry Asquith, asked Edward VII to create sufficient new Liberal peers to pass the Bill if the Lords rejected it. The King refused, so Asquith went back to the polls to obtain an explicit mandate for the constitutional change.

The Lords voted this 1910 Bill down, so Asquith called a second general election in December 1910, and again formed a minority government. Edward VII had died in May 1910, but George V agreed that, if necessary, he would create hundreds of new Liberal peers to neutralise the Conservative majority in the Lords. The Conservative Lords then backed down, and on 10 August 1911, the House of Lords passed the Parliament Act by a narrow 131–114 vote, with the support of some two dozen Conservative peers and eleven of thirteen Lords Spiritual (who normally do not vote).

I've long been a fan of either abolishing the anti-democratic Senate-- anti-democratic by design (California's 38,041,430 people and Texas' 26,059,203 people get the same number of senators as Wyoming's 576,412 and Vermont's 626,011)-- or just making it ceremonial and advisory. Imagine Ted Cruz and Dianne Feinstein arguing about gun safety in white wigs and long robes. But the House, the body designed to be more democratic, has some severe problems conservative have engineered in an extra-constitutional manner, namely the gerrymander which allows politicians to pick their own voters rather than letting voters pick their own representatives. And then there's the oligarchical campaign finance structure that plagues the whole American electoral system.

Obama was just elected with a pretty hefty majority. More voters chose Democrats in both the House and Senate elections. It doesn't seem to matter. Conservatives and wealthy special interests have found ways to subvert democracy time and time again. Polls show lopsided majorities supporting a progressive agenda on everything from Choice, war, drones, the post office, immigration reform, to the embattled regulatory system, clean energy, climate change and the environment, and gun safety. Politicians are now so insulated from public opinion that it just does not matter.

You'd think that economic justice issues are pretty basic and pretty key to maintaining a Democratic Party identity. President Obama is trying to increase the minimum wage. More progressives Democrats are trying to increase it more than he is. The public agrees and appears to see though the age old conservative lies about how the minimum wage hurts the economy. So what happened in Maryland-- one of the most Democratically controlled states in America-- last week? (Keep in mind that Obama won the state 62-36% and Cardin was reelected-- in a serious 3-way contest-- 55-27-17%. Also keep in mind that the Maryland state Senate has 35 Democrats and just 12 Republicans and that the Democratic majority in the 141 member House of Delegates is overwhelming: 97 to 43.)

A bill to raise the minimum wage to $10 an hour died in the Senate Finance Committee on Wednesday. It was defeated in an 8-3 vote with several senators explaining that they opposed the legislation in spite of their sympathy for low-wage workers because the timing was not right for a wage increase.

Finance Chair Thomas “Mac” Middleton said that he has supported minimum wage hikes in the past but could not justify it in a down economy. “I think this bill would put people out of work,” said Middleton, D-Charles.

If passed, SB 683 would have gradually increased the minimum wage from $7.25 to $10 over the next three years. For months, labor organizations and religious organizations have been lobbying for the bill’s passage, and tonight The Raise Maryland coalition will be holding a candlelight vigil as they mourn the death of the minimum wage bill. Members of the group will march through Annapolis to protest the Senate committee’s rejection of the increase.

...Sen. James Mathias Jr, D-Lower Shore, said that his experience as a businessman led him to believe that minimum wage increases would result in layoffs, since businesses are struggling to survive as it is.

“Ordinarily I go for the worker, but I tell you, if there is no place to work, the worker doesn’t get anything out of a wage increase,” he said. Small businesses were facing brutal economic conditions and were frequently unable to compete with national chains.

Baltimore County Democrat Katherine Klausmeier said that she felt an obligation to serve the interests of her district’s small businesses which are still hurting as a result of the recession.

Fellow Democrat Delores Kelley said that she knew many start-up owners that would have to close their businesses if the minimum wage hike passed.

Republicans made similar arguments. Senate Minority Leader E.J. Pipkin summed up the view of the committee majority when he said, “If you make things more expensive, you get less of them, and we need more jobs. This bill ends up hurting the people it is intended to help.”

The well organized restaurant owners certainly got what they wanted. Ordinary voters... nah. So what will unions do about it? Back Republicans in the next election? No, that doesn't make any sense. I wonder if they know about primaries there. Oh, they do... the unions helped replace anti-working family shill Al Wynn with progressive icon Donna Edwards-- and not that many years ago.

Do You Care About The Senate?

My dream for the Senate is that it be more widely recognized as an inherently anti-democratic institution and that it either be abolished or turned into an advisory body or, better yet, a strictly ceremonial chamber. It took them a long time, but the Brits have been moving in this direction for a century-- since the Parliament Act of 1911-- with their House of Lords, on which the Senate was modeled. Barring a quickie revolution, that's not going to happen before the November 2012 elections.

So far this cycle, Blue America has endorsed 3 stellar candidates for the Senate, incumbent Bernie Sanders (I-VT) and challengers Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) and Tammy Baldwin (D-WI). Perhaps there will be someone else worth taking seriously as the cycle unfolds... but I doubt it. If Sheldon Whitehouse looked like he was in trouble we'd jump into that race, but I can't see that happening. Other Democratic incumbents range from the absolutely ridiculous-- Joe Manchin (WV), who votes with the Republicans-- to the corrupt, like Bob Menendez (NJ). Sherrod Brown is probably as good as its ever going to get from Ohio and I hope he wins, but he voted for torture and I'll be damned if I write him a check. Mazie Hirono (D-HI) is probably as good-- and a lot better than Ed Case, the right-wing corporate Democrat running against her in the primary. Blue America won't be expending too much energy on the Senate side this year and we'll be concentrating on winning back the House by supporting strong progressives.

Still, it would be hard to ignore how catastrophic it would be for America if-- as seems likely-- the Republicans win enough seats to win back control of the Senate, even if Obama wins reelection and the Democrats somehow manage to win the House back. It's an ugly story but yesterday's National Journal covered it without much drama. The examine the polling, the fundraising, the conventional wisdom and come up with a look at what's likely to happen race by race as of now. It doesn't look very good for the Democrats.

NORTH DAKOTA (Open, Sen. Kent Conrad retiring)
Republican Rep. Rick Berg is the odds-on favorite to take over retiring Sen. Conrad's seat. Democrats have their favorite candidate in former Attorney General Heidi Heitkamp, but the party is suffering in the Great Plains. Once, Democrats held all six federal offices in North and South Dakota; after 2012, Republicans are likely to control five. The one caveat: Berg isn't the most popular Republican in the state, giving Democrats the tiniest opening to sneak through.

NEBRASKA (D, Sen. Ben Nelson)
Democrats have already spent more than $1.2 million on early advertisements defending Nelson, but he hasn't said definitively whether he will run. Still, whether this is an open seat or not, Republicans have a great shot against Nelson, who voted in favor of the stimulus package and health care reform. Nelson has tried to distance himself from his party, but he's taken unpopular votes that will be hard to get away from.

MONTANA (D, Sen. Jon Tester)
The Treasure State begins a long list of contests that can only be described as toss-ups. Tester won election in 2006 as a populist, and he's maintained that image. But more Montanans have voted for Rep. Denny Rehberg; he's won eight statewide races in his career. Expect both Tester and Rehberg to be drowned out by outside spending. In a race that will be decided by only a few points either way, both candidates will have to rely on allies to bring down the other guy's high approval ratings.

MISSOURI (D, Sen. Claire McCaskill)
If Republicans had been able to find a top-tier challenger, McCaskill would be in more trouble. She faces a lackluster GOP field, but she's in for the fight of her political life anyway. McCaskill got in trouble earlier this year for reimbursing a company her husband owns for plane flights, a serious flub that could undermine her image as a good-government reformer. But Democrats say the issue hasn't registered with voters, and they're confident they have a candidate who can appeal to crossover voters when matched up with an eventual Republican nominee they will paint as a partisan hack.

MASSACHUSETTS (R, Sen. Scott Brown)
Brown's victory in January 2010 was a sign of deep unhappiness with the Democratic Party. But that win came in the unique vacuum of a special election, and now he'll have to run alongside President Obama, who is likely to come close to the 62 percent he won in the Bay State in 2008. Brown has the ability to win crossover votes, but winning over one in five Obama voters is a tough bar to reach for any Republican. Republicans are privately concerned that likely Democratic nominee Elizabeth Warren is a real contender; her fundraising performance and her early volunteer recruitment signals she's no Martha Coakley.

NEVADA (R, Sen. Dean Heller)
There will be no greater contrast in 2012 than the rural cowboy Heller, whose idea of a vacation is to ride his horse into the Sierra Nevada, versus former cocktail waitress Shelley Berkley, who so epitomizes Las Vegas that her dad was maitre d' at The Sands. Both will fight for a small segment of undecided voters in the Las Vegas suburbs and in Heller's backyard of Washoe County. Berkley will benefit from Sen. Harry Reid's turnout machine, which will be running at maximum capacity in an effort to win Nevada for President Obama. Heller, on the other hand, has deep roots in Washoe, the most important swing area in the state.

WISCONSIN (Open, Sen. Herb Kohl retiring)
One method we use in determining the competitiveness of a race is to ask ourselves, Who would we rather be? In this case, we have to choose between Republicans, with a messy primary field that could produce a broke and weak nominee, or Democrats, who are poised to nominate a liberal incumbent member of an unpopular Congress from Madison. Republicans privately want state Assembly Speaker Jeff Fitzgerald to win their primary; some believe ex-Gov. Tommy Thompson won't actually get into the race, and while ex-Rep. Mark Neumann is getting some conservative backing, he angered some Republicans by opposing Scott Walker in the 2010 governor's race. The eventual nominee will face Rep. Tammy Baldwin, who hasn't made many moves toward the center just yet.

VIRGINIA (Open, Sen. Jim Webb retiring)
Why would anybody waste money polling this race? Trust us, the fight between ex-Sen. George Allen and ex-Gov. Tim Kaine is going to be a two-point race either way. Allen's major thrust at the moment is to tie Kaine, the former DNC chairman, to President Obama. But despite Obama's weak numbers in the state, Kaine's approval rating has remained remarkably steady. Kaine will do better with crossover voters than Allen, giving him the tiniest of advantages.

NEW MEXICO (Open, Sen. Jeff Bingaman retiring)
Both Democrats and Republicans face competitive Anglo-versus-Hispanic primaries here, but the likeliest matchup would pit Rep. Martin Heinrich against ex-Rep. Heather Wilson. Both represented the same Albuquerque-area district, which is likely to be the race's biggest battleground. Wilson has a centrist record, though she's trying to downplay it in the GOP primary, and she would give Republicans a shot to compete. But New Mexico has trended very blue in recent years, making Heinrich the slight favorite.

OHIO (D, Sen. Sherrod Brown)
Ohio Treasurer Josh Mandel is a fundraising machine. He has outraised Brown twice in two quarters, and he's rapidly closing the gap on Brown's initial advantage. But most Republicans aren't terribly optimistic about their chances here, largely because Mandel is so young-- and he looks it. Brown is probably too liberal for the state, which works in the GOP's favor. But he comes from the populist wing of the Democratic Party, and his early approval ratings are notably strong for an incumbent in an anti-incumbent atmosphere.

HAWAII (Open, Sen. Daniel Akaka retiring)
Former Gov. Linda Lingle is probably the one Republican in the country who embraces the RINO label. She needs to be seen as an independent in President Obama's home state. Lingle will benefit from what's likely to be a major schism in the Democratic field, as Rep. Mazie Hirono and ex-Rep. Ed Case battle it out in a late primary. But she may need as many as 20 points of split-ticket voting to overcome Obama's huge support; Republicans haven't elected a senator in the Aloha State since Hiram Fong won reelection in 1970.

FLORIDA (D, Sen. Bill Nelson)
The Sunshine State should be a great pickup opportunity for Republicans, but the party is curiously pessimistic about their chances to beat Nelson. Rep. Connie Mack leads a packed Republican field at the moment, but there are openings for a more conservative candidate to emerge. Nelson has good approval ratings and more cash than most Republican presidential candidates, putting him in strong position to defend his seat no matter which way Florida's electoral votes swing.

MICHIGAN (D, Sen. Debbie Stabenow)
No state has been mired in economic recession as long as Michigan. And even after the Obama administration moved to bail out automakers, the president's approval ratings have suffered. Obama will have to work hard to keep this usually-Democratic state in the fold, and Stabenow's own low approval ratings show she's not completely safe either. A competitive Republican primary will slow her eventual opponent's fundraising, and Stabenow has a history of defining her opponent early. Still, if any Republican can take advantage of an anti-incumbent wave, it might be in a state where voters are sick of the status quo.

INDIANA (R, Sen. Richard Lugar)
If the tea party movement will claim any Republican incumbents this year, Lugar is the most likely victim. And if this list were of most vulnerable incumbents, rather than seats most likely to switch, Lugar would be closer to the top; state Treasurer Richard Mourdock has a good shot at beating Lugar in the primary. Democrats have a good candidate in Rep. Joe Donnelly, but Indiana is a very red state, and Donnelly would have to outperform Obama in traditionally conservative areas by five or more points to have a shot. Even if Lugar loses, Republicans are confident they will keep this seat.

CONNECTICUT (Open, Sen. Joe Lieberman retiring)
Former WWE executive Linda McMahon couldn't win in the Republican wave of 2010, and her chances don't look a lot better now. But unlike her rival then, Sen. Richard Blumenthal, neither of the two likeliest Democratic nominees are well-known. More-moderate ex-Rep. Chris Shays will challenge McMahon in the primary, but McMahon's money will prove a big hurdle for Shays. Rep. Chris Murphy is favored over former Secretary of State Susan Bysiewicz on the Democratic side, and the winner will be favored next November. But McMahon's personal fortune will keep it close.

PENNSYLVANIA (D, Sen. Bob Casey)
The storyline three months ago: Republicans can't recruit a candidate! The storyline today: Republicans have a ton of candidates running against Casey, but no one knows any of them. Casey has charted a course that's in line with Pennsyvlania, and his Scranton roots won't let Republicans paint him as a Philadelphia liberal. The eventual GOP nominee-- there are six legitimate candidates running right now-- will start the general election way behind.

ARIZONA (Open, Sen. Jon Kyl retiring)
The sad fact for Democrats is that their bench, in a state that is changing rapidly to their advantage, is tragically thin. They got their best possible candidate in former Surgeon General Richard Carmona (rumors of a Gabrielle Giffords comeback, so soon after her traumatic injury at the hands of a madman, were always fantasy), but his potential remains to be seen. Rep. Jeff Flake, the Republican front-runner, will have to get by self-funding investor Wil Cardon, and his past immigration stands could get him in trouble. But Flake is still the heavy favorite to become a senator next year.

NEW JERSEY (D, Sen. Bob Menendez)
If New Jersey is in play next year, Harry Reid should start sizing up the minority leader's office. But Menendez will never be hugely popular statewide, giving Republicans a perpetual hope. Watch for a number of state legislators to enter the race in the coming months after winning their off-year reelection bids, but don't expect any to seriously challenge Menendez come next fall.

MAINE (R, Sen. Olympia Snowe)
The tea party could easily make the case that Snowe is a Republican in name only. She's perhaps the biggest source of frustration for Washington conservatives. But she fits Maine, and anyone to her right would face almost insurmountable odds in winning another term. Two Democrats are running, and they would have a great chance if Snowe somehow fell in a GOP primary. But Snowe's only credible challenger is woefully underfunded, and she's likely to cruise to a fourth term.

(TIE) TEXAS (Open, Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison retiring)
On one hand, Texas Democrats have a candidate in retired Gen. Ric Sanchez, but he's proving disastrously inept at raising money. Without a serious influx of cash for Sanchez, the eventual winner of the Texas Republican primary will roll over Sanchez.

(TIE) WEST VIRGINIA (D, Sen. Joe Manchin)
On the other hand, West Virginia Republicans don't have a real candidate willing to run against the very popular Manchin. Even in a state that's going to be very red next year, the GOP needs a candidate if they're going to put up a real fight. Without a game-changing Republican recruit, Manchin will win.

Tools On Rules

Thursday the Senate voted on a series of rules changes that will guide its procedures for the next two years. Some had the idealistic, albeit completely unrealistic, hope that the filibuster rule could be made less onerous to democracy, or even abolished. Given the outsize egos of the members of the ruling elite all but the tiniest handful of senators come from, that, I'm sorry to say, was never going to happen. Five proposals got voted on, the first of which, Ron Wyden's to abolish secret holds, S. Res. 28, is very good news. First off, it passed 92-4, only a flailing and desperate John Ensign and the 3 most extremist teabagger senators-- Jim DeMint, Rand Paul and Mike Lee-- voting against it. Even lunatic fringe rightists like Toomey, Vitter, Kyl, Rubio, Sessions, Inhofe, and Ron Johnson voted with the Democrats on this one.

S. Res. 29, Mark Udall's proposal to permit the waiving of the reading of an amendment if the text has been posted for 72 hours, wasn't as big a deal. It passed as well, 81-15. It seems that Reid and Miss McConnell had already hammered out an agreement between themselves on this one to speed up the pace of the near-moribund body. This time the kooks got themselves together in opposition to something smacking of progress. The 15 "no" votes were all from far right extremists and determined obstructionists: Tom Coburn (R-OK), John Cornyn (R-TX), Mike Crapo (R-ID), Jim DeMint (R-SC). John Ensign (R-NV), Orrin Hatch (R-UT), Jim Inhofe (R-OK), Mike Lee (R-UT), Rand Paul (R-KY), Jim Risch (R-ID), Marco Rubio (R-FL). Jeff Sessions (KKK-AL), John Thune (R-SD), Pat Toomey (R-PA) and-- what senatorial tea party would be complete without Diaper Boy?-- David Vitter (R-LA). The 15 were basically telling McConell to shove his agreement with Reid up his ass.

As part of the compromise, announced Thursday afternoon on the Senate floor, Reid and McConnell agreed not to use the so-called "constitutional option" in this Congress or the next one to change Senate rules by a simple-majority vote.

Senators will no longer be allowed to place secret holds on legislation and nominees.

The number of executive branch positions subject to confirmation will be reduced by about a third. The Senate now must confirm about 1,400 job appointments in the executive branch, according to a Senate aide familiar with the deal.

Senators will no longer be allowed to force chamber clerks to read aloud amendments if those amendments have been posted ahead of time for public review.

Reid and McConnell have also entered into a gentlemen’s agreement to reduce the frequency of filibusters of motions to begin consideration of legislation.

McConnell has also promised to reduce the number of times the minority will block efforts to begin debate on legislation. Reid, in exchange, has pledged to limit the number of times he will refuse Republicans opportunities to offer amendments.

The debate over healthcare repeal isn't covered in the gentlemen's agreement. And the biggies-- the proposals to get a little democracy into the Senate-- failed, of course. Tom Harkin's S. Res. 8, co-sponsored by Dick Durbin, Barbara Mikulski and Jeanne Shaheen, would have lowered the number of votes needed to shut down a filibuster. It failed miserably, 12-84. The only senators big enough to get over their egos and vote for it were Mark Begich (D-AK), Richard Blumenthal (D-CT), Dick Durbin (D-IL), Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY), Tom Harkin (D-IA), John Kerry (D-MA), Herb Kohl (D-WI), Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ), Joe Lieberman (I-CT), Barbara Mikulski (D-MD), Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH) and Tom Udall (D-NM).

Tom Udall's and Jeff Merkley's attempts to disable the ability of a small minority of senators to thwart democracy were both defeated more narrowly. Udall's S. Res. 10 went down 44-51, every Republican voting "no" and then being joined by conservative Democrats Max Baucus, Herb Kohl, Mark Pryor and Jim Webb and by Jack Reed and Harry Reid. Merkley's bill got a little closer but was beaten 46-49, again, every Republican voting "no," and this time joined by Baucus, Carl Levin, Pryor and-- presumably so he can bring it up again-- Harry Reid. As NPR summed it up, the filibuster lives on.

Senators were emphatic in their votes against limiting the filibuster, a treasured right of minorities trying to prevent majorities from running roughshod over them. Many Democrats, while now in the majority, envisioned a day, perhaps as early as after the 2012 election, when they would return to the minority.

None of Thursday's series of votes would have eliminated all filibusters, which are used to stall action on bills or nominations and require 60 votes to override in the 100-member body. Instead, Democrats pushing for change sought to get rid of filibusters that specifically stop bills from being brought to the Senate floor, and to require senators imposing a filibuster to stay on the floor debating the issue. One proposal would have gradually reduced the 60-vote threshold to a simple majority of 51 as debate proceeded.

The votes were 84-12 against the proposal by Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa to gradually reduce the threshold and 51-44 to reject a proposal by Sens. Tom Udall, D-N.M., Jeff Merkley, D-Ore., and Harkin to end filibusters on motions to advance a bill to the floor, require those initiating filibusters to stay on the floor and to shorten debate time on nominations. A third resolution by Merkley that focused on requiring those filibustering to keep talking on the floor went down, 49-46. All the proposals to change Senate rules would have required two-thirds majorities for approval.

But recognizing the frustration of many senators over the delaying tactics and partisan battles that have paralyzed the Senate in recent years, Majority Leader Reid and Republican leader McConnell said they had agreed on non-binding steps to restore comity and cooperation in the Senate. Under the agreement, McConnell said minority Republicans would block fewer bills and nominations in exchange for a guarantee of more chances to amend legislation. [Ed- That's almost like the non-binding decision to sit next each other at the State of the Union.]

...Reid defended the central premise of the filibuster, saying debate without time limits was "in our DNA" in the Senate. But he also said, "We have to act because when abuses keep us from doing our work, they deter us from working together and they stop us from working for the American people."

He said he and McConnell would both avoid use of the so-called "constitutional option" where the majority could change filibuster and other Senate rules with a simple 51-vote majority in the 100-member chamber.

McConnell said he was optimistic that he and Reid could "convince our colleagues that we ought to get back to operating the Senate the way we did as recently as three or four years ago, when bills came up and they were open for amendment, and we voted on amendments, and at some point the bill would be completed."

Republicans have defended their use of the filibuster, saying it was in response to Democrats limiting the number of amendments they could offer to bills.

The leaders' deal focuses only on filibusters pertaining to "motions to proceed," or attempts to bring a bill or a nomination to the Senate floor. The compromise did not extend to filibusters that block efforts to cut off debate and bring a bill to a final vote.

I still favor abolishing the Senate or, since that is completely impossible, making it into a ceremonial body, something the British have been slowly doing for decades with their version, the House of Lords, especially with passage in 1911 of the Parliament Act, which affirmed some kind of democracy in the U.K.

Senate Overcomes Republican Jobs Bill Filibuster

I'm finding it harder and harder to trust what comes out of the White House. Obama's big wet kiss aimed at the GOP yesterday on healthcare reform was very frustrating and made me more eager than ever to put my efforts behind helping elect Better Democrats and ignoring the whole idea of "More Democrats." More Democrats doesn't seem to be the answer. What we need are more like Raul Grijalva, Alan Grayson, Donna Edwards, Barbara Lee, Bernie Sanders and Jeff Merkley, Democrats who work for ordinary families, not Democrats who join Republicans to do the bidding of lobbyists for special interests. Still, I was heartened yesterday evening when I saw the moribund House of Lords actually do something useful for a change. The Senate overcame, 62-30 a GOP filibuster against Obama's Jobs Bill. Interestingly, 4 Republicans with tough election prospects this year, Richard Burr (NC), Johnny Isakson (GA), Bob Bennett (UT) and Sam Brownback (KS), avoided the vote. (The most vulnerable of the 4, Richard Burr, was castigated this morning by North Carolina Secretary of State Elaine Marshall for shirking his responsibility. “It seems the only way for North Carolinians to get the jobs they need is for Richard Burr to lose his. I plan to send him home this November,” she said.) All the Democrats other than anti-family fanatic Ben Nelson voted for cloture to end the filibuster and they were joined by two retiring Republicans, Voinovich (OH) and Bond (MO), and three New Englanders resisting the lockstep obstructionism being demanded by DeMint, Vitter, Coburn, Thune and the other cynical partisans-- Olympia Snowe (ME), Susan Collins (ME) and... Scott Brown (MA), teabagger hero no longer?

Mike Elk from Campaign for America's Future, made the point that weak-kneed senators are likely to only extend unemployment and Cobra for 15 lousy days, further convincing me that we have to do in this country what England did with their House of Lords in 1911.

Such a move is absolutely pathetic and unacceptable. 1.2 Americans are expected to lose their unemployment benefits at the end of the month. While a 15 day extension will allow people to continue receiving aid, states will have already begun notifying hundreds of thousands that they will stop receiving aid.

...Meanwhile State governors are at the White House this week on their hands and knees begging for more money from the federal government. Since states by law are not allowed to go into debt, without federal aid they will have to cut essential services in order to balance their budgets. States face a $357 billion budget shortfall and local governments are facing an additional $80 billion in budget deficits.
However, Republicans in Congress have made it known that they will filibuster any request that gives more money to the states. Democratic Gov. Jack Markell of Delaware said "These solutions are being held hostage by petty bickering."

Republican Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger speaking yesterday on ABC This Week, criticized Republicans opposed to more stimulus funds for states are engaging "in a kind of politics."

Its time for the Senate GOP to stop engaging in politics and listen to the voices of its nation's Governors - both Republican and Democrat- who are calling for more stimulus funds.

Its time that the Senate passes a real jobs bill like the $154 billion dollar jobs bill like the House did back in December. The House Jobs bill took $75 billion in money earmarked for the Wall Street bail out and instead gave the money to states that actually need the money. The House Jobs Bills also extended by six months eligibility for unemployment benefits and COBRA subsidies.

Here's President Obama's statement on the successful cloture vote in the Senate yesterday: "The American people want to see Washington put aside partisan differences and make progress on jobs, and today the Senate took one important step forward in doing that. I’m grateful to the Democratic and Republican Senators who voted to support these investments in infrastructure and small businesses. This is one of many efforts we need to tackle our economic challenges, and we will continue to work with Congress on additional job creation measures. Jobs remain our top priority, and I look forward to working with members from both parties to get legislation signed, and the American people back to work." Far too little. Obama's got to step up to the plate or Charlie Cook is going to be right about something for the first time in nearly a decade! Rachel wasn't quite as pessimistic last night as I was:

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

UPDATE: Jobs Bill Passes With Hefty Bipartisan Support

The Jobs Bill passed this morning 70-28, with all Democrats (minus anti-worker fanatic Ben Nelson if you want to count him as a Democrat) voting along with a sad rump of 27 obstructionist Republicans to kill it. After being roasted by North Carolina Secretary of State Elaine Marshall for sucking up to his K Street lobbyist buddies instead of voting on the cloture amendment, Richard Burr was too frightened to vote against it and abandoned his usual pals, Jim DeMint, Saxby Chambliss, Johnny Isakson, Jeff Session and David Vitter to vote along side Bernie Sanders, Chuck Schumer, Harry Reid and Sherrod Brown! Good work Elaine!

Is There Something That Can Be Done About Ritual Obstructionism In The Senate?

Yesterday there was a lot of talk about Obama being forced by systematic GOP obstructionism to start filling open slots in his Administration with recess appointments. Even when Republicans have no objections to candidates, they filibuster them anyway-- yes, all the Republicans, even ones the media tries to paint as relatively "sane," like Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins. Look for example at the two votes yesterday on Obama's nomination of Martha Johnson to be Administrator of the General Services Administration.

Johnson's isn't a controversial nomination. In fact, she was unanimously approved last year by the Senate Homeland Security Committee-- just before the GOP decided to obstruct her confirmation for nine months for no reason at all except to be assholes.

Even without recalling that all those Republicans who filibustered Johnson were supporters of the infamous Bush Regime GSA Administrator, Lurita Doan, consider that when the final vote came last night, she was confirmed 96-0, with Johnny Isakson and Tom Coburn playing hide the salami or whatever Republicans do in the cloakroom to avoid voting and taking a stand.

Just half an hour before she was confirmed without a single dissenting vote, 16 Republican clowns filibustered her for no discernible reason other than "filibuster" being their middle name and wanting Obama to fail so badly that they don't give a second thought to destroying anything that stands in the way, including even wrecking America itself. The supporters of the de rigueur ritualized Republican filibuster were Lamar Alexander (R-TN), Kit Bond (R-MO), Jim Bunning (R-KY), Saxby Chambliss (R-GA), Thad Cochran (R-MS), Mike Crapo (R-ID), Chuck Grassley (R-IA), Judd Gregg (R-NH), Orrin Hatch (R-UT), Johnny Isakson (R-GA), Jon Kyl (R-AZ), Miss McConnell (R-KY), Jim Risch (R-ID), Jeff Sessions (KKK-AL), Dick Shelby (R-AL), and Roger Wicker (R-MS).

That link on Dick Shelby's name leads to a TPM post about the pork-mad Alabama obstructionist's "blanket hold" on 70 Obama appointees. Shelby, once famously quoted as saying, "As a U.S. Senator, I believe that the review of judicial nominations is one of the most important responsibilities of the Senate, and I firmly believe that each of the President's nominees should be afforded a straight up-or-down vote," has earmarked over $114,484,000 in federal funds. Time for the Parliament Act of 1911 solution to the Senate problem (or do we want to end up like 17th century Poland?)

Chats With Jerrold Nadler And Nancy Pelosi... And Then There's The Parliament Act of 1911

Everyone's the 41st vote now, but where's Blanche & Ben... just in case?

I jumped onto a conference call with Nancy Pelosi today, but I was late, and I hope I didn't miss any ground rules about it being off the record. She was so upbeat about passing healthcare reform, predicting all this great stuff, I think I believed it. "If the gate is closed, we will go over the fence. If the fence is too high, we will pole-vault in. If that doesn’t work, we will parachute in. But we are going to get healthcare reform passed for the American people for their own personal health and economic security and for the important role that it will play in reducing the deficit." I wonder if that Churchillian stuff scares Republicans these days. How about senators?

Oh yes, them. Everything Nancy said was so right on, except that there is, alas, still a Senate. The other night Jerrold Nadler was waxing quite eloquent when he talked about the U.K.'s Parliament Act of 1911. Though the U.S. isn't quite there yet, it's still something to work toward. The Act that brought such a lively twinkle to Nadler's eyes "asserted the supremacy of the House of Commons by limiting the legislation-blocking powers of the House of Lords (the suspensory veto). Provided the provisions of the Act are met, legislation can be passed without the approval of the House of Lords."

The 1911 Act was a reaction to the clash between the Liberal government and the House of Lords, culminating in the so-called "People's Budget" of 1909. In this Budget, the Chancellor of the Exchequer David Lloyd George proposed the introduction of a land tax based on the ideas of the American tax reformer Henry George. This new tax would have had a major effect on large landowners, and was opposed by the Conservative opposition, many of whom were large landowners themselves. The Conservatives believed that money should be raised through the introduction of tariffs on imports, which they claimed would help British industry. Contrary to British constitutional convention, the Conservatives used their large majority in the Lords to vote down the Budget, but for the Liberals built on the widespread unpopularity of the Lords to make reducing the power of the Lords an important issue of the January 1910 general election.

The Liberals returned in a hung parliament after the election: their call for action against the Lords had energised believers in hereditary principle to vote for the Conservatives, but had failed to generate much interest with the rest of the voting public. The Liberals formed a minority government with the support of the Labour and Irish nationalist MPs. The Lords subsequently accepted the Budget when the land tax proposal was dropped. However, as a result of the dispute over the Budget, the new government introduced resolutions (that would later form the Parliament Bill) to limit the power of the Lords. The Prime Minister, Herbert Henry Asquith, asked Edward VII to create sufficient new Liberal peers to pass the Bill if the Lords rejected it. The King refused, so Asquith went back to the polls to obtain an explicit mandate for the constitutional change.

The Lords voted this 1910 Bill down, so Asquith called a second general election in December 1910, and again formed a minority government. Edward VII had died in May 1910, but George V agreed that, if necessary, he would create hundreds of new Liberal peers to neutralise the Conservative majority in the Lords. The Conservative Lords then backed down, and on 10 August 1911, the House of Lords passed the Parliament Act by a narrow 131–114 vote, with the support of some two dozen Conservative peers and eleven of thirteen Lords Spiritual (who normally do not vote).

Sorry about that little tangent, but blame it on Nadler-- and my own hope that we catch up to the English soon on that one. I mean, starting in 1911 their House of Lords lost the ability to stymie progress by vetoing everything that challenged the status quo, the way our own House of Lords does. And the legislation Nancy promised us on the call for next week-- what was it again... um... ah, yes-- to "repeal the waiver for anti-trust for the health insurance industry."

It’s a special anti-trust exemption, enjoyed by only one other industry-- Major League Baseball-- and it’s given to America’s health insurance and medical malpractice insurance companies. Health insurers will no longer be shielded from liability for price fixing, dividing up territories among themselves, sabotaging their competitors and the marketplace, in order to gain monopoly power-- all of which reduce competition, limit consumers’ choices, lower the quality of coverage and increase premiums and out-of-pocket costs for consumers. It’s very important legislation. Next week the House of Representatives will pass legislation which will enable the federal government, finally, to be able to investigate any evidence of possible collusion. So, this has been 65 years-- they’ve had this exemption and the result has not been good for the American consumer. So, in any event, we’re pleased with that prospect for next week as we continue to work on comprehensive healthcare-- health insurance reform.

Doesn't that sound great? Hurray for Nancy! Hurray for the House of Representatives! Hurray for the Democrats! But what about Ben "Over My Dead Body" Nelson and Lieberman and, oh yeah, 41 Republicans? Cue up "Another One Bites The Dust." And we're left pissed off and angry once again. (Send Democrats A Message They Can Understand.)

You might recall that last Thursday we were talking about Chellie Pingree (D-ME) and Jared Polis (D-CO) putting together a letter to Harry Reid over at Lords and asking him to use reconciliation to pass healthcare reform and, since no Republicans were going to vote for it anyway, put a public option in it. I think they had 28 signers at the time. It's become pretty popular, and before I went to sleep last night, that had gone up to 107 signers. (Now up to 118 and including anti-healthcare voters Tom Perriello and John Adler!) Soon it will be easier to say who won't sign than who did!

After Marcy Winograd, the progressive running against reactionary Blue Dog Jane Harman (CA), came out with a strong and stirring statement in favor, Harman was panicked into signing on. Four other (less reactionary) Blue Dogs-- Leonard Boswell (IA), Mike Michaud (ME), Patrick Murphy (PA) and Scott Murphy (NY), who actually voted against the bill first time around-- have also signed the letter. And so has almost every progressive in the House. Almost. Exciting, right? And then there's the still unreformed American House of Lords. Sorry to be such a skunk at the party. At least we'll know which House members aren't our friends.