Obama's filibuster-proof majority
October 27, 2017 12:29 PM Subscribe
For six months in 2009-2010, the Democrats controlled the White House and the House of Representatives, and the Democratic Caucus held a filibuster-proof 3/5th majority in the Senate. This was when the Affordable Care Act was passed with zero Republican votes, an event regarded as Obama's signature achievement. But looking back, it's clear that many other Democratic legislative priorities did not come up for a vote during this brief window of opportunity.
To what extent was President Obama responsible for this, perhaps due to his famous yearning for civilized bipartisanship? Or, to what extent were individual senators such as Joe Lieberman responsible, because they opposed legislation that was otherwise popular with the Democratic caucus? Or, is it simply unreasonable to imagine that additional major legislation could have been passed in this period, especially since the end of the super-majority came suddenly with the surprise election of Scott Brown?
To what extent was President Obama responsible for this, perhaps due to his famous yearning for civilized bipartisanship? Or, to what extent were individual senators such as Joe Lieberman responsible, because they opposed legislation that was otherwise popular with the Democratic caucus? Or, is it simply unreasonable to imagine that additional major legislation could have been passed in this period, especially since the end of the super-majority came suddenly with the surprise election of Scott Brown?
I think most of the answer is that the Affordable Care Act is an enormous bit of legislation that has a tremendous impact on the economy and is itself a careful balancing act of mandates, regulations, subsidies and reimbursements to keep everything spinning. Getting all the Democratic senators on board with it was a huge effort, and making sure that the final product could be successful was a significant challenge. All that takes time. I do think it would be surprising to get many other major initiatives passed in that period, although I would include the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act as another notable piece of legislation.
And there's a big different between having 60 senators and having 60 votes for any particular piece of legislation. Major bills are controversial bills, with many competing special interests. Keeping every single person in your caucus on board isn't easy. It's not like they could just queue up a liberal wishlist and pass them one right after the other. It's not feasible.
posted by Pater Aletheias at 12:51 PM on October 27, 2017 [5 favorites]
And there's a big different between having 60 senators and having 60 votes for any particular piece of legislation. Major bills are controversial bills, with many competing special interests. Keeping every single person in your caucus on board isn't easy. It's not like they could just queue up a liberal wishlist and pass them one right after the other. It's not feasible.
posted by Pater Aletheias at 12:51 PM on October 27, 2017 [5 favorites]
In addition to the previous answers, I don't think Harry Reid was terribly worried about losing the seat when Kennedy got sick. The obvious outcomes would have been either Kennedy getting better (didn't look good as I recall, but) or another Democrat winning the next special election. Scott Brown winning that seat was about as likely as Doug Jones beating Roy Moore in Alabama next month. So rather than push the process (difficult, as stated above) and forcing Kennedy to come in for multiple votes, it would have seemed prudent to wait. After all, the Democrats had eighteen more months to exercise their majority.
In fact, I would guess that Reid was more concerned about keeping Lieberman and possibly Baucus on his side rather than the possibility of losing Massachusetts.
posted by five toed sloth at 1:55 PM on October 27, 2017 [2 favorites]
In fact, I would guess that Reid was more concerned about keeping Lieberman and possibly Baucus on his side rather than the possibility of losing Massachusetts.
posted by five toed sloth at 1:55 PM on October 27, 2017 [2 favorites]
I don't think that the fault is properly Obama's to bear. We don't have the Rayburns, Mansfields, O'Neills or the Johnsons as speakers of the House (or legislators with extensive experience in both houses) to guide the bill and the POTUS.
Robert A. Caro's biography of LBJ is telling. He tells us what it takes to become a Master of the Senate (with all due deference to Sen. Al Franken). Obama simply did not have the requisite experience. Asking a Harvard-trained lawyer to cut corners - absent substantial experience in the Congress - is not a reasonable request. (I witnessed of a clutch of Harvard Lawprofs dancing with joy when Obama accepted the party's nomination. Harvard opens doors that others don't know exist - and it also saddles one with the certainty that Harvard's training is flawless.)
Still, his signature accomplishment is far from trivial where nobody from Truman through Clinton managed to accomplish the feat. Obama's tenure left me wanting more.
He eventually adopted shortcuts and extralegal authority. I am no fan of his expansion of executive power; but, that legacy is shared with every POTUS since Coolidge.
posted by grolaw at 2:04 PM on October 27, 2017 [3 favorites]
Robert A. Caro's biography of LBJ is telling. He tells us what it takes to become a Master of the Senate (with all due deference to Sen. Al Franken). Obama simply did not have the requisite experience. Asking a Harvard-trained lawyer to cut corners - absent substantial experience in the Congress - is not a reasonable request. (I witnessed of a clutch of Harvard Lawprofs dancing with joy when Obama accepted the party's nomination. Harvard opens doors that others don't know exist - and it also saddles one with the certainty that Harvard's training is flawless.)
Still, his signature accomplishment is far from trivial where nobody from Truman through Clinton managed to accomplish the feat. Obama's tenure left me wanting more.
He eventually adopted shortcuts and extralegal authority. I am no fan of his expansion of executive power; but, that legacy is shared with every POTUS since Coolidge.
posted by grolaw at 2:04 PM on October 27, 2017 [3 favorites]
Another factor: they lost a ton of momentum getting the bailout and stimulus through right out of the gate.
posted by notyou at 2:06 PM on October 27, 2017 [3 favorites]
posted by notyou at 2:06 PM on October 27, 2017 [3 favorites]
The Matthew Shepard Act was passed during the six-month period [it had a couple GOP votes].
posted by melissasaurus at 2:22 PM on October 27, 2017 [3 favorites]
posted by melissasaurus at 2:22 PM on October 27, 2017 [3 favorites]
You can look at all the laws passed by any Congress, in order (but they’re in reverse order). Here’s the list from 2009-2010.
1. They sure do like naming post offices
2. Congress spends most of their time doing annual appropriations
3. They still got a decent amount done (62 public laws) before Kennedy died in late August. It’s hard to remember what some of these are about, but you get Ledbetter, ARRA, CHIP reauthorization, FAA extension, and some other stuff.
4. Big legislation takes time to figure out and to write. You have to get everybody on board.
posted by Huffy Puffy at 2:36 PM on October 27, 2017 [3 favorites]
1. They sure do like naming post offices
2. Congress spends most of their time doing annual appropriations
3. They still got a decent amount done (62 public laws) before Kennedy died in late August. It’s hard to remember what some of these are about, but you get Ledbetter, ARRA, CHIP reauthorization, FAA extension, and some other stuff.
4. Big legislation takes time to figure out and to write. You have to get everybody on board.
posted by Huffy Puffy at 2:36 PM on October 27, 2017 [3 favorites]
Theory: Obama was not interested in promoting meaningful change to the status quo.
Evidence: The filibuster-proof period you mentioned which was not used to push meaningful, progressive reform. The people he appointed to his cabinet after the first election (Goldman Sachs/Arnie Duncan/other neocons)
Obama was exceptionally civil and bipartisan as you mention, but there is little evidence that he personally wished for a more far reaching social-change agenda than the one he pursued - all the available evidence is to the contrary.
Another factor worth considering is the extremely thin-edge he walked as a black man. Any action, any sentiment voiced, was viewed and received through a racist lens. So he had enormous pressure to start from a place of extreme compromise. Having said that, I still don't see the evidence he was a progressive on a personal level.
posted by latkes at 4:28 PM on October 27, 2017 [9 favorites]
Evidence: The filibuster-proof period you mentioned which was not used to push meaningful, progressive reform. The people he appointed to his cabinet after the first election (Goldman Sachs/Arnie Duncan/other neocons)
Obama was exceptionally civil and bipartisan as you mention, but there is little evidence that he personally wished for a more far reaching social-change agenda than the one he pursued - all the available evidence is to the contrary.
Another factor worth considering is the extremely thin-edge he walked as a black man. Any action, any sentiment voiced, was viewed and received through a racist lens. So he had enormous pressure to start from a place of extreme compromise. Having said that, I still don't see the evidence he was a progressive on a personal level.
posted by latkes at 4:28 PM on October 27, 2017 [9 favorites]
I am with latkes. I am not so sure the assumption that he wanted to pass a whole lot more holds.
posted by AugustWest at 4:43 PM on October 27, 2017
posted by AugustWest at 4:43 PM on October 27, 2017
The Myth of the Filibuster-Proof Democratic Senate.
It was 72 days, not six months.
"All of this and we didn’t even talk about the unprecedented, deliberate, methodical obstructionism on the part of Republicans via the filibuster. "
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 5:46 PM on October 27, 2017 [7 favorites]
It was 72 days, not six months.
"All of this and we didn’t even talk about the unprecedented, deliberate, methodical obstructionism on the part of Republicans via the filibuster. "
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 5:46 PM on October 27, 2017 [7 favorites]
The environmental movement (or at least, the big environmental advocacy groups) put a ton of energy behind passing cap and trade legislation during this time. It passed in the house but then failed to come to a vote in the Senate. I think the problem was that they couldn't get the coal state Democrats on board, or enough Republicans to cross party lines. And the legislation itself was so weak (it was actually pretty close to something Republicans had proposed in the late 90s, like Obamacare) that I imagine those who could have been really strong champions just weren't excited enough about it to put a lot of energy behind pushing for it. And then on top of that, climate legislation was not really a priority, so a lot of the energy was put towards things like healthcare and the bailout.
posted by lunasol at 6:28 PM on October 27, 2017 [1 favorite]
posted by lunasol at 6:28 PM on October 27, 2017 [1 favorite]
By the way, I worked on that cap and trade legislation in a pretty minor way as staff for one of those advocacy organizations, and it was really striking how much went into getting a bill passed on a controversial issue. It is SUCH a huge endeavor, and most of the effort is not seen by the public. It's not surprising more things didn't get passed during this time.
posted by lunasol at 6:29 PM on October 27, 2017 [3 favorites]
posted by lunasol at 6:29 PM on October 27, 2017 [3 favorites]
Pater Aletheias: "And there's a big different between having 60 senators and having 60 votes for any particular piece of legislation. Major bills are controversial bills, with many competing special interests. Keeping every single person in your caucus on board isn't easy. It's not like they could just queue up a liberal wishlist and pass them one right after the other. It's not feasible."
This is by far the most important and accurate comment in this thread. Simply having a majority (even a filibuster-proof one) doesn't mean you have an ideologically unified caucus, and the Democrats most certainly did not (nor, as some have pointed out here, do Republicans today). Back then, you had a lot of more centrist senators from very red states (Nebraska, Arkansas, Louisiana) whose priorities differed from liberal senators from blue states. The same was also true in the House.
As we all saw at the time, just getting them together for the ACA required massive compromises and months of negotiations. The current model that GOP leaders are trying to adopt is more akin to this "we have a majority so let's ram stuff through as hard and fast as we can" notion, but it's worked out exceptionally poorly. I don't think Democrats would ever really try that approach, given the party's competing interests, though Caro suggests that during the heyday of the New Deal, things did sometimes operate more along these lines. But the Democrats' majorities were enormoous then, and everyone was afraid of FDR's popularity.
Congress also really, really likes to preserve its perogatives and asserts its independence. It's specified as a coequal branch of government in the constitution, after all. So a president can psuh an agenda all he or she wants, but if congressional leaders aren't on board, it doesn't matter. (We've seen this very vividly with Trump's repeated demands that McConnell kill the filibuster, something McConnell has no interest in doing.)
As for Obama vs. LBJ, the times are so different. In spite of what I said just above, there's far more ideologicaly unity in each caucus than there was during Johnson's day. Today, the most liberal Republican is far, far to the right of the most conservative Democrat—there's no overlap whatsoever. But for a long time, there was much greater ideological overlap between the parties, making it much more possible to pass bipartisan legislation. As Caro details, LBJ would never have been able to break the filibuster when he was pushing the Civil Rights Act of 1957 without the support of the GOP.
posted by Conrad Cornelius o'Donald o'Dell at 9:10 PM on October 27, 2017 [4 favorites]
This is by far the most important and accurate comment in this thread. Simply having a majority (even a filibuster-proof one) doesn't mean you have an ideologically unified caucus, and the Democrats most certainly did not (nor, as some have pointed out here, do Republicans today). Back then, you had a lot of more centrist senators from very red states (Nebraska, Arkansas, Louisiana) whose priorities differed from liberal senators from blue states. The same was also true in the House.
As we all saw at the time, just getting them together for the ACA required massive compromises and months of negotiations. The current model that GOP leaders are trying to adopt is more akin to this "we have a majority so let's ram stuff through as hard and fast as we can" notion, but it's worked out exceptionally poorly. I don't think Democrats would ever really try that approach, given the party's competing interests, though Caro suggests that during the heyday of the New Deal, things did sometimes operate more along these lines. But the Democrats' majorities were enormoous then, and everyone was afraid of FDR's popularity.
Congress also really, really likes to preserve its perogatives and asserts its independence. It's specified as a coequal branch of government in the constitution, after all. So a president can psuh an agenda all he or she wants, but if congressional leaders aren't on board, it doesn't matter. (We've seen this very vividly with Trump's repeated demands that McConnell kill the filibuster, something McConnell has no interest in doing.)
As for Obama vs. LBJ, the times are so different. In spite of what I said just above, there's far more ideologicaly unity in each caucus than there was during Johnson's day. Today, the most liberal Republican is far, far to the right of the most conservative Democrat—there's no overlap whatsoever. But for a long time, there was much greater ideological overlap between the parties, making it much more possible to pass bipartisan legislation. As Caro details, LBJ would never have been able to break the filibuster when he was pushing the Civil Rights Act of 1957 without the support of the GOP.
posted by Conrad Cornelius o'Donald o'Dell at 9:10 PM on October 27, 2017 [4 favorites]
Merrick Garland. If Obama wasn't so damn wedded to obeying the rules, he'd have recess appointed him.
I'm confused. was there ever a recess? i thought the ratfuckers kept pro forma sessions going?
posted by j_curiouser at 9:34 PM on October 27, 2017 [3 favorites]
I'm confused. was there ever a recess? i thought the ratfuckers kept pro forma sessions going?
posted by j_curiouser at 9:34 PM on October 27, 2017 [3 favorites]
Response by poster: At the very least there was the day in January when they ended one Congress and began another about an hour later...
posted by East Manitoba Regional Junior Kabaddi Champion '94 at 9:37 PM on October 27, 2017
posted by East Manitoba Regional Junior Kabaddi Champion '94 at 9:37 PM on October 27, 2017
There was never a recess. Obama might have forced a lawsuit with the idea that the Senate was falling short of its constitutional duty with the delay, but WTF. The Senate had already shown it’s ass. Not doubt the judiciary would have, too.
posted by notyou at 12:29 AM on October 28, 2017
posted by notyou at 12:29 AM on October 28, 2017
There are a lot of reasons and it was a short time period, but I also blame party discipline in general (I'm a Democrat, it's what we do). Without doing the detailed research, I recall quite clearly being incredibly frustrated with infighting during that time, and blue dogs making trouble over things like abortion-related components of legislation, and so on. It was miserable and it was a factor.
posted by Miko at 8:38 AM on October 28, 2017 [1 favorite]
posted by Miko at 8:38 AM on October 28, 2017 [1 favorite]
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It's telling that, even in the nine months of a Republican Majority in the House and Senate, they've barely gotten anything done, largely because of those same rules and procedures, even the ones they've tried to sidestep and ignore.
* Indeed, my major criticism of Obama as a President is that he was too wedded to procedure and too trusting of the systems of government. The GOP is much more skilled than the Democratic party at bending the rules, changing the rules, and outright breaking the rules to get what they want. Such as not holding a damn hearing for Merrick Garland. If Obama wasn't so damn wedded to obeying the rules, he'd have recess appointed him.
posted by SansPoint at 12:50 PM on October 27, 2017 [14 favorites]