Adjustment Pains (Or: Being the Minority Sucks)

Peter Roff's UPI news analysis column is worth a read. It discusses the ongoing adustment pains that the Democratic Party is going through as it adjusts to the fact that they are no longer the majority party. Indeed, we are verging on a decade of this being the case, but they haven't figured it out yet.

Roff correctly notes that

And he notes the following rather damning quote from the now Minority Leader:

During the Clinton presidency, Senate Democrats, frustrated over the successful effort to block an economic stimulus package, proposed the abolition of the filibuster.

"The Constitution is straightforward about the few instances in which more than a majority of the Congress must vote," Sen. Tom Daschle, D-S.D., said on Jan. 30, 1995. "A veto override, a treaty, and a finding of guilt in an impeachment proceeding. Every other action by the Congress is taken by majority vote," he said.

Time certainly changes things. The top Senate Democrat is now spearheading the filibuster of the judicial nominees. He has, in the years following his original statement, amended his list to include those things he believes are, to use his word, "controversial."

As they say: read the whole thing.

Posted by Steven Taylor at May 23, 2024 01:31 PM | TrackBack