Let me start out by saying that I am very much against the tax cut extention plan as it stands for many reasons that I and a lot of other have stated here and elsewhere.
I also understand the counterargument, especially now that UI is tied to this deal, but still get myself into a lather when I and others are accused of not caring about the unemployed because of our opposition to the larger plan. Trust me, we know the position this compromise puts us in, and I suspect those that make the "you don't care about the unemployed" argument know full well that we do indeed care about our friends and neighbors. Indeed, it is one of the main reasons we are so upset about the deal as put together. In short, the GOP by "compromising" on UI actually were politically masterful by tying the two together.
But what I would like to actually discuss is how we found ourselves, with a majority in the House, a supermajority in the Senate, and a Democratic President, in a place where the Administration is doing deals with the minority leader of the Senate for a deal that so many of his supporters find so unpalatable. While there are many - I'll look at just one reason that I feel we would do well to consider. His name is Harry Reid.
Flashback to two years ago. Democrats were heady. From the grassroots to the party professionals, we saw the culmination of years - and for some of us, over a decade - of hard work, sweat, tears and financial support come to fruition. And damn it we were ready to see some changes made.
We elected Barack Obama President, but just as importantly there were two people selected to lead the legislative branches.
One was Nancy Pelosi. The other was Harry Reid.
Because of the rules of the United States Senate, the more important person of these two was Harry Reid. We had a supermajority, and the ability to move forward Democratic legislation without the threat of minority filibuster. If only we could hold the 60 together.
Senator Reid's first job in this case was to find a way to hold his diverse caucus together to do this. And in this case, he failed. Let's take a look at how that happened.
The Senate Majority Leader holds a lot of cards to hold his caucus together. He has the right to bring bills to the floor, or just as importantly, not to. He has the ability, technically, to decide on committee gavels and appointments. And he should have a megaphone to set the agenda in the US Senate.
With those perogatives, he could have set the tone very early on when it comes to cloture votes, using the threat of loss of committee or subcommittee gavels and not bringing pet bills to the floor. And he didn't.
Instead of using the legislative perogatives to his advantage - a combination of carrots and sticks - to set the tone that votes on bills are open to interpretation and voting choices, but cloture votes - meaning actually allowing bills important to the agenda to reach the floor - are something that people within the caucus cannot vote against.
He did not do this. And because of this, he no longer was looking for the 50th vote. Instead, he was forced, by his own doing, to look for a 60th vote. And by putting himself into this position, he effectively gave up control of the Senate to the "60th Senator". We saw this clearly during HCR and the rise of "President Snowe".
I realize that he may not of been successful in holding the caucus together every time, or may have failed to accomplish this if he had tried, but the truth is by not even attempting to control his caucus, he ceded leadership in all but name.
Flash forward to two years later. The President laid out, with the support of his base and the House and the majority of the Senate Democrats, a way forward on our tax structure and the Bush era tax cuts.
The House, by a wide margin, voted for this plan. (I realize there is an argument about whether or not they should have done this in September, but in the spirit of keeping this diary on point, I'll leave it to others to make that case in another diary or forum).
However, the Senate - even though a majority supported this same plan - could not get this bill to the floor. And it goes back to Harry Reid ceding control of the cloture process in 2009. The precedent was set, and he is now too weak, or possibly has lost the leadership initiative, to change that precedent.
So we're now at a point where the President, or Democrats, feel forced to compromise with the "60th Senator", and in this case the Minority Leader, to try to get a deal done.
I'm not arguing there weren't other choices. Yes, it is a legitimate choice to pass nothing and allow the tax cuts to expire as originally planned when the bills were passed in 2001 and 2003. It is also legitimate to argue that UI should have remained a seperate issue. And yes, whether or not the "60th Senator" would have caved on this issue is open to debate as well.
And I also understand the lack of use of the bully pulpit by the President is a valid argument that can be made and defended against.
But from my perspective, those arguments aren't on the table, or nearly as strong, without Harry Reid, in 2009, not using the tools he had at his disposal to hold his caucus together and take cloture off the table.
By depending on the comity of the Senate structure instead of seeing the changes made in the political reality of the GOP and the Blue Dogs early on, he effectively weakened not just his hand and the US Senate, but changed the entire dynamic of what a majority is in our government.
So, in looking at the picture of where we stand today - with a Socialist Senator feeling the need to take to the floor to give our side a voice, a President feeling like he has no choice but to negotiate with the real holders of power in the US Senate, to the House caucus feeling like they carried the water and are now having it thrown back in their face, and most importantly to the Average American who now - rightly so - sees their government as dysfunctional and unworkable, we would do well to see how it started. And it started with the leadership, or lack thereof, of Majority Leader Reid.
So to those on our side that feel completely powerless because we feel we are seeing our basic core principles compromised to the minority that wants to crush them - we're right.
And to those that argue that President Obama felt forced into this position because what he wanted to get through wasn't going to happen in the political reality as it stands today - you're right, too.
Yes, there are gradations to be argued on both sides above, and we have spent a lot of time and spittle arguing amongst ourselves about them, and likely will continue to.
But I would caution that we are losing sight of lesson we really need to learn. Namely that our leadership in the US Senate in the person of Harry Reid failed in his leadership duties, and handed away the intitiative to our opponents when it wasn't necessary. And did it without so much as a whimper.
If we are ever so priviledged to be in the position we were in January 2009 again, we would do well to remember this and do things differently next time. Hopefully there will be a leader that can accomplish true leadership of our party in the US Senate.