It Only Takes 51 Senators to End This War
Regardless of the spin and counter-spin around the various Iraq reports, a key domestic political fact -- perhaps the most fundamental fact -- is once again being buried in the debate.
It only takes 51 Senators to end the Iraq war, regardless of how many are prepared to cut off funding.
It is obviously true, as many have pointed out, that 51 Senators could cut off funding for the war, simply by not voting to approve it. But to make funding the sole focus significantly understates the case, and contributes to the utterly false and harmful notion that cutting off funding is the only thing Senators can do.
It was clear in previous Senate votes that there were not 51 Senators who were willing to stand firm on any position in effective opposition to the President. There were not 51 Senators willing to stand firm on a timetable for withdrawal, even stated as a goal. There were not 51 Senators willing to stand firm on a popular prohibition against forcing soldiers to serve longer deployments than they spend at home -- a prohibition that all sides agreed would force troop withdrawals.
It's true that under current Senate rules, on a free-standing bill, 60 votes would be needed on an Iraq bill to overcome a filibuster threat. (Why we tolerate that only 51 Senate votes are needed to confirm nominees to the Supreme Court who oppose fundamental civil rights protections for all Americans, but 60 Senate votes are needed to pass free-standing legislation to end the Iraq war, is a question that deserves a great deal of further scrutiny.) But as we saw on the fight over the supplemental, only 51 votes are needed to attach withdrawal language to legislation that continues to fund the war.
With less than 60 votes, the Senate attached a timetable for withdrawal. The President, as expected, vetoed the legislation. Then the Senate backed down.
There was no legal or constitutional reason for the Senate to back down. It was a political decision. As a legal matter, the outcome of a confrontation where the Senate and the President agree to fund something, but don't agree on the legislative language to go along with the funding, is undetermined. It's just a question of who blinks first. The Senate could have agreed to continue funding on a temporary basis while the confrontation continued -- that's what the House did -- but 51 Senators didn't have the stomach for that either.
Majority Leader Reid explained the Senate's climbdown by saying that he did not have a real Democratic majority on Iraq. The nominal partisan breakdown is 51-49. But with Joe Lieberman voting with the President on Iraq, and Tim Johnson in recovery, Reid entered the confrontation with 49 Democratic votes.
But now Tim Johnson is back. That makes 50. The Senate Democrats -- if they stick together -- just need one Republican to stay with them to have a majority. Chuck Hagel -- who now has a completely free hand, since he's not running for any office - and Gordon Smith have voted with the Democrats on Iraq in the past. Other Republicans have signaled that they may be prepared to do so. And for each additional Republican, they need one less nominal Democrat (e.g. Ben Nelson.)
In July, Reid refused to bring a bipartisan compromise measure to the floor, on the theory that Republicans would be pressured during the recess to support a timetable for withdrawal.
Why then should this scenario not be allowed to play out? Why should there not be a clean Senate vote on a timetable for withdrawal and other provisions that could effectively constrain the President? In the worst case, we would see an effective repeat of past Senate votes, with a majority supporting, but not sticking to, constraining measures, after which Reid could, if he wants, negotiate a "bipartisan compromise" that would almost surely be less binding. But there is no reason for such a compromise to be the focus of discussion now, when we have yet to see the clean Senate votes on more binding measures that were promised in July. Let the Senate be counted. We have a right to see who the senators are who are standing in the way of ending the war.
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If you have a Republican Senator, call/write him or her today, and let your opinion of the Iraq War be heard. Tell them to stop filibustering, that Americans want an up-or-down vote on the war. Use their rhetoric against them.
Fact is if, they wanted to, they could put the kabosh on anything in committee. The Repugs can't bring anything to the floor as the minority party. When the Repugs were in control they did it all the time.
For once, I agree w/ you Robert! Democrats need to figure out exactly what it is that they want to do about this war and stand up and be counted on it.
Right now, most dem congressmen can't decide to defund because they dont see much grass roots support for it. They're stuck giving lip service to ending the war while sending bombs, bullets, and boys over to be expended on it.
Leadership is needed, no doubt, but when leaders stand up, dems have to stand behind them.
Mr. Naiman,
You need to study your civics and congressional procedure a bit more.
In the first place, "All Bills for raising Revenue shall originate in the House of Representatives", not the Senate (Article I, Section 7). Those bills are amended and voted on by representatives before going to the Senate.
Once in the Senate, a senate version may evolve, subject to amendment, filibuster, and floor vote, depending on the circumstances. If one is developed and goes to floor vote, if there are any discrepancies from the original House Bill, then the two versions (house and senate) go to conference committee where it is fused, morphed, or hammered into one body of text, or one final bill.
Then both the Senate and the House must pass that final version once again by floor vote.
Either party in the Senate may filibuster (there is no filibuster in the House), and unless a cloture motion gleans 60 votes in the Senate, the bill cannot go to a floor vote where the majority vote of 51 prevails, because if it gets less than 60 votes the filibuster is said to have prevailed.
The republicans in the Senate have filibustered some 50 times already this year.
They need 67 senators, you're forgetting the inevitable veto.
The President can only veto passed bills. He cannot veto a filibustered bill or a bill that's never brought forward.
Defund the war and bring this son-of-a-Bush to his knees already.
After the breathtaking cowardice shown by the Democratic Party, over and over again, I'll feel even more justified at having left and joined the Greens.
If the president vetoes the spending bill...why does the Senate need 67 to override it??? Don't override...let it be vetoed and let the spending cut be on the president's head. *grin*
What's the problem?
1. It takes 41 Senators to cut off the funding by not bringing the measure to a vote. Not 60, not 51, but 41.
2. If there aren't 41 Democratic Senators who are willing to take a stand, it's time to scrap the entire party.
It really is time to stop talking about Iraq and move on. The occupation is not going anywhere; it's here to stay. Nor is there any point talking about Iran; that's going to happen and nothing the people say is going to stop it. The challenge now is to focus on the assaults on the Constitution. The Democrats said they'd be crafting bills to restore Haebeus Corpus; to ban torture; to keep the internet from becoming just another propaganda tool. It's time to start prodding them to follow through on those things. The war is simply a distraction from more important matters. Ending the war should be top priority, but it's not, so that's that. American soldiers and Iraqi civilians will continue to die; but that's just too bad. Our leaders don't give a damn how much blood is spilled just so long as they keep raking in the campaign dollars. Their attitude is "The hell with the troops! Let 'em rot in the desert till the end of time! I got speeches to give and lobbyists to meet and voters to con. I'm too busy to bother with a pile of cannon fodder. I'm a leader!" And please don't anyone think it'll change if we can just vote these dried up husks out and vote some "progressive" blood in. Most of the Dems started out progressive; but they soon caught on to who really butters their bread.
One of the great comments by Carl Sagan in his Cosmos series was: "To make an applie pie from scratch, you'd have to create a universe." So, too, would you have to re-invent human nature to elect a Congress that would do the right thing.
You're right, but who in their right mind is going to commit this kind of political suicide.
Government gridlock. Republicans will counterattack. Still need 40 votes to debate the defense bill so it won't even be discussed. Just die on the vine.
Every other piece of legislation will be put on hold. After 1 Oct, how do you keep the government running? And can those fearless 51 weather the storm when the government closes shop?
Of course not so you'll end up with a continuing resolution where they fund everything at current rates. War continues.
Come on and get real.
"political" suicide versus someone's family member, friend, loved one's politically motivated death or injury.
There - you decide.
A poignant argument, but in my opinion issing two points:
(1) Won't work. Even if 41 senators blocked passage of all funding bills for Iraq, Bush would simply divert other defense money, citing his power as CinC to keep the troops "safe". (No possible way 41 would voted to bottle up ALL defense spending bills.) Issue would end up in Supreme Court (ha ha).
(2) The resultant "political" suicide will have consequences. Certainly, some of the brave senators would lose their seats in 2008, which means a new Republican majority; the "Blue Dog" demos in the House would have to distance themselves from the party, or face defeat in 2008 -- you may not like the Dogs, but they are the reason the Demos have a majority in the House; imagine the talking point for Giuliani or Thompson, with almost a year to convince the so-called independent voters that Dems still can't be trusted with national security.
I want to see the occupation ended (I didn't want to see it start), but I also want to see America start to recover from 24 years of bogus conservatism. I'm sorry, but given the short attention span of the electorate, I can't support the notion that (relatively) liberal legislators should commit "political suicide" by taking actions that may well not have any practical effect.
Right again Robert!
They don't really want to end the war.
Your post title should be a bumper sticker on every progressive's vehicle.
The Maine Senators might be moved to support a bill to stop the funding. Maine voters should swamp the offices of Snowe and Collins. And John Warner is also not running again so he might vote to end the war. Contact your REPUBLICAN elected official in DC. Tell them you'll never vote for them again if they continue to fund this immoral war.
51 to pass a bill 2/3's to over ride a veto. Think that will happen.?
correct.. 2/3, which I believe comes out to 67 votes, not 60
On the Supreme Court: were you referring to Ginsburg? But anyway, the Democrats promised to end the war. Easy to say when it's not your responsibility. Now it is their responsibility and either (1) they never meant it, but they knew they could use it to get elected or (2) once they realized they would be held accountable for ending the war they blinked (and continue to blink).
I just wrote my Democratic senators and representative again, asking them to end this war. I was a little disappointed in their response, excerpted below:
"Hey Lady:
Who the f**k do you think you are telling me what to do? Why don't you get off your lazy ass and end the war. Or go get some Republicans to do it. What do you think? I'm some slave or something?
Besides, where the f**k is the money you're supposed to be sending? If you want to talk to me, it'll cost ya. $500/minute. More than a hooker, less than the President.
You want the war ended? How the f**k do you expect me to do that? Go get me 48 Republicans who will demand the war be ended, then maybe I'll think about it. Until then, do you think I'm out of my f**ckin' mind, I'm going to stand up somewhere with some peace symbol on my forhead saying "No war?" How the f**k do you think I'm going to raise money from corporate america if I'm acting like some dumbshit lazy-ass hippy-dippy citizen. No offense.
You want the war ended? Go raise 5 million dollars for me, then we'll talk.
You have reached the same conclusion that I have. The Democrats do not want the occupation to end. I'm sure most of it is political although I'm just as sure that many are making a pretty penny on their Halliburton stock. No, no one wants the occupation to end. Not Bush not Reid not Pelosi not Clinton, no one. It's just an exercise in political warfare. No real people getting killed, just votes to count to see who wins. And Bush will win every time. Why? Because there is no one and nothing to stand in his way. In the old days before Nixon, presidents were constrained by law and the constitution. Now they are not. Ergo, the entire debate on Iraq is futile. If the president want to sustain the occupation, it is sustained. End of story. People keep forgetting that we live in a fasist police state now, not a democracy or a republic. So cut the crap senators, your power to run the government is OVER. Go home.
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