Commentary by Sanford D. Horn
November 21, 2013
Majority rule,
minority rights is a thing of the past in the United States Senate as the
Democrats voted to eliminate the filibuster as a right and protective tool of
the minority. Ironically, the Democrats weren't too keen on this notion when
they were in the minority. Now they have usurped total control of the Senate to
continue Obama's biding in a dictatorial and tyrannical manner.
The “nuclear
option” trigger was pulled by Senate Majority Leader and hypocrite Harry Reid
(D-NV) on Thursday, November 21 and a mushroom cloud enveloped the chamber when
Senate Democrats unilaterally ended Republican minority ability to filibuster
some of Obama’s judicial and executive appointments by a 52-48 vote. Democrats
Carl Levin (MI), Joe Manchin (WV), and Mark Pryor (AR) had the good sense to
vote with the GOP.
The filibuster
is an important instrument provided the Senate alone, not the House of Representatives,
where all speeches and debates are parsed by the minute. In the classic film Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, Jimmy
Stewart portrays the naïve, but good hearted senator who convenes a filibuster
of epic proportion, the likes of which could only have been challenged in real
life by South Carolina Senator J. Strom Thurmond, whose record filibuster of 24
hours and 18 minutes on August 28-29, 1957 still stands.
Reid is aptly
called a hypocrite for evoking the nuclear option in 2013, when he vehemently
argued against it in 2005.
“The
filibuster is far from a procedural gimmick. It’s part of the fabric of this
institution… Senators have used the filibuster… even… to stall executive
nominees… Some in this chamber want to throw out 214 years of Senate history in
the quest for absolute power… They think they’re wiser than our Founding
Fathers. I doubt that that’s true,” said Reid on May 18, 2005.
Eight and a
half years later, almost to the day, Reid accomplished just what he and his
Democratic cohorts railed against so vigorously.
Under the old
rules a minimum of 60 votes were required to break a filibuster on presidential
nominees. Under the new rules, a mere simple majority of 51 votes ends a
filibuster – easy for the democrats of this Congress as they rule with a 55-45
majority, taking into account the two independents who caucus with the
Democrats.
Such an unheard
of power grab will forever alter the fabric and landscape of the United States
Senate, a legislative body which prided itself on debate since the Founding
Fathers established it so the rights of the minority would not be trampled upon
– words with which then Senator Barack Obama agreed in 2005.
“In the long
run, it is not a good result for either party. One day Democrats will be in the
majority again and this rule change will be no fairer to a Republican minority
that it is to a Democratic minority,” said Obama in 2005.
“A deliberate
and determined effort to obstruct everything, no matter what the merits, just
to refight the results of an election is not normal,” said Obama vociferously
applauding the rule change on November 21, 2013.
As usual,
Obama is whining about the fact that his nominees are not getting rubber
stamped, when they obviously leave something to be desired. Perhaps he needs to
take the advice doled out by then Senator Hillary Clinton (D-NY) when she
opposed this very power grab attempted by the GOP, although it never came to
fruition.
“If you cannot
get 60 votes for a nominee, maybe you should think about who you are sending to
us to be confirmed,” said Clinton on May 23, 2005. “Remember our Founders, and
maintain the integrity of the Senate,” continued Clinton in opposition.
A month prior,
on April 13, 2005, Obama chided the GOP, saying “I urge all of us to think not
just about winning every debate, but about protecting free and democratic
debate…. It certainly [is] not what the patriots who founded this democracy had
in mind.”
Former Senator
and current Vice President Joe Biden (D-DE) also opposed then what he approves
now. “This is the single most significant vote any one of us will cast in my 32
years in the Senate… This nuclear option is ultimately an example of the
arrogance of power… designed to change the reading of the Constitution. Has any
party been so bold as to fundamentally attempt to change the structure of this
body,” Biden asked on May 23, 2005.
Biden’s choice
of words was prophetically ironic as presidential candidate Obama campaigned in
2008 on his desire to fundamentally change the entirety of the United States –
not just one half of its legislative branch.
This vote on
the rule change pertaining to filibusters will most assuredly create an even
deeper fissure between Senate Democrats and Senate Republicans. It will not
solve problems.
“They
[Democrats] succeeded and they will pay a very, very, heavy price for it,” said
Senator John McCain (R-AZ).
“You’ll regret
this and you may regret it a lot sooner than you think,” said Senate Minority
Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY).
“It is another
partisan political maneuver to permit the Democratic majority to whatever it
wants to do, and in this case it is to advance the President’s regulatory
agenda and the only cure for it that I know is an election,” said Senator Lamar
Alexander (R-TN).
The following Democratic senators are hypocrites having opposed in 2005 what they voted to enact in 2013:
The following Democratic senators are hypocrites having opposed in 2005 what they voted to enact in 2013:
Max Baucus (MT)* Bob
Menendez (NJ)
Barbara Boxer (CA) Barbara
Mikulski (MD)Maria Cantwell (WA) Patty Murray (WA)
Tom Carper (DE) Bill Nelson (FL)
Dick Durbin (IL)* Jack Reed (RI)*
Dianne Feinstein (CA) Harry Reid (NV)
Tom Harkin (IA)* Jay Rockefeller (WV)*
Tim Johnson (SD)* Chuck Schumer (NY)
Mary Landrieu (LA)* Debbie Stabenow (MI)
Pat Leahy (VT) Ron Wyden (OR)
* Term expires January 2015
These Democratic senators are also up for reelection in
2014:
Mark Begich (AK) Jeff Merkley
(OR)
Cory Booker (NJ) Mark
Pryor (AR)Chris Coons (DE) Jeanne Shaheen (NH)
Al Franken (MN) Mark Udall (CO)
Kay Hagan (NC) Tom Udall (NM)
Carl Levin (MI) Mark Warner (VA)
Edward Markey (MA)
Each of these senators, save for Levin and Pryor, voted
to deny minority rights to the Republicans, and they should pay the price in
next November’s midterm election.
It is up to we
the people to deny the Democrats any further destruction of American political
and historical precedent dating back to 1789 by making them the minority party
following the 2014 midterm elections. This nuclear option has gone too far and
no party should be without recourse, even in the case of just filibustering
presidential nominees.
Do not sit
idly by as one by one rights continue to fall by the wayside. Fight to defeat
those who have cavalierly moved toward tyranny, by commandeering the right of
the minority party to filibuster against those nominees they deem unworthy of
filling the post for which they have been nominated. Send a message that their
votes have consequences.
Sanford D. Horn is a writer and educator living in
Westfield, IN.
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