Like many of you, I'm finding myself reacting quite viscerally to Lieberman's extraction of a promise to kill the public option in exchange for his promise not to filibuster. It's safe to say I carry no brief for the man, in fact, I rather loathe him. But, I'm trying to figure out my own reaction and was curious about others'. What I mean -- below the jump.
To pass any legislation in any voting body, some number of members, n, is required to vote affirmatively to take an action. In the Senate, that may be 51, 60, or 67(in the case of treaties); in the House, 218 (generally). For certain things, some bodies may even have submajority requirements (e.g., the Supreme Court's "rule of 4" regarding cert petitions).
But whatever n is, it is thereby certain that the nth member has the power to extract concessions for his or her vote. That is, the n-1 members will presumably push the legislation as far in the left (or right, depending on who's in control) direction as possible, but only insofar as that nth vote can be kept on board. Which means, in most cases, that the nth member is effectively extracting concessions for his or her vote -- i.e., there is something that the n-1 would rather do, but can't because they will lose that nth vote. Note that this doesn't assume any bad faith or gamesmanship on the part of that nth vote -- everyone has different ideas of what's acceptable and how far they can in good faith compromise their principles.
To put it more concretely, say we went with reconciliation so that 51 would suffice. There's still going to be a Senator who's the 51st vote. And there's going to be something that the other 50 would choose to include in HCR that the 51st Senator can't stomach. And that 51st Senator is thereby going to be preventing the enactment of that provision, even though the other 50 would choose to put it in. And that lost provision is presumably something that most of us kossacks would like to have.
If that's so, then what makes Lieberman different? Is it because he's forcing n to be 60 rather than 51, and we just find that wrong? Is it that, as a committee chair and thus ostensible member of the party leadership, he should never allow himself to be the nth vote? Is it just because he's Joe Lieberman, and we think he's acting in bad faith? I seriously would like to know what others think. I kind of think it's a little of all of these, but none of them seem like fully satisfactory reasons for my visceral reaction that Lieberman is beyond the pale, rather than this just being an ordinary example of how representative democracy works. Thoughts? Am I just wrong in my analysis?