To understand how Senator Feingold managed to pull this off calls for a primer on the arcana of Senate procedure. Debate cannot be terminated and measures voted on unless 60 senators vote for “cloture.” Consequently, senators can block legislation by filibustering until a sufficient number of senators vote to end debate and proceed to a vote.
The senator who would provide the sixtieth vote has enormous bargaining leverage as she is in a position to extract changes to the underlying bill in exchange for her support. Generally, the best way to build a coalition for a liberal proposal is to secure the votes of the 60 most liberal senators. So in this scenario the pivotal senator is the 60th most liberal. With the death of senator Robert Byrd, this position is held by the ever so slightly more conservative of the two Maine senators, Susan Collins (Olympia Snowe is #59 most liberal; Feingold is #1).
***As it turns out, there were real consequences of Feingold forcing Brown into the pivot position. One of the provisions to come out of the House-Senate conference was a levy on large financial firms to pay for the costs of financial regulation. This provision was quickly dubbed a “bank tax”. As a result, Brown, who had supported the earlier Senate version, began to waver. The provision not only ran counter to his ideological opposition to anything resembling a tax increase, but would have been costly to large financial firms in Brown’s home state.
In the aftermath of Byrd’s death, a defection by Brown would necessitate picking up both Democrats who had opposed the original Senate bill, Feingold and Washington’s Maria Cantwell. Cantwell came around, Feingold didn’t, and the bank tax was gone. As a result, $19 billion in costs were shifted from the banks to the taxpayer. Feingold has performed the legislative equivalent of voting for Nader in Florida in the 2000 presidential election: standing on principle only to get an outcome he couldn’t possibly have wanted.
In this era of polarized politics, the ideologically-driven behavior of our political leaders is often lamented. But in the end, both progressives and conservatives normally make short-term compromises with their principles in order to achieve some of their long-term goals. Senator Feingold’s unwillingness to do the same has resulted in the equivalent of yet another bank bailout.
And before this devolves into another idiotic thread accusing me of hippy-punching, let me restate that I would probably have rather had Feingold’s dream bill. I would have supported the Feingold dream bill. I would have voted for it. At this point, my distaste for the FIRE community is so great I would support public decimation. If Bernie Sanders said “let’s nationalize the banks,” my immediate response would be “when do we start.”
But dreams aren’t real, and in the real world, numbers matter. There are 60 prima donnas in the Senate, they have set their rules up so that they have more power than the House, and in the short term there just isn’t much that can change that. This has been one of the maddening aspects of being a Democrat the last couple of years- the constant harping about what people wish for as opposed to what is possible. As my platoon sergeant was fond of saying, “wish in one hand and shit in the other and tell me which one fills up first.”
Jude
My grandmother said that to me all the time. Somehow, I never took her up on that.
Culture of Truth
But he’s so pure and dreamy!
Downpuppy
I’d have guessed about 40. You could set up a Lieberman scale, where anything over .2 is a prima donna.
RSR
I wonder if anything feasible will come out of this NN10 panel?
http://www.netrootsnation.org/node/1397
The Filibuster and Senate Reform
PANELISTS: Mimi Marziani, David Roberts, Sen. Tom Udall, David Waldman, Matthew Yglesias
wilfred
You’re conflating ‘wish for’ with ‘fight for’. Feingold fought for something and he lost. You’re arguing he should have given in sooner and settled for something less than ideal.
Fine. Start listing out the fail safe position for everything in advance so no one has to fight for anything.
Calming Influence
This is the origin of the phrase “I dealt myself a shitty hand.”
Quiddity
This 60-vote threshold is getting tiresome. It makes me wonder what would have happened (in an alternate universe) if the threshold hadn’t been lowered several decades ago from 67. Nothing – literally nothing – would get passed through the Senate.
Chad N Freude
To me, the the most important point is
I admire their principles, and I despise their suicidal unwillingness to compromise.
General Stuck
Three words — Bully Pulpit
General Stuck
@Quiddity:
60 prima donnas
41 – insane personnel
Punchy
No, that was Billy Joe Armstrong (Green Day)
Waynski
But… for all the preening, they’ve gotten quite a bit done. It’s a legislative foundation to build on. It took 35-40 years from FDR forward for the Democrats to get the social legislation they wanted, and they didn’t get all of it. It took 30 years for the Republicans to get their deregulation, borrow and spend, kill brown people, I’ve got mine screw you agenda through, and they didn’t get all of it. This was never going to be fixed in 18 months, but we need to keep the pressure on. If we lose the Congress, it’s a setback, but not the end. Politics is kind of like World Cup soccer. The ball moves slowly from left to right but it’s really very hard to score. I’d say we’ve done pretty well so far given the circumstances.
Shorter Waynski: @John Cole — This.
Chad N Freude
@wilfred: So fighting to the death is better than making the best peace deal you can when it becomes apparent that you’re going to die.
Omnes Omnibus
@Waynski: Waynski Johnson is right.
wilfred
@Chad N Freude:
No, but fighting for what’s right shouldn’t be subjected to political exigencies. Some things are zero sum in terms of morality and ethics; each person decides.
Calvin Jones and the 13th Apostle
@wilfred: People forget that Feingold was one of only eight Senators(besides Dorgan and Wellstone) that voted against Glass-Steagall repeal. So my guess is he thought this bill stunk to the high heavens.
Calvin Jones and the 13th Apostle
This is complete BS. Does McCarty think that the Federal Reserve will not bail out Goldman Sachs next time? Or that they won’t bail out Bank of America next time? They will despite whatever the law says. And who is responsible for the Fed’s actions ultimately? The tax payer.
mistermix
@Calvin Jones and the 13th Apostle: This is a centerpiece of Feingold apologetics, but really, so what? Being right over a decade ago is not an inoculation for being wrong now.
Justin
Totally Agree.
The only way Feingold could oppose the bill in good conscience is if passing the bill was worse than not passing it.
But I never heard him make that argument. He just claimed that the bill didn’t go far enough. Which is correct, just a mediocre financial bill was still better than no legislation.
grandpajohn
well we have to remember there was a time in our past when it was accepted that the people we elected to represent us were competent, intelligent men and women of integrity who accepted their duties as elected officials seriously and were assumed to be of good character so that the put the welfare of the country and the people we elected them above their own selfish political ambitions. Unfortunately that is another of those archaic remembrances from the past that has passed into extinction along with the the idea that to call oneself a conservative meant that they actually ascribed to a conservative philosophy
wilfred
@Justin:
Here the argument is: “Oh, we can fix it later.”
We won’t. temporary solutions tend to become permanent.
General Stuck
Baloney. There is never zero sum in regulation of private industry. Especially the economy. No one can even define what the sum is, much less zero, short of banning all human interaction.
Politics in a democracy, and double for one with strong protections for minority rights, is the art of compromise, and what is possible, within explicit numerical parameters.
Zero sum only becomes viable when politics by other means is the vehicle of desire.
That said, I like the fact there are actors who make public stands of dissent for the ideal, so long as progress is not abandoned completely, for sake of the ideal.
John S.
@wilfred:
Life is just an endless series of determining which hills to die upon, eh?
John S.
Tell that to Social Security and Medicare.
Here your argument is another installment of “the perfect is the enemy of the good”.
wilfred
@John S.:
A bit existential for my taste but for politics, why not?
A man’s reach should exceed his grasp…etc.
Guster
What did your platoon sergeant say about long-term strategy vs. short-term gains?
I don’t know if I agree with Feingold on this, but a) if he came around, I’m almost certain the bill would magically have turned out just as shitty as it is now (no ‘bank tax’ because of any of the other usual suspects suddenly developing qualms) and b) how do you build a block of liberal Senators whose approval is necessary to move legislation without first establishing that you’re simply not gonna vote for crap?
I suspect Feingold feels that if nobody is willing to demand _good_ legislation, it’ll never happen. It’s hard to argue with that. And maybe he feels his only real choice is between compromising on crappy legislation (that probably turns out no better than if he didn’t compromise) and making a ridiculous and unhelpful stand, in the bizarre hope that other senators will realize that voting on principle is at least an _option_, no matter how Unserious.
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
Liberal Lions who have little or no idea how the Senate actually works are an old and hallowed Democratic tradition. For grins and giggles go back and read the account of the struggles over a civil rights bill during the 1950s as retold by Robert Caro in Master of the Senate and then tell me if Paul Douglas from that era doesn’t remind you of a few somebodys we know and mostly love today.
Also, cloture is not the only weapon wielded by reactionaries in the Senate. The committee system is another big part of it – and how much attention, even on liberal blogs, does anybody pay to who gets assigned to which committee and subcommittee? That is where the basic landscape over which most bills will be fought is determined, long before they become news. If there are 100 ways to leave your lover, there are 101 ways to fuck the American people over in the Senate.
Plus ca change.
wilfred
Ok. Let’s say minimum wage: agreed.
Slave labor?
Brien Jackson
@Guster:
This. Is. Fucking. Stupid.
I mean really, where do people even come up with this? I mean honestly, do you actually believe that if Russ Feingold, Sherrod Brown, and half a dozen other progressives hold their breath until they’re blue in the face, Ben Nelson and Senate Republicans are going to decide to support more progressive financial regulations? How in the name of blue fuck all does that work out?
tim
My understanding is that if Reid had the balls and/or spine, he could force the Republicans to ACTUALLY DO A REAL LIVE FILLIBUSTER WITH REAL LIVE, AROUND THE CLOCK TALKING, instead of this tea sipping, gentlemen’s agreement bullshit they’ve got going now.
Sure, pukes would bitch, but who the hell cares?
Is this erroneous? Is there someway in which Reid is LEGALLY barred from dong this? Or is he just being polite and allowing the pukes to lay waste to the country?
Allan
@Calvin Jones and the 13th Apostle:
I lived in Madison during the 80s, and I voted for Feingold in his first runs for elective office. I agree with him politically on most issues. And I’m very disappointed with the legislator he turned out to be.
You look at his Glass-Steagall vote as proof of his righteousness, but you can also see it as an example of his inability to influence his caucus.
Bernie Sanders was able to substantially improve HCR even though he’s way to the left of his colleagues. He went in with something that mattered to him, got it included, and supported the final legislation.
If he hadn’t gotten his way, do you think he would have opposed the legislation? Do you think he would have voted against his own caucus on PROCEDURAL cloture votes? Or would he have made sure it came to a vote, then voted his conscience on the bill only if the legislation could pass without him?
Leonard Stiltskin
@wilfred:
You can’t possibly be this dense.
Had Feingold realized he’d lost the battle, he could have reconsidered his no vote upon realizing the “bank tax” was going away in exchange for Brown’s vote. His principles would have been well-publicized, he would have ensured a better bill, and he would be rewarded for his ability to compromise.
El Cid
I’d be willing to accept that Feingold’s actions made it impossible to pass the bank tax to help pay for FinReg; however, had he not, I think another Democratic Senator would have grandstanded to remove it. Not that Feingold is relieved of all responsibility, but this is a systematic game, and Feingold’s dance lightened the load for the more flagrant servants of Wall Street.
J.W. Hamner
I certainly agree that with your analysis John, and tend to think that progressives don’t really have a strong grasp of the legislative realities of our messed up system… but the obvious counter argument is that the compromised legislation was “worse than doing nothing”… I don’t think that stands up to any serious scrutiny, but it’s gotta be Fiengold’s position I’d imagine (I have not checked).
Chad N Freude
@Guster: You’re overlooking
If Feingold had compromised, presumably the “bank tax” would have remained in the passed bill.
Brien Jackson
@tim:
Yes, it’s completely, 100% erroneous, as we’ve covered about a million times.
Chad N Freude
@Leonard Stiltskin:
This statement is incorrect.
Brien Jackson
@J.W. Hamner:
No, Feingold has said that he thinks the bill is good, just not good enough.
LarsThorwald
Omnibus Omnibus Johnson is right that Waynski Johnson is right!
wilfred
@Leonard Stiltskin:
You’re talking about a specific case; I’m interested in the principle.
The summary of which is: find out who the last vote is and cater to his/her desire. This is ‘pragmatic’, apparently.
I think it’s negative. Look at the vote for the Iraq War, apply the principle and discuss in pragmatic terms.
Brien Jackson
@wilfred:
How in the fucking hell could a vote on a resolution to use military force against another country possibly compare to a package of regulations on an industry?
Mike in NC
If there’s a photo of this, I don’t want to see it.
CalD
According to the National Journal, Sherrod Brown, Roland Burris, Ben Cardin, Jack Reed and Sheldon Whitehouse tie for most liberal senators in terms of actual voting behavior. Russ Feingold ranks 55th, behind Jim Webb, Joe Leiberman, Blanche Lincoln and Byron Dorgan. I’d love to dig into the internals on their methodology in reaching those conclusions a little more but in general, it would come as no surprise to me that words often do speak louder than deeds in informing our perceptions of people.
Corner Stone
I’m not sure why we bother with the Senate. We could save a lot of money and time by finding out what Brown, Snowe and Collins will accept and then shape legislation out of that.
Maybe rename it The Triumvirate or something snappy and Roman sounding.
Anyone who thinks that bank tax was ever going to be in the final bill really does believe in unicorns.
Laertes
I’m frustrated with Feingold’s posturing too. I wonder, though, if he can credibly threaten to withhold his vote on important bills if he doesn’t, from time to time, actually follow through on the threat.
I’m trying not to fall into the trap of being angry at the White House for not taking liberals seriously, while at the same time being angry at liberals for occasionally refusing to cave.
Why should only the self-styled “moderates” get to apply any leverage?
Chad N Freude
@El Cid:
So it’s OK for one senator to scuttle a bill on principle because another senator would then scuttle it for “grandstanding” points. I guess then that there’s no reason to bend or yield to save what one can.
General Stuck
@wilfred:
Jeebus wilfred. It’s too early to be sniffing glue.
wilfred
@Brien Jackson:
It’s a mechanism that’s being discussed. Try to think a little bit.
If you don’t like the war vote comaprison try the latest defense spending measures. Again, does the same mechanism apply there, too?
Let’s be pragmatic, not dreamy.
wilfred
@General Stuck:
Seems to me a clear example of zero sum morality being applied to regulation of private industry. No?
Brien Jackson
@Laertes:
The problem with this is that it ignores the effect different levels of passion have on leverage. It was the same problem with healthcare: there was no way for progressives to credibly threaten Blue Dogs, because the latter was perfectly fine with the status quo prevailing. It’s not that progressives should never make themselves headaches in the Senate or leverage their position the same way the centrists do, it’s that to do this effectively you have to do it on issues where the centrists care about getting something passed, not something they’re ambivalent about.
Brien Jackson
@wilfred:
Is someone proposing to repeal the 13th amendment? Seems like I would have heard about that.
Zifnab
@Chad N Freude: On that I don’t really know. Brown wasn’t the only Senator with a home state banking industry. Could Nelson have stepped up as a spoiler? Could one of the Maine twins backed out, like Snow did repeatedly during the health care debate? Would Lieberman have been the spoiler, like he was for the public option? Perhaps Lincoln would have liked to regain her banking creds?
If it really was just an issue of getting the 60th Senator – Collins – and the 1st Senator – Feingold – on the same page, why didn’t they shove both of those people in a room and figure out a compromise? Why insist on bringing in Brown?
Maybe there’s some backrooming in the Senate I simply never got to see. Maybe Feingold’s foot-dragging really did do the tax in. But it feels to me like more than a few of those 60 “liberal” Senators would have been happy to see the bank tax die, and Brown was just a really good excuse to drop the axe.
MattR
Am I the only one who thinks a mountain is being made of a $19 billion molehill? It is kinda sad to say, but that kind of money is peanuts in the grand scheme of things. And when you add this tidbit as well, I just cant get too upset with Feingold for standing on principles
J.W. Hamner
@Brien Jackson:
Well if that’s his position then he made a pretty bad tactical decision, which doesn’t seem to be arguable… and it belies the assertion some made (nobody specific in mind here) that a progressive block of Senators could have forced a public option into the ACA… no, they could have either gotten nothing or gotten something that appealed to Scott Brown, Susan Collins, and Olympia Snowe (i.e. something vastly more terrible).
Socraticsilence
@wilfred:
So true that’s why Social Security generally excludes women and black people to this day!
General Stuck
@wilfred:
For hysterical analysis maybe. But no need for it in the current Finreg bill. Or any other, for that matter. AT least here in murrica 2010.
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
@tim:
Nobody has to stand on the floor reading the phone book unless they really want to do that as a stunt (like Strom did in 1957). There are numerous parliamentary tricks that can be used to extend debate on the Senate floor by diverting the discussion into a recursive maze of various questions, motions, etc. Those can of course be blocked by the leadership, but in most cases doing so requires a unanimous consent agreement – i.e. every Senator has to agree, including the very one who is trying to delay the pressing business, which is of couse absurd and never happens.
So in practice a determined minority can stall a bill in the Senate indefinately without anything so obvious and media attention grabbing as an old fashioned reading books on the floor style filibuster.
My home state Senator Tom Udall is one of those who are trying to do something to change the rules, I suggest you offer your support to him and the others who are working on that problem. They can use it.
wilfred
@Brien Jackson:
He said: There is never zero sum in regulation of private industry.
I gave him an example. Is this really so difficult to follow?
Chad N Freude
@Zifnab: We can’t know, but Feingold could have reluctantly supported the bill instead of guaranteeing more weakening of the bill.
Guster
@Chad N Freude:
I don’t believe it would have, though. I think it would’ve evaporated when another Senator suddenly played Lucy. Could be wrong, of course, but it’s not a wildly unlikely theory, is it?
Again, I’m not sure I agree with Feingold, but the majority theory is:
a) Always compromise to achieve the least-crappy option available at the moment.
b)
c) Pass good laws!
That’s not really supportable long-term. It’s a recipe for passing crappy-yet-better-than-nothing bills which don’t really fix any problem.
Feingold’s theory (or what I’m pretending is this theory, despite not knowing) is more like this:
a) Refuse to compromise principles by voting for whatever less-crappy option is available at the moment.
b)
c) Pass good laws!
That’s may be an equally nonsensical theory, but it’s not necessarily worse. And yet some Very Serious Commenters here seems to believe it’s outrageously transparently awful.
Brien Jackson
@wilfred:
No, it’s just so disconnected from reality as to be totally irrelevant.
wilfred
@General Stuck:
Again, I can’t contest the specifics in this case, although I would have done the same thing Feingold did, for reason too long to enter into here.
What I object to is this:
I don’t necessarily disagree. What I’m interested in is how and why the process of compromise is achieved.
Pragmatics? Materialism? Idealism?
Chad N Freude
@Guster: Like I said a few comments above, Feingold’s reluctant support of the bill would have left open the possibility of its remaining intact; his refusal to support it guaranteed that it would not.
ETA: Bad grammar, but you know what I mean.
General Stuck
@wilfred:
Likely all three, that when added up, must add up to 60 votes, or you get nothing. And when citizens suspect their president and/or the congressional actors are blowing smoke up their asses, they can vote them out. That is the system. That is democracy. And as long as we have free and fair elections, the people as a whole get the government they want, and likely deserve. Now the question of having a well informed public to make those calculations is a different subject. Ie The Fourth Estate in informing the public, and the public interested enough to pay attention. Both of these are wanting in this country, for sure, but they are separate from the numbers involved actually operating the levers of power.
Roger Moore
@tim:
Your understanding is incorrect. The current Senate rules only allow two ways to move to a floor vote: unanimous consent or a 60% vote for cloture. If Reid can’t get 60%- and it’s 60% of the whole Senate, not 60% of those present- he can’t get a vote. All it takes is one Republican on the floor- and 40 more who refuse to vote for cloture- to block a vote. If the motion being debated can’t be voted on, the Senate will move on to other business. There’s no way to force the Republicans to stand up and talk.
Stillwater
As a result, $19 billion in costs were shifted from the banks to the taxpayer.
I don’t know what the big deal is about this. McMegan just crunched the numbers:
the cheery estimate is a gain of 19 billion, which sounds like a lot in terms of my income, but is, in terms of our national income, it’s very little. I wouldn’t sneeze at $0.65, or $6500, or even $65, but it’s much less than the average person spends on a pizza party, or fast food in a year, or some other useless shit they don’t really need.
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
@Brien Jackson:
Unfortunately Robert Byrd’s dual tracking system took away most of that leverage. In pre-1975 days a filibuster was a game of chicken – those filibustering prevented the Senate from getting anybody’s business done, which means that votes on cloture had an impact on bills that centrists wanted passed – especially things like farm bills, highway bills, military industrial complex spending, etc. Which is probably why filibusters were so rare back then.
With benefit of hindsight it looks like dual tracking may very well have been a big mistake for liberals, because it took away that leverage, and now the centrist Senators don’t have to answer to anybody but their home state voters, subject to the corrupting effects of sweet, sweet campaign donations.
Geeno
My mother uses that expression all the time, but I don’t think she ever served.
DougJ
Or 6. Or 600. Whatever.
Brien Jackson
@ThatLeftTurnInABQ:
But if there’s something centrist Dems want and need at least a few of the 10 most progressive Senators or whatever to support to pass, the progressives can still bloc up and demand various concessions for their support.
The point is that you can’t threaten to kill yourself as a negotiating strategy if the other guy doesn’t give a damn if you’re alive or dead.
J.W. Hamner
@Guster:
Well, history shows that:
a) Always compromise to achieve the least-crappy option available at the moment.
b) Reform law to be better (repeat as necessary)
c) Have good laws!
Does in fact work. As has already been mentioned, Social Security and such went through this long process.
Whereas, sticking to principles on HCR over the decades instead of compromising has led to manifestly more crappy solutions each and every time.
Perhaps there is an example of legislation where refusing to compromise and passing nothing has led to a more progressive solution in subsequent attempts, but I have yet to see it presented.
Waynski
@tim: My guess is that there are plenty of Democrats in his caucus who object to forcing an actual filibuster, because if they lose control, the Republicans would make them do it every single fucking time they wanted to filibuster, not just on more visible legislation. It wouldn’t surprise me if the Rethugs haven’t made an explicit or implicit threat to do exactly that.
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
@Brien Jackson:
The best target for that tactic would probably be the defense authorization bill.
duck-billed placelot
So two Senators were the possible 60th vote, and one of them got what they wanted. Do you really think that Feingold wasn’t negotiating? Or is it more likely that the Senate would rather pass a bill with Republican support than DFH support? Particularly Republican support that allows them to turn around to their major campaign contributors (Wall St/banks) and say, “See, see what we did for you? We made this bill SO MUCH NICER for you!”
If there is ever a choice, you know Democratic leadership is happy to go with the ‘center’.
Tom Hilton
@wilfred: WTF does “fight for” mean? It’s one of those phrases that seems to be sacred to a certain breed of manic progressive but is never actually defined in any practical way.
You know how Ted Kennedy “fought for” things? He made deals. He schmoozed. He made friends. He built long-term relationships with his colleagues that were more valuable than any one vote on any one bill. And he wound up as one of the most effective senators in recent history.
And from what I’ve heard, that’s exactly what Feingold doesn’t do.
So tell me: when people say Feingold “fights for” his principles, WTF is it he actually does?
wilfred
@Tom Hilton:
‘Fight for’ implies zero sum, i.e. you win or lose but you don’t compromise.
One historical example is the Missouri Compromise. The opposite was the Civil War.
Tom Hilton
@wilfred: I don’t care about the philosophy behind the phrase; I want to know what it entails in practical terms.
wilfred
@ThatLeftTurnInABQ:
Specifically the Supplemental, held up because of doubts about the war in Afghanistan. Thus:
What was the non-Feingoldian play here?
Chad N Freude
@Tom Hilton: Obviously, you haven’t seen the videos of senators in gladiatorial combat. “I will fight / am fighting / have fought for you” has always chafed me for precisely this reason. Its purpose is to conjure up the image of my brave legislator risking life and limb to pursue my interests. It has no meaning beyond that.
wilfred
@Tom Hilton:
That’s fair. The point of this discussion, to me anyway, is that if I had the chance to ask a politician one question it would be this:
“I know you have to compromise. On what you will base your compromising?”
Practical decisions are motivated by philosophical/moral/ethical positions. Thought precedes action.
Thus, for example, I prefer a Senator who says that he or she will not vote for war unless the United States is attacked and that he or she is prepared to lose a vote on war rather than compromise for, say, a lesser war.
Guster
@J.W. Hamner: An example of legislation where refusing to compromise and passing nothing might’ve led to a more progressive solution in subsequent attempts would be something like: the AUMF, the PATRIOT Act, the Military Commissions Act, the repeal of Glass-Swhatever (I don’t really know if that one fits), etc., etc., etc.
Every crappy abusive law, every giveaway to neocons and Big Oil, every corporatist shitstorm of legislation, has been better than some alternative.
Would health care legislation be better now if a few leftie Senators expressed a willingness to shitcan any awful legislation starting twenty years ago? If they’d tried to accumulate power like the Gang of 14 (or whatever) has, instead of trying to accumulate crappy-but-we’ll-fit-it-later solutions?
I don’t know. Maybe not. But maybe.
That’s what bugs me, the absolute certainty. We’ve had Democrats compromising for as long as I’ve been politically aware. Maybe you think things are getting better all the time, but I’m not convinced.
danimal
Remember, Feingold SUPPORTED THE GOP FILIBUSTER. He could have voted against the bill without anyone raising an eyebrow. It’s the support for the GOP filibuster that really rankles.
Feingold’s vote was foolish if we are to believe his public statements that he liked the bill but that it didn’t do enough. He’s not the best poker player, that’s for sure.
NR
This entire argument rests on the flawed assumption that this financial “reform” bill is something to cheer about. It isn’t, unless you happen to work on Wall Street.
It does not restore Glass-Steagall and force the separation of investment banks from depository banks.
It doesn’t even attempt to address “too big to fail” but it does guarantee that banks will still be bailed out.
It has enough loopholes to make derivatives regulation meaningless.
And the Consumer Protection Bureau is run by the fucking Fed. That’s the same organization that championed financial deregulation in the first place.
Oh, and the part of the bill that would audit the Fed was removed.
The only victory here was for Wall Street. And pretending otherwise for the sake of yet another hippie-punching fest only helps guarantee that we’ll see even more crappy legislation in the future.
Tom Hilton
@wilfred: two problems with this:
1) If you care about outcomes, then beyond a certain (fairly low) threshhold of ideological compatibility, effectiveness is far more important than further agreement. All the best intentions mean nothing if you aren’t effective in making them (or as much of them as possible) practical reality; Barbara Lee probably agrees with me more often than Nancy Pelosi, but Pelosi is by far the more valuable Representative. Feingold may say things people like, but he hasn’t been very effective in turning those things into positive outcomes.
2) Your war example isn’t really germane, because we aren’t talking about bills that (in our view) clearly make things worse; we’re talking about what to do with bills that make things somewhat better, but maybe not as better as we would like. The way someone (like Feingold) chooses in the former case tells us nothing useful about how he or she will choose in the latter case.
sacman701
Feingold has been in the Senate for 18 years and still acts like Holden Caulfield. He doesn’t understand that the time to play devil’s advocate is when you’re in the minority. When you’re in the majority, you need to govern.
CalD
It occurs to me that I ran across a diary at OpenLeft (of all places) last night that speaks pretty eloquently to this discussion. Definitely worth a read:
http://www.openleft.com/diary/16701/why-bipartisanship-cant-work-right-now-the-other-axis
J.W. Hamner
@Guster:
The AUMF passed with 77 Senate votes (29 Dems) and the PATRIOT Act with 98 Senate votes. I don’t think progressives’ adherence to their principles was really a factor in either of those two. The Military Commissions Act was closer with 65 votes (12 Dem)… but I doubt you’d be able to find 6 progressive Dem Senators in those 12 to stop it.
Allan
@Brien Jackson:
The problem is, Brien, what centrist Dems want is to avoid voting on legislation. They want to be elected and re-elected on vague promises to stand up for the little guy without ever having to actually do anything that might piss their corporate owners off.
That’s why they hate the real Dems, because they keep forcing them to vote on stuff.
Dr.BDH
@Chad N Freude:
So Ralph Nader was the attorney who convinced the Supreme Court to give the election to Bush? Or was Ralph Nader the invisible 10th Supreme who moved the Court towards Bush? Or was Ralph Nader the Constitutional scholar who provided the rationale for ignoring the Florida constitution so as to give the election to Bush? See, votes for Ralph Nader didn’t caused Gore to lose the election. We know from post-election counts that Gore won. So this analogy points up the ignoranceof McCarty et al on the history of the 2000 election. As others haven’t already pointed out, they also seem ignorant of how the push and pull of the Senate actually works and that losing doesn’t mean in hindsight that it was obvious how you could’ve won.
BTD
I think the article is factually incorrect. This is wrong:
“As it turns out, there were real consequences of Feingold forcing Brown into the pivot position. One of the provisions to come out of the House-Senate conference was a levy on large financial firms to pay for the costs of financial regulation. This provision was quickly dubbed a “bank tax”. As a result, Brown, who had supported the earlier Senate version, began to waver. The provision not only ran counter to his ideological opposition to anything resembling a tax increase, but would have been costly to large financial firms in Brown’s home state.”
It was out before Feingold stated his position.
FTR, I think Feingold was wrong in his position.
Also FTR, I think this is an inconsequential bill.
CalD
@CalD: I should have mentioned that I didn’t actually think their premise supported their conclusion. I’d cheerfully argue that anyone who strays too close to the bottom that second graph is of no real use (at best) to anyone including themselves. But I did think the premise itself was a useful way of thinking about this subject.
Nick
@wilfred:
he never gave in at all, and because of that, Scott Brown got to decide what the bill looks like instead of Russ Feingold.
Nick
@BTD:
No it wasn’t. Brown came out against it before Feingold stated his position. Once he stated his position, it had to go back to conference and changed.
Nick
@Quiddity:
that’s precisely why they lowered it to 60. i think it should be gone altogether, but there are literally like 10 Senators who support that. Among the ones who don’t are St. Russ of Madison.
Nick
@Chad N Freude: he didn’t have to support it, he just had to vote for fucking cloture;
Nick
@Calvin Jones and the 13th Apostle:
Except he praised parts of the bill…but again, he didn’t have to vote for it, all he had to do IS VOTE FOR CLOTURE.
and, oh btw, Dorgan didn’t seem to have any issues with it
Nick
@wilfred:
which, of course, is why we never abolished slavery after the Kansas-Nebraska Act, minorities still don’t get Social Security, we only ever had one Civil Rights Act,
Nick
@wilfred: Because the Civil War was a lot more awesome than the Missouri Compromise.
Nick
@NR:
tim
@Brien Jackson:
bullshit. Reid could make them do a real fillibuster if he had the cajones.
Oh, and who’s “we?”
also fuck you
tim
@ThatLeftTurnInABQ:
thank you for the nonbeligerent explanation; I appreciate it.