Journalists Spin for Republicans on the New "60-Vote" Senate Regime

In the lead story on the front page of today's New York Times,David M. Herszenhorn notes that Connecticut Senator Christopher Dodd "did not believe there would be enough Republican support to get the 60 votes needed to move a bill forward" on the General Motors bailout. Later in the piece, Herszenhorn writes: "Passing any legislation to aid the auto companies would require 60 votes in the Senate . . . meaning Democrats would need the support of at least 11 Republicans." Nowhere in the article does this top-flight journalist insert a single phrase explaining to readers that the "60 vote" threshold is an artificial obstructionist creation of Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky and the Senate Republicans. For Herszenhorn it's simply assumed that the Democrats must reach 60 votes for now on (and in perpetuity) to pass any legislation Republicans don't like. When mainstream journalists repeat, mantra-like, the "need" for the Democrats to secure 60 votes to pass anything in the U.S. Senate without giving the assertion context they are framing the issue on Republican terms.

Herszenhorn is not alone among mainstream journalists in his bland acceptance of a new Senate order where majority vote is a thing of the past. It's astonishing that even though the Republican Party reached its nadir recently and has been handily defeated in the last two election cycles, and President George W. Bush and Mitch McConnell are two of the most unpopular politicians in America, mainstream journalists still insist on covering the Senate as if it is "normal" for a party to demand filibuster-proof majorities to get anything done.

The 60-vote requirement is not "normal." It's reprehensible and obstructionist.

The Republicans have set a new record for filibusters in the 111th Congress, 94 and counting, a staggering number that has never before been attempted in our nation's history. The mainstream press greets this historic Republican abuse of power with a collective yawn and is so lazy, complacent, or bought off by the Right-wing mindset, it refuses to clarify the issue for its readers, most of whom might not be up to speed on the arcane cloakroom practices in the world's "greatest" deliberative body.

Don't journalists have an obligation to tell their readers that the Senate does NOT require 60 votes to pass legislation? And shouldn't reporters note that the new "60-vote threshold" is just the latest partisan Republican trick to come down the pipeline? Readers of this blog should contact the Times' Public Editor, Clark Hoyt and complain.

When the Democrats were in the Senate minority they did not dare force President Bush to garner 60 votes to pass legislation. And when the Democrats did show the temerity to filibuster a few of Bush's Attila-the-Hun judge appointments the Republicans, led by Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist of Tennessee, shrieked and hollered and threatened the "nuclear option" of ridding the Senate of the pernicious filibuster once and for all that the "obstructionist" Democrats had wielded so recklessly. It took a "Gang of 14" Senators to come together to stop the Republicans from eliminating the filibuster. At the time I wanted to keep it because it is an age-old custom -- concocted by crotchety Senators -- to protect the rights of the minority. But after seeing how McConnell and his partisan jackals have so abused it over the past two years, I wish Frist and the Republicans had been successful in getting rid of the damn thing.

Can anyone imagine the kind of press reaction if the Democrats had blocked Republican legislation with 94 filibusters in a two-year period? I don't think Herszenhorn and other mainstream journalists would be blandly repeating: "Gee, whiz, the Republicans really need to pass that 60-vote threshold."

The Republicans' abuse of the filibuster, and the mainstream press's acceptance of it as the new status quo, raises some thorny Constitutional and political questions as well that mainstream journalists choose to ignore. If it is now the "norm" to require 60-votes in the Senate then I guess the Constitutional role of the Vice-President to break ties is moot now -- right? It makes the Vice President even more irrelevant. Someone should tell Sarah Palin the VP job just got a lot easier.

Moreover, when Herszenhorn and other mainstream journalists repeat the 60-vote myth without explaining its partisan origins the frame plays right into the hands of McConnell and John McCain and other Republicans who denounce the Democratic-controlled Congress for its "do-nothingism." The mainstream press is carrying water for the GOP every time it reports McConnell's or other Republicans' phony charges that the Democratic Congress cannot get anything done. Why do they get to charge the Democrats with not "doing" anything while they abuse the filibuster more than ever to make sure nothing gets done? Isn't it the responsibility of journalists to set this record straight? Or are they content to be complicit in Republican lies and spin?

Comments

[Joseph A. Palermo - Huffpost Blogger]

Thanks for the great comments -- I think the Senate Dems figured that Bush was going to veto anything they passed in any case so they just relented to the Republican filibuster without making them actually filibuster (talk) -- I thought it was disgraceful. Hopefully, when Obama gets in they'll have a president who is going to sign on to Dem bills so they can put the onus on McConnell and the gang and make them talk in the well of the Senate -- while Obama's people hit the netroots -- I just hope that happens -- the Dems might be incapable of growing a pair (or a spine) even with Obama's stunning victory -- wait and see and stay tuned.

[vegas9999]

Right you are. It is good to see how popular Nancy and Harry are?

[bayside]

I really hope we have smarter dems in now, because when republicans are in minority they still run the show..I hope nancy and reid give way to younger leadership as they have shown they dont have the courage to stand up for our rights..

[TheIndependenceParty]

The 60 vote rule is a lazy man's filibuster. The filibuster, portrayed in "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington" recalls the need for a Senator to commit hours of his life if he was truly opposed to a bill, ... no silly rule, ... read mother's recipes, read from the news, ...speak until you fall over. It is not surprising that McConnell took the easy road for the Reublicans.

If the Republicans take this tack into the new Administration, they will pay again at the polls in 2010 until the American People get the changes we have been promised.

[teacheng]

Great post. We need to get this meme OUT THERE and spread it around. Let's CHANGE the mainstream press's obsession with it. We've had a couple weeks off - let's get to work...

[AmbivalentGuy]

Arrrggghh -
I am so tired of these obstructionists
pretending to be reflective of normative practice.
They're like the kid from the "Bad Seed" movie -
"I don't know what happened. I just got here,
I don't know how little Jimmy ended up floating in the lake."

[wendynyc]

The cable news networks try to push it down our throats - that we are a center right nation. How many alternate voices do we get to hear on this??

[23000Days]

Thanks Mr. Palermo, for a factual article, as far as it goes........ You could have given some history that included the wording and use of the rule, as well as names of those who set it up, and how to defeat it.

[afram1]

Maybe this is what is REALLY meant when is referred to as a "center-right" nation.

If the MSM and the Repubs say so, they control an overwhelming majority of the media memes.

Looks like the MSM is "center-right." Are the people? According to the last two election cycles, maybe not.

[rf-hawaii]

We have a long way to go taking our country back.

[dubster]

Thanks Mr. Palmero, I just learned something new! Nevertheless, this is why I loath conservatives and republicans alike.

[rixter1965]

It is way past time that the American people demolish the clubbiness of the US Senate -- its arcane rules not based on the Constitution, its forgiveness of errant members such as Joe Lieberman, etc -- and this article is a good start. For the last decade or so, in both the majority and the minority, the GOP has used the rules of the Senate and their infamous spin machine to run it as it they had 100 members rather than a slim majority or definite minority.

Any use of the filibuster -- used rarely up until recently -- should be immediately countered by a news blitz by any and every available Democrat to denounce GOP senators as obstructionist, repeating it over and over again until media pundits have no choice but to repeat it over and over again. And the "nuclear option" that GOP Senators threatened to use should be used after one instance of using the filibuster to stymie meaningful deliberation and passing significant legislation.

[proudem]

You are absolutely right. Take a page from the Rovian Playbook and use the media and the Sunday talk shows to justify your position. Even Chaney would come out of his lair to do this.

[Michael45]

It really is astounding how far the mainstream­/corporate media has gone to carry the water of the Republican party and rightwing politics in this country for the last eight years.

[mattheweste]

The corporate media is Republican.

That seems to be what you are hinting around at here. Why not just say it? We all know its true.

[texanna]

It's not just the corporatist media that has enabled the Repubs to be obstructionist. I think Harry Reid has also been complicit because he hasn't forced their hand and made them actually follow through with a filibuster. For instance, how long do you think the Repubs could've stood on the floor of the Senate railing against getting kids better healthcare? There have been other opportunities where the Repubs would've shown themselves for what they truly are if only Sen. Reid had forced them to make good on their threat.

[newpantaloons]

Hillary Clinton should stay in the Senate and force Harry Reid out! We need a majority leader to run the Senate like Lyndon Johnson did when he was majority leader. He may not have been popular with the Republicans, but he sure got things done! Harry seems to want to be popular.

[dagnome27]

THIS is the real reason that the current congress has such poor ratings: the Republicans have deliberately been blocking votes on Democratic­ally-intro­duced legislation with this "stealth fillibuster", to make the Democrats look bad in the eyes of the public, who do NOT know what's really going on behind the scenes. This is TRULY reprehensible behavior from the Republicans, but it's become the norm for them.