Republican Obstruction Strategy Stalls Key Legislation in Senate

by Seth Michaels, Dec 20, 2007

Senate Republicans have hit a dubious record this year. On Dec. 18, they forced the 62nd cloture vote of the 110^th Congress, effectively blocking yet another bill. With half of the session still ahead, the roadblock Republicans have broken the record for the use of the filibuster to halt Senate legislation.

In a new report, the Campaign for America’s Future examined the record of reactionary obstruction in the Senate, and the media’s ineffective response. In short, the report’s authors note:

The first session of Congress was more marked by conservative obstruction than by progressive gains.

Cloture votes are the procedural votes that end debate and allow a bill to get a real vote on the floor. To pass as legislation, a bill needs 51 votes—but to end debate and get to that vote, 60 senators must vote for cloture. In the past, forcing a cloture vote, or filibustering, was rare. In this session, however, Republicans are forcing cloture votes on nearly every piece of legislation under consideration by the Democratic-majority Senate. In effect, any bill that has fewer than 60 votes is dead on arrival.

In just one year, legislation in the Senate has faced more filibusters than in any two-year session in the past three decades.

The use of the filibuster isn’t an accident. It’s a deliberate strategy on the part of Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and his allies in the minority. The goal is to generate headline like “Senate Fails to Pass Bill” and reinforce the belief that it’s Congress in general that’s the problem.

According to the report, it’s working.

Only a quarter of Americans approve of the way Congress is doing its job, lower ratings even than President Bush. Detailed surveys show the Republicans score fractionally lower than the Democrats, but the big picture is one of frustration. The 2006 election was supposed to bring change, and the Democrats have failed to deliver it. However, congressional stasis cannot solely be attributed to Democrats. It is a deliberate Republican goal.

Since January, key pieces of legislation important to working families have been blocked as a result of this strategy, including:

• Jan. 24—the Fair Minimum Wage Act (H.R. 2, Senate Vote 23). This is one of the few working family-friendly bills that ever made it out of the Senate in one form or another, with the Senate passing a minimum wage increase in July, attached to a separate spending bill.

• April 18—the Medicare Prescription Drug Price Negotiation Act (S.3, Senate Vote 132).

• June 26—the Employee Free Choice Act (H.R. 800, Senate Vote 227).

• Sept. 18—the D.C. House Voting Rights Act. (S. 1257, Senate Vote 339).

In every one of these votes, legislation that matters to working families had the clear support of a majority of the Senate’s members, but was stopped in its tracks by the procedural schemes of McConnell and the Republican minority looking out for the interests of drug companies and other corporate elites.

As the report’s authors note, McConnell and his allies have seized control of the national agenda—and working families need to fight back.

The public is hungry for change. They elected the new Democratic majorities to get us out of the war and to change our course at home. They are and will be increasingly frustrated if nothing happens. The American public needs to understand that a conservative congressional minority is sabotaging political progress through a deliberate agenda of obstruction.

To help ensure that working families can see real progress, the AFL-CIO is carrying out the Working Families Vote 2008 campaign, an unprecedented national mobilization to elect a working family-friendly Congress and president.

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