Lieberman Rejected Filibusters On Other Bills He Opposed, But Not Health Care

Sen. Joseph Lieberman (I-Conn.) announced on Tuesday that he would vote to sustain a filibuster of health care legislation unless changes were made to the final product. The senator did say he would allow the measure to be debated on the floor of the Senate. But his unwillingness to ultimately support a cloture motion would likely result in the removal of a national public option from the legislative language.

By positioning himself as a major parliamentary hurdle to Democratic leadership, Lieberman is, undoubtedly, inviting an avalanche of admonishment from the party that made him a vice presidential candidate just nine years ago. He's also opening himself up to charges of political hypocrisy.

On at least three previous occasions, Lieberman has voted to stop a filibuster attempt on a bill that he ultimately opposed.

In March 2005, the senator joined 55 Republicans and 13 Democrats in backing cloture on a bill that made several significant changes to the U.S. Bankruptcy Code, chief among them making it more difficult to file for bankruptcy under Chapter 7. The Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention and Consumer Protection Act ended up passing the Senate by a vote of 74 to 25, with Lieberman in the opposition.

In September 2006, Lieberman did the same thing. The senator voted to invoke cloture on The Secure Fence Act, which would have used advanced technologies -- including unmanned aerial vehicles, ground-based sensors, satellites, radar coverage, and cameras -- to create "operational control of the borders." The bill would pass by a vote of 80 to 19, with Lieberman joining many of the Democratic Party's more progressive members in voting nay.

In April 2007, Lieberman again granted a parliamentary pass to a bill that he ultimately opposed. The U.S. Troop Readiness, Veterans' Health, and Iraq Accountability Act would have funded troops in Iraq provided that certain demands be made of the Iraqi government and that a timeline be implemented for the removal of U.S. forces. The bill ended up being passed by a vote of 51 to 46, with Lieberman voting against it, only to be vetoed by then President George W. Bush.

In the latter case, at the very least, cloture did not present a difficult vote. Ninety-seven senators, including Lieberman, let the bill proceed to the floor of the Senate -- a margin that the current piece of health care legislation being considered by the Senate will never receive.

But Lieberman is on record as opposing the use of a filibuster on legislation he would later oppose. In the case of a public option, however, he seems to be digging in his heels and using parliamentary procedures to hold the process hostage.

"I told Senator Reid that I'm strongly inclined -- I haven't totally decided, but I'm strongly inclined -- to vote to proceed to the health care debate, even though I don't support the bill that he's bringing together because it's important that we start the debate on health care reform because I want to vote for health care reform this year," Lieberman told reporters on Monday. "But I also told him that if the bill remains what it is now, I will not be able to support a cloture motion before final passage. Therefore I will try to stop the passage of the bill."

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Comments

[solarbear]

It's up to "we the people" at this point. Our elected officials have no interest in representing our will, not while they're so shamelessly kneeling at the ankles of the horned-up Pharma and Finance and Insurance and Weapons industries. Our federal system has devolved into nothing more than a legion of whores.

Read more at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/10/27/lieberman-rejected-filibu_n_335744.html

[Vincep194]

The creators of the Federal Government predicted these circumstances.

Thomas Jefferson:
Mankind soon learn to make interested uses of every right and power which they possess, or may assume. The public money and public liberty, intended to have been deposited with three branches of magistracy, but found inadvertently to be in the hands of one only, will soon be discovered to be sources of wealth and dominion to those who hold them; distinguished, too, by this tempting circumstance, that they are the instrument, as well as the objectof acquisition. With money we will get men, said Caesar, and with men we will get money. Nor should our assembly be deluded by the integrity of their ownpurposes, and conclude that these unlimitedpowers will never be abused, because themselves arenot disposed to abuse them. They shouldlook forward to a time, and that not a distant one, when a corruption in this, as in the country from which we derive our origin, will have seized the headsof government, and be spread by them through the body of the people; when they will purchase thevoices of the people, and make them pay the price.

[Well . yeah.. but Progressives' self-satisification trumps all that human nature andliberty crap. Obviously Jefferson is a racist hate-monger who wants to see people die of cancer]

Ben Franklin: When the people find they can vote themselves money, that will heraldthe end of the republic

[Progressives have no use for Republicanism. They're all about "Democracy" .. Lawless governance.]

[marsha1951]

Kick his a s s to the curb. They all need to go and we need fresh new faces that listen to US, their employers.

[Marcospinelli]

Do you remember the thousands of photographs of t0rture & abuse that Obama pledged he would release, then flip-flopped on?:

10/22/09: Congress passed legislation that gives the Defense Department the authority to suppress evidence of its own misconduct.

In an unprecedented move, Congress passed legislation Tuesday including an amendment which would maintain one of the most contentious hangovers of the Bush administration, allowing the Department of Defense to exempt torture photos of US detainees overseas from public access under Freedom of Information Act requests.

An amendment sponsored by Sen. Joe Lieberman, slashes a huge hole in FOIA. Rep. Louise Slaughter (D-N.Y.) was a key figure in stopping Lieberman's photo suppression bill the first time around. Slaughter explained that this time, the provision was slipped into the Homeland Security spending bill during the conference between House and Senate negotiators -- "apparently under direct orders from the Administration."

http://www.truthout.org/1022095
http://www.alternet.org/blogs/peek/143322/outrage:_house_sneakily_passes_bill_banning_release_of_photos_showing_detainee_abuse/

Is Obama going to sign it, veto it or pocket veto it (do nothing, just let it sit and in 10 days it becomes law)?

[jorjan]

Sounds to me like the Dems are going to use Lieberman to quash the public option because they don't want to upset the insurance companies. All a dance they are doing to make us think they are going to do something about health reform. Why don't they just stop the charade and stop wasting our time and money on something that will either not be effective enough to stop the greedy insurance companies or wind up giving them a gigantic big Christmas present. Lets face it, we the people do not stand a chance no matter how much we protest or call our lawmakers. We just don't have enough money to buy them like the lobbyists do. So sad where our country is right now.

[smartdoc]

Lieberman is a cancer for the Democratic party. The democrats lost votes when he ran with Gore because many of us didn't want to see him as a VP. If he wasn't on that ticket, perhaps Gore would have won. After his disgraceful conduct in the last election he should have been booted. He will continue to cause trouble in the future. He conducts himself more often like an agent of Israel than promoting what is in the best interest of this country that he supposedly serves. He was reelected in CT as an independent due to republican voters that were all too happy to stick it to the democrats. Let him go to the republicans where he truly belongs. It's better to be short one vote in the democratic caucus than to have this slimeball hanging around.

[Marcospinelli]

Obama wanted him, Obama can f!x it:

==President-elect Barack Obama has informed party officials that he wants Joe Lieberman to continue caucusing with the Democrats. Obama's decision could t!e the hands of Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, who has been negotiating to remove Lieberman as chair of the Homeland Secur!ty & Government Reform Committee while keeping him within the caucus. Lieberman has insisted that he'll split from the Democrats if his homeland security position is stripped.==

This moment wasn't unforeseen. Everybody knew before Obama even took the oath of office that getting healthcare reform was going to require being able to break any GOP filibuster.

What did Obama get from Lieberman for letting him caucus with Democrats? If there was no agreement about not joining the GOP in filibusters, if this was yet another grand gesture like Obama's taking single payer off the table, we have a hopelessly inept and naive president. That's at best.

At worst, Obama's just another politician, c0rrupt to the core, and the only people that he's working, playing, are the American people who worked their hearts out for him & put him into office believing he was working on their behalf and interests and not Big Corporations'.

[bubbainca]

Agree with much of what you have to say except for a couple of things. I think it was brilliant for Obama to keep Lieberman in play. Had it not been for that gesture, the dems would have lost Lieberman for sure. Indeed if Lieberman joins the filibuster, he should be stripped off his chairmanships but I am not sure it will come to that.

You say the American people have worked their hearts out for Obama. What exactly have the American people done for him? Standing in line to vote for him is hardly "working their hearts out". Where were all his supporters when the tea baggers were putting out their disgusting lies?

As far as I am concerned Obama is playing his hand as best as he can. It would have been darned easy for him to defer healthcare to another year. Nobody would have blamed him given the shape of the economy and the political capital he has had to spend just to get the stimulus package through. But he chose not to, and I give him credit for the political courage he has shown.

I for one will never forgive the Republican party. They are bordering on Anti-Americanism today. They opposed a stimulus package that any economist with half a brain would have told you was crucial to getting the economy back from the brink. And now this. There is a time to play politics and there is a time to do the right thing.

[AlaskanWannaB]

I agree. Furthermore, Obama saw his mother on her dying bed fighting insurance companies to pay for her care. I think this is always in the back of your mind and this is why he decided to act on healthcare reform. I do believe the President has a strategy as to how he has to get this done and as one of his supporters, I am going to be a little bit more patient before I throw him under the bus.

Most of the posters here are proactive, but we do have some Obama supporters who are fairweather supporters and the only thing they do is sit back and whine. In addition to dealing with the tro//s, we have to deal with the whiners.

[redsan]

they should have kick him to the curve

[Wolf Larsen]

Tell you what Joe.....for every vote you cast against the party's interest.....we knock a billion dollars off Israel's aid. In no time Israel will owe us.

[clueless JD]

What a politician! This is his trial balloon to see what the reaction will be if he acts like a snake. No doubt, he'll piss off the 70% of people in his state who want health reform with a public option. But he's going to hire Dick Morris to see if he'll still get re-elected (or avoid a recall) if -- against the interest of 70% of his constituents -- he backs his wife, the insurance lobby, the tea baggers, and the Republican party .

[UpstateNY]

After his overt support of John McCain (and Sarah Palin) in the last election, he came sneaking back to the Democratic party. I know why they took him back (that magical number 60) - but if he doesn't deliver on the 60, by not voting for cloture, the Democrats should remove him from their caucus.

He didn't run as a Democrat (lost the primary) and if McCain had won, he would have switched parties in a heart-beat. I remember reading that McCain wanted him as his VP choice.

At some point, he has to 'fish or cut bait'. He is either part of the Democratic caucus and he is not. He doesn't have to vote for the final bill (as he proved on the above-mentioned occasion) but he has to support his caucus and stop the filibuster. Otherwise, he should be not - no more chances.

[Ron]

Another example of Leiberman's true intentions to undermine the public's needs for big business money for campaign contributions. His state's voter's should be ashamed of their choice to put this joke of a politican back in office. Just showing his true colors, again.

[hipichick7]

Way to go Joe. You're a real stand-up guy. NOT!

[petermax]

Joe Lieberman's wife Hadassah works for lobbying firm which represents pharmaceutical companies.

[mama4obama]

Strip him of every single privilege that he has a member that caucuses with Democrats. Let him go over to the other side and see if they will kick any of there Senators to the curb for him. He should have lost all his seniority by going independent and damn it I want him to lose it now. No 60, but we don't have 60 now. He should PAY!

[mama4obama]

This is the most dishonest politician that I have ever had the misfortune to vote for via my vote for Al Gore. He is standing in the way of Democracy and there must be a steep price to pay for that. It wasn't enough that he campaigned against our President and voted for John McCain , now he has to try to kill health care. This man is a disgrace that the insurance industry has such a hold on him he is willing to let others die so that he can help his Republican buddies and the insurance companies.

[wdw505]

good

[AlaskanWannaB]

I hope you never have a need for assistance.