Sunday, November 9, 2014

Reid was the obstructionist. Didn't allow over 300 bills passed by the House to come up for debate.

Reid leaves a legacy of wreckage

WASHINGTON DC - NOVEMBER 07: Outgoing Senate Majority Harry Reid (D-NV) talks reporter before walking out U.S. Capitol November 7
WASHINGTON, DC - NOVEMBER 07: Outgoing Senate Majority Harry Reid (D-NV) talks to a reporter before walking out of the U.S. Capitol, November 7, 2014 in Washington, DC. Reid along with other Congressional leaders were headed to a meeting with President Barack Obama at the White House. (Photo by Mark Wilson/Getty Images) 
Updated: November 9, 2014 10:57AM
 

The first order of business for the U.S. Senate under Republican Mitch McConnell will be getting the Senate back in business. For most of the last four years, Democrat Harry Reid manipulated what was once the world’s greatest deliberative body for political purposes, not for the hard task of governing. 
The House passed more than 300 bills but they mostly died from neglect in the Senate. What little legislation that made it to the floor crashed as Reid manipulated Senate rules to ban amendments and debate. When Republicans refused to bow to his tin-pot dictatorial rule, he accused them of obstructionism.
Don’t take my word for it. A news article in the New York Times, not known as a GOP mouthpiece, characterized Reid’s control of the Senate as “brutish” and “uncompromising.”
Reid aimed to protect the White House. For example, building the Keystone pipeline to carry oil from Canada to Gulf coast refineries is popular with many Democrats. Reid said no to a vote so that President Barack Obama wouldn’t have the tough choice of whether to sign a bill heavily favored by unions but fiercely opposed by environmentalists.
Reid also protected special interests. He did the bidding of trial lawyers and blocked passage of a patent reform bill with bipartisan support in Congress and backing from Obama and 500 high-tech companies.
Reid’s do-nothing scheme backfired on Democrats in Tuesday’s elections. Alaska’s Mark Begich, who appears to be losing his seat in a long vote count, couldn’t tell voters he had offered even one amendment in six years in the Senate. Mary Landrieu of energy-dependent Louisiana appears headed for defeat in a December runoff, perhaps partly because her Senate Energy Committee chairmanship wasn’t enough clout to get a vote on the Keystone pipeline.
It’s no wonder that when Republican McConnell takes over as majority leader in January, he wants to restore debate, revive the amendment process and pass bills.
One thing McConnell won’t be able to do is reverse the worst of Reid’s legacy — his undermining the independence and integrity of federal courts. A year ago he invoked the “nuclear option” to blow up the way the Senate confirms nominations to courts, with the exception — for now — of the Supreme Court.
Complaining that Republicans were blocking Obama’s judicial appointees, Reid twisted the Senate rules to end the filibuster, or requirement of at least 60 votes, to confirm nominations to life-time judgeships. 
This super-majority requirement meant that even when the White House and Senate were controlled by the same party, judicial nominations usually required support from opposition senators. That buy-in allowed judges to have ideological principles but not partisan motivations. It’s the difference between a principled liberal like Ruth Bader Ginsburg and a left-wing extremist like Elizabeth Warren, or between a principled conservative like Antonin Scalia and tea party firebrand Ted Cruz.
When one party doesn’t need opposition support for its judicial nominations, the temptation will be to nominate partisans. When that happens, inevitably the public could come to see federal courts as just another political venue, not an independent arena where competing viewpoints will get fair, equal consideration.
Reid’s legacy is nothing but wreckage: a dysfunctional Senate, hyper partisanship and long-term a threat to the integrity of the courts. His great-grandchildren or their children will squirm with embarrassment when history class lessons tag him as one of the worse, if not the worst, majority leader in American history.

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