My neighbor yesterday wanted to know why the election of Franken was so important, and why getting to 60 votes in the Senate is a big deal.
"How much harder is it to pass something with 60 votes than 59? It's one vote."
I explained that the key was the difference between getting something to a vote on the floor of the Senate, or getting it stalled by the minority on a filibuster before it gets there.
Sadly, the only person I have seen who has stood up and demanded that Democrats use this 60 vote supermajority in a way that will allow Senators to let legislation come to the floor, and still let them vote against legislation they won't like back home without crippling progress on an issue, is not a Democrat.
Sam Stein of the Huffington Post sets it up:
One of the Senate's most vocal progressives is demanding that the Democratic Party commit to voting against filibustering health care legislation now that, with the impending arrival of Al Franken, the party has 60 caucusing members.
Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), called on the White House and Democratic leadership in Congress to ensure that party members agree unanimously to support cloture on legislation that would revamp the nation's health care system. Democratic senators on the fence, he added, could still oppose the bill. But at the very least they should be required to let the legislation come to an up-or-down vote.
Emphasis mine.
You do not need 60 votes on every provision, and you do not need, for example, to cripple a public option by waiting for some notorious dithering hand-wringing Senate suckhole to come around your way.
Bernie Sanders, take it to the bridge:
"I think that with Al Franken coming on board, you have effectively 60 Democrats in the caucus, 58 and two Independents," Sanders said in an interview with the Huffington Post. "I think the strategy should be to say, it doesn't take 60 votes to pass a piece of legislation. It takes 60 votes to stop a filibuster. I think the strategy should be that every Democrat, no matter whether or not they ultimately end up voting for the final bill, is to say we are going to vote together to stop a Republican filibuster. And if somebody who votes for that ends up saying, 'I'm not gonna vote for this bill, it's too radical, blah, blah, blah, that's fine.'"
Can I get an amen, brothers and sisters?
Bernie Sanders gets it. He gets it good. He gets it clean and clear, and the fact that he is the only one out front really saying, "This should be our strategy" is disappointing but refreshing.
Democrats can have some cake and eat it, too. If Joe Lieberman or Dianne Feinstein or Kay Hagan want to look good for the Red-Shirts back home by being able to stand up at a town hall in 2010 and say, "Hey, look, I tried to talk sense into those Washington people, but they wouldn't have it, and that's why I courageously voted no against the Health Reform Act of 2009," then have it at, chums.
But Democrats in the Senate -- the leadership in the Senate -- needs to work to get those Democrats to agree not to let Republicans filibuster.
We Democrats don't demand lockstep unanimity, unlike the Republicans. But what all Democrats should agree on is that Republicans should not be able to kill an agenda. We don't and should not demand lockstep, but we should demand that there be an up or down vote on key legislation.
Up or down.
The Republicans are historically weak, their attacks are utterly meritless, and their cupboard of fresh ideas is totally bare. The Republicans are political eunuchs without real power.
We have 60 votes.
Harry Reid and company need to recognize that the country voted in a landslide on the issues Obama and Congressional Democrats campaigned on.
Harry Reid and company need to act knowing that Democrats will never have as much power as they do now to pass meaningful legislation on those core issues that the country spoke about: health care, energy, and economic recovery.
Bernie Sanders gets it. Will Harry Reid?