Talking people to death

My metro daily, the Worcester, MA Telegram & Gazette is editorially aghast.

Its Feb. 4 suggestion is that political maneuvering was afoot as Scott Brown wasn't sworn into the U.S. Senate within 10 days of his election due to Democrats on Boston’s Beacon Hill.

"Something tells us," the newspaper states,"that if Mr. Brown had represented the critical 60th vote in favor of the majority party’s health care reform agenda, he would already be sitting in the Senate."

While the T&G's "something" is not attributed, its motives are clear. What's the hurry? To get Brown down to assure that a Senate filibuster could block what's left of the health care legislation. LeibermanCare long ago ceased being reform.

But this exemplifies why it is laughable when the T&G sets itself up as a principled voice. A 41-59 vote is not majority rule. In fact, it's so undemocratic that I turn to no less than The Telegram & Gazette editorial page to describe those who utilize this stalling tactic to thwart the elected majority.

The word "filibuster" has appeared in 25 T&G editorials since the online presence reflected in the Mass Library System's database, and in not one instance was the Senate's special rule called a good thing.

On Oct. 6, 1994, after bemoaning the gridlock of the 103rd Congress through, among other things, use of the filibuster, the paper complained: "Despite the reform fervor that swept the 103rd Congress into office two years ago - and despite the efforts of many reform-minded newcomers - the session was marked by polarization, gridlock, extreme partisanship and self-serving business as usual."

The T&G would turn up the heat on the tactic calling it "an unworthy intrusion of personal and partisan politics into the confirmation proceedings," and a "petty political maneuver."
A Democratic attempt to filibuster against a term-limits bill got the goat of a paper, which thundered: “this partisan filibuster is another illustration of why the concept of congressional term limits, modeled on the two-term limit already in effect for presidents, has won such broad support."

T&G anti-filibuster fever broke ever wider over the use of the “obstructionist” tactic to block bipartisan campaign finance reform, finally concluding on Sept. 9, 1998: "Using a filibuster to block legislation is precisely the sort of cynical cloakroom tactic that has alienated so many Americans from government."

We can do nothing on health care. We can do nothing on climate change. Leave both to the market, or to our emperiled grandkids. And it's OK, as long as a "cynical cloakroom tactic that has alienated so many Americans from government" is put in the proper hands.