It’s another week in the Senate, and there’s another battle over earmarks. Senators Toomey and McCaskill are proposing an amendment to the STOCK Act (“insider trading bill”S. 2038) to permanently ban earmarks in the Senate. Not surprisingly, there is pushback from Harry Reid…and a number of Republicans as well. As always, there are those who argue that earmarks are just inconsequential “drop in the bucket” expenditures; that we must focus on more impactful issues. This from Senator Cornyn : He continued, “I wish we would focus on what the American people are most concerned about rather than some of these other issues that have their importance but are tangential to the main issues we ought to be focused on.” “I think we ought to [instead] be looking at other ways to … address people’s concerns about jobs and the debt,” Cornyn said. Yes, there are more pressing issues, but we can walk and chew gum at the same time. We can spend a half hour voting on one amendment to scrub earmarks from the Senate once and for all. Moreover, it is precisely because eliminating earmarks is such an easy, low-hanging fruit that we should deal with it immediately. If senators are unwilling to relinquish millions in pork projects, how will they have the courage to cut billions from welfare programs and reform entitlements? There are also the usual suspects who hold earmarks to be a moral and constitutional responsibility. “It’s just stupid, it’s childish, it’s demagoguery,” Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.) said. “There is not a lot of courage in our conference [on the issue.] They all know better. They all know by banning earmarks … they are just giving the authority to the president. But they are afraid of it because people don’t understand the issue out there.” “We have an obligation as Members of Congress to fulfill our Constitutional duty. One of those duties is to make sure that we do Congressionally directed spending. I object and do not believe that all these decisions should be made at the White House,” Reid said. Then there’s this gem from the esteemed Majority Leader : “I’ve done earmarks all my career, and I’m happy I’ve done earmarks all my career. They’ve helped my state and they’ve helped different projects around the country.” Toomey’s amendment would permanently ban all earmarks, defined as any congressionally directed spending item, limited tax benefit, or limited tariff benefit. It would also create a point of order against any legislation containing an earmark, requiring a two-thirds vote to waive the point of order. If this is really such a small issue, then we should bury it this week – once and for all. Find out if your senator is supporting the bipartisan amendment to ban earmarks. Cross-posted from The Madison Project
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The Earmarxists are Back
SOPA is dead in the House , says Majority Leader Eric Cantor, until there is consensus. Since there’s never going to be consensus on Internet censorship, Cantor seems to be saying the issue’s dead in this Congress. The President went mushy on SOPA , Harry Reid and Senate Democrats decided to push forward , but Eric Cantor, Darrell Issa, and House Republicans want to kill the bill. That’s a clear, bright line, folks. Turns out primary threats matter more than vague protests . Hey, if Rupert Murdoch wants to hold Google accountable for every search result , then let’s come after Rupert Murdoch for every classified ad ever run in any of his newspapers, eh? Have any ‘pirates’ ever advertised there? Massage parlors? Other lawbreakers? Betcha they have. And I bet Google hasn’t hacked anybody’s phones. Or committed perjury before British inquiries related to those phone hackings, like James Murdoch and British elements of the News Corp. empire have. Oops. If the FCC doesn’t like Republican efforts to constrain their freedom of action on spectrum , it’s their own fault for creating that mistrust that now exist. Nobody believes Julius Genachowski has any intent to obey the law. He thinks he’s above the law.
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Tech at Night: Eric Cantor: SOPA’s dead.
Congressman Connie Mack IV of Coral Springs (near Fort Myers) says he plans to join the race for the 2012 Republican U.S. Senate nomination from Florida, though he hasn’t made if official yet. Official or not, recent polls show Mack, son of former U.S. Senator Connie Mack III (grandson of the Philadelphia Athletics long-time manager and owner) to be an instant front-runner. So far in front, in fact, to be 23 points ahead of the second guy. What’s more, he may actually be competitive with liberal Democratic Senator Bill Nelson, who is seeking his third term. Quinnipiac found Mack to be the choice of 32 percent of Republican voters polled. Doubtless some voters are confusing this Mack with his father, who served in the U.S. Senate from 1989 to 2001, there being no reason for anyone not from Southwest Florida to recognize a Fort Myers congressman. If Connie IV prevails, after it’s sorted out which Mack is actually running, he would get to run against Nelson, who, with a 98 percent record of voting with the Obama administration should be vulnerable in center-right Florida. Attorney George LeMieux, who served the final 16 months of former Senator Mel Martinez’s term, was runner up with a distant nine percent. Plant City businessman Mike McCalister was third at six percent. Craig Miller and Adam Hasner each rang up two percent. That is within the 2.9 percent margin of error, so these two candidates, admirable in many ways, may actually have negative support. These results have to be particularly discouraging for former Florida House Majority Leader Hasner, who has been campaigning for more than a year and has attempted to market himself as the next Marco Rubio. So far, in terms of voter reaction, he’s closer to the next Jon Huntsman. Hasner has connected with various conservative groups and personalities who’ve endorsed him. But so far he’s made about as much impression on Republican voters as Georges Carpentier made on Jack Dempsey (which, Carpentier admitted after the fight, was none at all). The most encouraging numbers in the Q-Poll for Republicans are that Mack matches up just two points behind Nelson at 40 to 42, much better than any of the pre-Mack candidates have been able to manage in a Republican race that the word lackluster doesn’t begin to describe.
Nancy Pelosi has taken hyperbolic statements to a new level today with this sound bite.
Harry Reid just went there. In a stunning parliamentary move, Reid invoked the infamous “nuclear option” this evening on the Senate floor to bar Republicans from getting votes on amendments without Reid’s permission. In short, he used a simple majority to do an end run around the rules of the Senate that make it the greatest deliberative body in the world. Here is what is going on. Harry Reid brought a bill to the floor to impose protectionist sanctions on China. He didn’t want anyone to offer any amendments all week that were uncomfortable for his Democrat Senators, even though it is a key feature of the Senate to be able to force votes on any matter that a Senator deems important. In order to prevent Republicans from forcing votes on the President’s new stimulus plan, Reid used his ability as the Majority Leader to “fill the tree” by offering meaningless amendments that served only to block Republican amendments. Republicans figured out a way to get around him by offering procedural motions (instead of formal amendments) that would require 67 votes to pass but would secure the roll-call vote to get Democrats on the record. The GOP manuever fit perfectly within the rules of the Senate. The Senate parliamentarian said so. Reid responded by having the Senate overturn the parliamentarian’s ruling. He won his appeal by a vote of 51 to 48 and thereby changed the rules of the Senate by simple majority. Senate rules are supposed to require 67 votes to be changed. This was the nuclear option long contemplated by Republicans in response to Democrats’ blockade of conservative judges, but was never used, in part because of what it would mean to the Senate’s future as a deliberative body. It was feared that it would ruin the filibuster. Harry Reid pulled the trigger on a bill that had every chance of passing the Senate. Senate Republicans did not have the votes to stop it, so all that was in jeopardy was Harry Reid’s patience and his party’s comfort over having to take a tough vote. The filibuster is still intact, but by invoking the nuclear option with regard to these Republican motions, Reid has established a precedent that will work to it’s long-term ruin. That is not a good thing for conservatives. I understand that many want the filibuster to go away when conservatives are in control and trying to pass important policy. But the filibuster is about securing a minority’s right to be heard. A government that allows the majority to trample the rights of a minority loses its legitimacy to govern. The majority isn’t always right, and the Senate has always been one of our nation’s most enduring checks against its tyranny. The Senate as a deliberative body took a major hit tonight. And all because Harry Reid lost his cool and didn’t want to vote on his own President’s stimulus plan.
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Reid Goes Nuclear To Block The President’s Stimulus Plan
