Democrats prepared to enforce party discipline and unity in the Senate

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

On September 30, 2009 I posted this piece of advice for Democrats Snatching victory from the jaws of defeat: the public option is alive and well:

Let's be clear. The 60 votes senators incessantly talk about is not required to pass a bill. It is a vote for cloture to close debate and to move on to voting for a bill. Democrats have 58 senators and two independents who caucus with the Democrats. They ostensibly have 60 votes for such procedural matters as cloture votes. This is a question of party discipline and unity.

The only way opponents of health care reform with a strong public option can prevent enactment of such a bill is if one or more Democrats side with the Republican obstructionists and against their party leadership on a procedural vote for cloture. These conservadem Democrats would be the one's filibustering a vote on the bill by voting against cloture, not the Republicans who are irrelevant at this point.

If one of the conservadem Democrats is philosophically opposed to a bill with a public option they are free to vote against the bill on an up or down vote. But on procedural votes like cloture, party discipline and unity is both expected and demanded. There should be no equivocation or doubt that the Democratic caucus will deliver 60 votes for cloture and move on to a vote on the bill.

Any Democratic senator who filibusters the health care reform bill because it contains a public option is inviting a game of whack-a-mole: they will be targeted by every Democratic and progressive reform organization in America for defeat – and they will be defeated. A vote against cloture is a career ending vote. (Of course, they will probably go to work as a lobbyist for the health insurance or pharmaceutical industry lobbying firm that purchased their vote).

A few years ago Republicans were demanding "give us an up or down vote" on judicial nominees stymied by a Democratic filibuster. Republicans threatened the "nuclear option" – ending the Senate's cloture rule. That is not necessary here. Democrats should be demanding from their own conservadem senators "No filibuster. Give us an up or down vote."

It appears that Progressive Democrats were listening and are prepared to go one step further: stripping disloyal senators of their committee chairmanships and leadership posts if they they do not vote for cloture to end debate, i.e., to end a GOP filibuster.

MSNBC and Rachel Maddow reported last Wednesday 'The Rachel Maddow Show' for Wednesday, October 7 that:

MADDOW: Now, if seeing thousands of their uninsured or under-insured constituents in need of care isn't enough to shame those Democratic senators into allowing a vote on health reform, there is another way to break a Republican filibuster-and here we have some news for you. We can report exclusively tonight that two major powerbrokers on the left have told MSNBC that they are encouraging a Senate strategy now in which the leadership would revoke chairmanships and other leadership positions from any Democrat who sides with a Republican filibuster to block a vote on health reform.

Regardless of how individual senators would vote ultimately on the bill, committee chairman or subcommittee chairman who allowed Republicans to force a 60-vote requirement for passing health care who filibuster, Democrats who voted with filibuster-under this type of strategy-would be in danger of losing their chairmanships. That would be the Senate equivalent of busting a lieutenant colonel down to private.

This is cracking heads time in the Democratic Party right now. This is arm-twisting, vote-counting, "Are you a real Democrat?" time for proponents of health reform.

As Tallahassee would say, "It's time to nut up or shut up."

There is also the use of the budget reconciliation rules, which the Republican Congress used to pass both of George W. Bush's tax giveaways to corporations and the super-wealthy in his first term.

MADDOW: Under reconciliation rules, Republicans couldn't force a 60-vote requirement. The bill would have to pass with just 51 votes or just 50 votes if Vice President Joe Biden was to provide the tie breaker.

If the reconciliation rules were used, there couldn't be a filibuster. There wouldn't have to be 60 votes. And health reform would have a very good chance of passing. Actually, it would have a better than very good chance of passing. And so, opponents of health reform are now trying to make using reconciliation rules sound dastardly, unprecedented, crazy, who would ever do such a thing? It's never been done before.

* * *

SEN. JAMES INHOFE (R-OK): They're going to have a hard time doing reconciliation because that would be the first time on a major tax bill that that's been done in our nation's history. I don't think that Harry Reid really wants to do that.

(END AUDIO CLIP)

MADDOW: That would be the first time reconciliation has been done on a major tax bill? That would be the first time.

Actually, you remember that $1.3 trillion tax cut mostly for rich people-President Bush's first tax cut? That was passed through reconciliation. Also, the second Bush tax cut, another $350 billion-that was also passed through reconciliation.

So, when Senator Inhofe says no major tax bill has ever been passed through reconciliation-maybe he's talking about some other country. I don't know.

Then there's Democratic conservative Senator Ben Nelson of Nebraska, who has said repeatedly that Democrats should not expect him to go along with some crazy plan to pass something under reconciliation. No, Ben Nelsons says he would not vote for something under those crazy reconciliation rules. That would be way, way, way too radical.

Well, Ben Nelson, of course, not only voted for the first Bush tax cut that was done under reconciliation, when they did it again for the second Bush tax cut-Ben Nelson not only voted for that bill under reconciliation, but he was a critical vote. He was vote number 50. Vote number 51 that passed that thing was then-Vice President Dick Cheney.

The main obstacle to passing health reform right now is not just Republicans, it is conservative Democrats in the United States Senate, like Ben Nelson, like Blanche Lincoln, like Mark Pryor, et cetera. And being a conservative Democrat standing in the way of health care reform seems like it's starting to become a lonely, increasingly uncomfortable place to be standing.

As I said at the beginning, it is time for the Democratic Party to enforce party discipline and unity on procedural votes. No filibuster. Give us and up or down vote. Otherwise, lose your committee chairmanships and leadership posts, and be targeted for defeat.

The Progressive Change Campaign Committee has a petition you can sign in support of this plan at We deserve an up-or-down vote!