Hoyer tells Pelosi to stand up to Reid

Agreed.

House Majority Leader Steny H. Hoyer (D-Md.) is pushing Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) to take a harder line with the Senate after a trio of Republican senators forced Congress to trim billions from the $787 billion economic stimulus package.

It’s not clear how far Pelosi is willing to go in standing up to the Senate — or, realistically, what effect Hoyer and Pelosi combined could have in the face of the 60-vote hurdle Senate Democrats face.

But after last week’s stimulus votes, Hoyer called on Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) to force Senate Republicans to mount actual filibusters if they want to stand in the way of bills “so that the American people can see who’s undermining action.”

And in a private conversation with Pelosi, aides say Hoyer reminded the speaker that they’d talked previously about tolerating Senate strong-arming on the stimulus and on children’s health insurance — two Democratic priorities — but then holding their own on future legislation [...]

Democrats in the House are also concerned that a knee-jerk deference to the Senate will force them to continuously water down legislation to make life easier for Reid, who is up for reelection next year.

The stimulus bill required 60 votes for reasons unrelated to a filibuster, so there wasn't much the House could do there. But moving forward, it's really up to Pelosi and Hoyer to assert themselves as a co-equal branch of the legislature, and if Republicans want to obstruct in the Senate, let them.

Hoyer may be among the worst of the Blue Dog crowd, but in this case, he's absolutely right.

“Think about the precedent this sets: You have Specter, Snowe and Collins dictating terms to 250 [House Democrats],” the lawmaker said. “We can’t let it happen again. We have to stop it now.”

“I’m all for bipartisanship, but I don’t consider three Republican senators bipartisan,” said Missouri Rep. Emanuel Cleaver II, who oversees economic recovery issues for the Congressional Black Caucus. “Let’s not deny who we are legislatively for three senators.”

We'll have Franken soon enough, and then it'll be up to stripping away just one Republican to get to 60. That ain't worth hijacking the Democratic agenda, or trying to make Harry Reid's reelection prospects easier.