Eight months later, the final verdict has been rendered on the Bush-Cheney era. Al Franken has defeated Norm Coleman in Minnesota. Democrats have achieved the seemingly impossible: a filibuster-proof majority in the U.S. Senate.
Dare to dream.
I’ll leave it to others to explain why 60 seats in the Senate does not mean that Democrats will be able to jam through any and all legislation. (See, for example, Roll Call’s article, “Franken’s Victory Gets Democrats to 60, Sort of.”)
I’d just like to point out that it’s the first time since 1977, when Democrats held 61 seats, that either party has had enough votes to cut off debate and force a vote, a powerful procedural tool.
True, it took a Minnesota Supreme Court ruling and a defection to the Democratic party by Senator Arlen Specter to get there. Nonetheless, in this era of red states and blue states – of Fox News, Conservative talk radio, and hyperpartisanship – hitting this threshold represents about as thorough a repudiation of Republican leadership and policies as one might imagine.
Now, the fun starts.
Before the election, the Wall Street Journal predicted that if the Democrats had 60 seats, the new ”liberal supermajority” would take the country straight off a cliff.
The current financial panic may give today’s left another pretext to return to those heydays of welfare-state liberalism. Americans voting for “change” should know they may get far more than they ever imagined.
Conservative columnist Mona Charen piled on:
In the first place, the Democrats can, with a super-majority, change the rules of the game. They can make the District of Columbia the 51st state with two new senators (guaranteed to be Democrats in perpetuity). They can reinstitute the so-called Fairness Doctrine that required radio stations to provide equal time to all political viewpoints … [which] would kill one of the principal irritants to liberals and Democrats [Conservative talk radio] – to say nothing of disemboweling the First Amendment.
To elect a super-majority of Democrats at a time of economic dislocation is to flirt with depression. Nearly all economists agree that two moves by the Hoover administration deepened and prolonged the panic of 1929 and turned it into the Great Depression. One was raising taxes and the other was imposing protectionist trade policies. Senator Obama proposes to do both of those things.
Now hang on a sec, Mona. While it’s too early to draw any definitive conclusions, aren’t there already indications that the economy may be improving under Obama? And didn’t Obama just yesterday come out against a provision in the historic climate change bill that would impose trade sanctions on countries that don’t accept global warming limits?
” … We’ve seen a significant drop in global trade,” Obama told the New York Times, “I think we have to be very careful about sending any protectionist signals out there.”
It’s sheer paranoia. Hysterical conservative fantasy.
Although … now that you mention it … two more Democratic senators in perpetuity from ”New Columbia”? The elimination of Rush Limbaugh and his ilk?
Hmmmmm.
Welcome to the Senate, Al. Let the voting begin.