“In the current climate, winning is all that seems to matter.”
I like the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette’s Sylvia A. Smith a lot, not least of all when she’s holding my own party’s feet to the fire. Smith isn’t just a great political observer, but she represents one of the few remaining Washington-based reporters for an Indiana newspaper — in short, she offers what few others can.
This weekend was no exception, as Ms. Smith turned her gaze upon the current “debate” over the proposed use of reconciliation in the Senate to pass portions of the health care reform bill that has been bouncing from chamber-to-chamber over the last few months. For those needing a primer, Smith provides as much:
Under reconciliation, Senate filibusters are prohibited. That means a simple majority – 51 votes – is needed to pass something. When filibusters are permitted, it takes a supermajority of 60 votes to unblock a bill, meaning 41 senators can freeze Senate action.
To suggest that legislation passed by a majority vote is undemocratic and illegitimate is absurd.
Reconciliation is a tool the legislative body gave itself, so there is nothing unethical or underhanded about it.
More than anything, though, the column concerns itself with the blustery condemnation that has been shooting out of Republican press offices in Washington for weeks. Although there are more than a few swipes at the GOPers in question, the most scathing indictments are reserved for a political process that seems to have been brought to a stalemate not by procedural maneuvers, but rather by pure partisanship.
But if Republicans succeed in shifting the focus from content to process (that evil perversion of democracy, reconciliation), there is no need to seek common ground.
In the current climate, winning is all that seems to matter. Health insurance legislation is a zero-sum game. Any adjustments to the status quo (even wildly popular pre-existing condition change) would be a victory for Democrats.




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