Since Obama has been elected, we have been forced to constantly hear the names Joe Lieberman, Ben Nelson, Scott Brown, and Olympia Snowe. The reason is simple, they are about the 60th least progressive senators, and thus must be placated (bought?) to overcome republican filibusters. But what if we had abolished the filibuster on day one? What if Obama had fought hard, and the senate had changed the rules? What if everything was done by a straight majority vote? What could we have gotten that we didn’t get?
Obviously, we would not have suddenly had Al Franken and Bernie Sanders as the swing votes. But who would be the new swing votes? Who are the candidates for the 50th least progressive member of the senate? Knowing these people, and their views can tell us what the best could have been—what the limit was for structural change by Obama and the Democratic senate.
According to the Progressive Punch Rankings 2009-10 of Crucial Votes, the following senators lie at the middle of the pack in the senate.
48 Pryor, Mark D AR
49 Baucus, Max D MT
50 Tester, Jon D MT
51 Specter, Arlen D PA
52 Hagan, Kay D NC
Ignoring Specter (since he is only recently a democrat, and won’t be back next year), we have four folks to gauge the middle ground—to gauge the theoretical maximum of progressive policies that could pass in the senate. There are other indexes that list slightly other folks (Claire McCaskill, Byron Dorgan, and Joe "Fucking" Lieberman, for example), but these four provide a good general picture of what the 50th least progressive senator looks like. More-so, it is likely that they will remain at the mid-point of the senate next year, since the most likely republican pickups are (for the most part) to the right of these folks.
Health Care Reform
All four of these senators can best be described as hesitant supporters of the public option. Their support was late in coming, and often with strings attached. Basically, they wanted to weaken it, or replace it with regional cooperatives. Overall, if the filibuster had been repealed I think it was likely, though not certain, that the public option would have passed (though possibly in a weaker form).
Economic Issues
In the terms of Paul Krugman, these senators are all deficit peacocks. While they mostly supported the stimulus, they would not have supported a larger stimulus. They have retrograde ideas about social security, though voted to extend unemployment benefits. In sum, there would be no real difference in economic policies had these senators been the swing votes.
GLBT Rights
All of these senators are tap-dancing around DADT and ENDA. They may or may not vote for them when they come up. As for DOMA, not a chance with these folks.
Abortion
All over the map. Pryor is pretty awful, Hagan pretty good. Several supported the senate version of the Stupak amendment.
Environment
Generally not so good. Tend to vote down additional environmental regulations, frankly several are to the right of Lieberman, who is actually OK on environmental stuff (Note the use of the word OK, not good for Lieberman)
Summary
In the end, if these folks were the swing votes in a non-filibustered senate, things would be a bit better—but not a whole lot. We would likely have some sort of public option, but we would not get many of the other things progressives most want.
When evaluating the benefits of ending the filibuster, or the accomplishments of Obama in the last year—these senators provide the benchmark for the most progressive legislation that could have passed. Without their votes, even in a majority-vote senate, progressive legislation is dead-on-arrival.
So next time you are thinking about what we can or cannot get through congress, ask yourself this, "What would Jon Tester do?" cause that is likely the upper bounds of what can be accomplished.
Update: Damn, can't edit poll. Please make that Kay rather than Kau Hagan. Though I think I went to school with Kau Hagan, and he was OK. And now McCaskill too.