Unanimous consent and comity are destroying our democracy and the lack of leadership is no comedy.

posted by Bill Arnett @ 12:35 PM Permalink

Much of the business done in the Senate is done with a request for "unanimous consent" to help maintain "comity" among the Senators.

It's killing our country. The Republican Senators know that any individual Senator can put a secret hold on any piece of legislation or any nominee for any office, stopping either immediately and permanently until the hold is lifted, but Democratic leaders seem to be either unaware of this fact, or they are just too cowardly to use that power in the interest of maintaining "comity". Any of the Rethug's pernicious legislation or nominees could have been stopped in this manner for years.

Look at the recent unanimous consent decree that the Rethugs can filibuster anything without having to break out the cots and maintain the debate for the days and days it takes for every Senator to have an opportunity to debate the issue. That's just the way filibusters are, or used to be, conducted. The Democratic leadership gave the Rethugs exactly what they wanted when all Reid, or any democrat, had to do was object and refuse the Rethugs "unanimous consent".

Democratic leadership, by unanimous consent, agreed that if they couldn't get 60 votes on any piece of legislation or amendment, the number needed to stop a filibuster, that the legislation would not even be brought to a vote; a de facto concession by our cowardly leaders allows these "non-filibuster filibusters" to eliminate any ability to lead on any issue.

It just sickens me that the Democratic Party is no longer even a "mere shadow of its former self" to paraphrase Howard Cosell.

Labels: activism, debates, democratic party, disinformation, flip-flops, hypocrisy, rant, Senate