U.S. Senate

“Partisan gridlock” is to blame for the failure of “jobs bills” from each party.

Which partisans, exactly?

Senate Democrats on Thursday came up nine votes short of the 60 needed to advance their infrastructure bill past a key procedural hurdle. The vote was 51-49, with all Republicans and two members of the Democratic caucus — Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) and Ben Nelson (D-Neb.) — voting no.

What happened is that the big jobs bill “failed” in the Senate despite receiving more than 50 votes because of the Republican tactic of effectively filibustering everything. So Democrats split the big bill into smaller bills, which have also failed because every single Republican plus independent Sen. Joe Lieberman and conservative Democrat Ben Nelson joined Republicans in refusing to invoke cloture, thus preventing the bills from actually coming to a real vote. The Republican “jobs bill” is a “jobs bill” in name only, and was presented solely so that Republicans could claim to have a “jobs bill.” Also, Ben Nelson and Joe Lieberman are trolls who hate the Democratic Party and constantly work against its interests.

The press has helpfully enabled Republican Senate obstructionism by reporting on it as if bills “losing” despite winning 51 percent of the vote is totally normal and acceptable.

The problem, basically, is that “Republicans continue now-normalized practice of abuse of Senate procedure to block popular jobs bills because they object to raising taxes on rich people and wish to deny the president legislative victories” does not sound as objective as “Both parties block jobs bills.”

But even by the sorry standards of the mainstream press, this story is ridiculous. Both parties have jobs bills, both parties block jobs bills, and the concept of “partisan gridlock” has somehow gained sentience and agency and now works to defeat popular legislation independent of the actions and desires of actual human legislators!

Senator Nelson, you have never been a “positive force” during your time in office thus far, and it seems unlikely that you will become one at any point in the next six years.

Please, retire quietly, or even with an alternately self-righteous and self-pitying editorial about the death of “bipartisanship” and “civility” and “Senate decorum.” Promise to devote yourself to good deeds outside of office and then get rich lobbying for the corporate interests that currently sponsor you, I don’t care. Just get out of office, because you are horrible. You’re a miserable excuse for a senator. You have made millions of people’s lives worse in real and tangible ways, and you will continue to do so as long as you remain in the United States Senate.

You opposed capping ATM fees because you are so old and rich and stupid that you have never used an ATM. “I know about the holograms,” you said in your defense, because you’re a useless fool.

You joined the cadre of “centrist” Democrats who attempted to sabotage every major legislative priority of the Democratic Congressional majority, and you went back and forth on the public option before definitively coming out against it and the hugely popular “Medicare buy-in” compromise. Then you won a sweetheart Medicaid funding deal solely for Nebraska that almost killed the entire healthcare reform bill and led to everyone in the country calling you venal and corrupt.

And you opposed a measure to stop federally subsidizing usurious private student loan providers — calling a money-saving anti-corporate welfare proposal “a government takeover of student lending” — because you think representing the interests of usurious lending institutions that donate millions to your campaigns is actually an example “being constructive” and “finding solutions.”

You supported the Stupak Amendment, voted for the anti-gay marriage amendment, and supported the Iraq war. You supported both horrible, wasteful Bush tax cuts.

You have no major legislative accomplishments, either. Not one! I can’t name a single important bill you ever sponsored or co-sponsored and I suspect most other longtime Senate observers could, either. You are a failure as a Senator with no legacy to speak of beyond trolling your own party, repeatedly.

Consider this an official endorsement of your retirement from politics. Please go crawl into a hole.

Yours,
Alex

An American president’s most lasting legacy is often the courts he leaves behind. Future Congresses can nullify or alter laws, but judges serve as long as they like and a large enough group of like-minded ones can change the course of American politics entirely. Bush and Reagan’s judges have been pushing the nation rightward for years and they’ll continue to do so for decades.

But unprecedented Senate obstruction by the Republicans combined with Obama’s completely inexplicable lack of urgency have basically guaranteed that if Obama’s judicial legacy will be next to nil, should he end up being a one-term president. And the hope that Obama will be a one-term president basically removes any incentive the GOP has to confirm anyone he wants on the bench.

Pat Leahy is complaining about GOP stalling on judicial nominees, but Republicans like Chuck Grassley are easily able to craft arguments that allow the press to portray the problem as typical bipartisan bickering. That is, when the press reports on the Senate’s sorry inability to confirm federal judges at all.

Kamen, bless him, reports the most salient fact:

Here’s one bottom line: Obama’s confirmation rate for both circuit and district court nominees is a dismal 68 percent, compared with Bush’s 81 percent and Bill Clinton’s 82 percent.

Another crucial distinction the press tends to elide for fear of seeming biased: Obama tends to nominate exceptionally well-qualified and extremely uncontroversial moderates, while Bush devoted a great deal of energy to putting conservative activists on the courts.

But I imagine you won’t see a lot of headlines about how the Senate isn’t confirming judges next year. In part because there will be an exciting campaign to report on, but mostly because the Senate not doing things is now the status quo, and thus no longer newsworthy.