Argh !!! - Chris Dodd, Retiring From the Senate, Tells Colleagues to Keep It Broken - FDL

[WillyT]

Chris Dodd, Retiring From the Senate, Tells Colleagues to Keep It Broken
By: David Dayen Wednesday August 4, 2010 11:25 am

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I don’t know if Chris Dodd thinks it’ll be easier in his post-Senate career lobbying his colleagues to have minority veto points, or whether he’s just pining for some imagined, halcyon time of comity and bipartisanship, but he’s been the most vocal member of the Senate against filibuster reform, and he apparently informally lobbied some freshman Dems on it the other day: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/08/04/dodd-presses-senate-fresh_n_670433.html

Chris Dodd gathered with the Democratic Senate freshman class on Tuesday night at a dinner organized by Mark Warner to persuade them to back off their push to change Senate rules when the chamber returns in January, the first opportunity there will be to do so.

Dodd, who is giving up his Connecticut Senate seat following a 36-year congressional career, argued that those who have yet to serve in the minority should be careful tampering with the rules.

“I made a case last night to about ten freshman senators, you know, you want to turn this into a unicameral body? What’s the point of having a Senate? If the vote margins are the same as in the House, you might as well close the doors,” Dodd told reporters in the Capitol.

“Those ideas are normally being promoted by people who haven’t been here in the minority and don’t understand how the rules, if intelligently used, can help protect against the tyranny of the majority and cause things to slow down,” said Dodd.

Actually, I think they know exactly how the rules, if “intelligently used,” can slow everything down. To a crawl, to be precise. The Senate has a 18th century rules structure for a 21st century body. Just little things, like making it so that 41 Senators must affirmatively vote against cloture to block it, rather than needing 60 for cloture to invoke it, would change the Senate in sensible ways by putting the onus on the minority. The rules of unanimous consent, which takes the setting of the legislative agenda out of the hands of the people elected by a majority of voters to do their work and into the hands of whatever random Senator decides his state needs a new airport, are completely outdated for this era of partisanship. Dodd may support superficial changes like ending the practice of secret holds, expected to get a vote in September (and pass, as lawmakers believe they have 67 votes in hand), but nothing on changing the supermajority threshold.

Dodd, who called this “an incredible Congress” where a lot has gotten done, thinks that the Senate will move better if there are more Republicans in it after next year:

Dodd also speculated that the makeup of the Senate in the next session, if the GOP picks up a few seats, may paradoxically ease some of the obstruction. “Once the 40 number is gone, when you have the 40 number, you’ve got much more discipline, then everybody is critical. If you’re 42 or 38, or you’re 45 or 47, you know, , ‘Wait a minute, don’t tell me my vote is absolutely critical. I’ve got a lot more flexibility to be much more independent than if I’m at 40.’ So I think you’re going to see a changed minority in the coming days.”

Pardon me for a moment, while I try to re-attach my jaw, which has dropped on the floor.

I don’t know if Senators like Dodd are just so in the bubble and clueless about how they are perceived by the nation, or if they really actively want Republicans to stop them from legislating (or at least, they want to hold on to the excuse), but whatever the reason, the one bit of fortunate news is that this is not going to be Dodd’s decision to make. He’s retiring at the end of the year (because he was going to lose his seat), and so won’t have a vote at the beginning of the next Congress on changing the rules. So if and when the Senate gets their act together and realizes their silly rules are turning their careers into mud, hopefully Dodd won’t fall off his fainting couch back in Connecticut.

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Link: http://news.firedoglake.com/2010/08/04/chris-dodd-retiring-from-the-senate-tells-colleagues-to-keep-it-broken/

:wtf:

:mad:

:kick:

[BootinUp]

1. As many times as he got his ass kicked

and his head is still lodged up in there.

[Lost4words]

3. to quote Ronnie, "There You GO Again"

[BootinUp]

4. accurate quote, not sure why you put it here

Explain yourself.

[Warren Stupidity]

2. It must be the water.

It seems that all Senators from Connecticut are

TOTAL BUTTWADS

[Geoff R. Casavant]

5. He's simply looking further ahead.

We hate the filibuster now because it's being used to stymie progress. But the Republicans won't be in the minority forever -- they, or other parties like them, will retake the Senate -- not in 2010, not in 2012, maybe not for a few decades, but it will happen. And when it does, we are going to want that filibuster there to provide a brake on going backwards.

[laughingliberal]

6. Good question, Chris. Just WTF is the point of having a Senate?

Especially a Senate full of people like you?

[Canuckistanian]

7. Why can't he just accept his gold watch and go quietly?

He's making an ass of himself at the end of a mediocre career.

And when he starts his new position at Goldman Sachs as a "senior advisor", his words will come back to haunt him - he was just a shill for Wall Street.