It's official: Democrats win the senate too

[meglamaniac]

http://www.cnn.com/ELECTION/2006/

Oh dear, George - looks like it's lame duck territory now. Already he's done a dramatic about-face and is promising to work with his respected colleagues, etc etc.

Frankly with no majority in the house or the senate he's going to find it extremely difficult to push through anything slightly controversial. For a president used to getting his own way on everything, this could be a bit of a shock. So far as I understand it, this dramatically reduces Republican influence in some very important areas, most noteably legislation - does this open up the possibility of reforms to (or the scrapping of) things like USA-PATRIOT?

Either way, as an outsider looking in, this can only be good for the US.

[Yahwe]

president bartlet managed!!!

(oh but he had charisma and was better scripted )

[JonnyBGood]

Communists have been so pessimistic since Uncle Joe died

[furball]

There's been a good amount of noise made about Pelosi's first 100 hours as Speaker.

Day One: Put new rules in place to "break the link between lobbyists and legislation."
Day Two: Enact all the recommendations made by the commission that investigated the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

Time remaining until 100 hours:
Raise the minimum wage to $7.25 an hour, maybe in one step.
Cut the interest rate on student loans in half.
Allow the government to negotiate directly with the pharmaceutical companies for lower drug prices for Medicare patients.
Broaden the types of stem cell research allowed with federal funds

All the days after that: "Pay as you go," meaning no increasing the deficit, whether the issue is middle class tax relief, health care or some other priority. To do that, she said, Bush-era tax cuts would have to be rolled back for those above "a certain level." She mentioned annual incomes of $250,000 or $300,000 a year and higher, and said tax rates for those individuals might revert to those of the Clinton era. Details will have to be worked out, she emphasized.



Doesn't strike me as especially bad

[Appocomaster]

Actually, Hilary might be ok - Bill wasn't that bad, and she can't be worse than Bush.

How can Pelosi pass all these things as Speaker? or are these just suggested things?

[MrL_JaKiri]

Originally Posted by furball

Doesn't strike me as especially bad

It's a question of scale. Using T&F's "90 days without charge" thing, what if the opposition supported only 45 days without charge?

It's an improvement, but it's still not exactly where we want to be.

[furball]

Originally Posted by Appocomaster

How can Pelosi pass all these things as Speaker? or are these just suggested things?

She's essentially responsible for the Democrats' legislative programme in the House of Representatives.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speaker...epresentatives

The Speaker is the head of the majority party in the House of Representatives, outranking the Majority Leader. The Speaker is responsible for ensuring that the House passes legislation supported by the majority party. In pursuing this goal, the Speaker may utilize his or her power to determine when each bill reaches the floor. He or she also chairs the majority party's House steering committee. While the Speaker is the functioning head of the House majority party, the same is not true of the President pro tempore of the Senate, whose office is primarily ceremonial and honorary.

When the Speaker and the President belong to the same party, the Speaker normally plays a less prominent role as the leader of the majority party. (For example, the current Speaker, Dennis Hastert, has played a very low-key role during the presidency of fellow Republican George W. Bush.) On the other hand, when the Speaker and the President belong to opposite parties, the public role and influence of the Speaker tend to increase. The Speaker can be seen as the "leader of the opposition," the symbol of his or her party, and the chief public opponent of the President's agenda. Recent examples include Tip O'Neill (who was a vocal opponent of President Ronald Reagan's domestic and defense policies) and Newt Gingrich (who fought a bitter battle with President Bill Clinton for control of domestic policy).

[Tactitus]

The big thing that control of the Senate adds is the ability to block judicial appointments, although the Democrats were able to do a fairly good job on that front even as a minority (at least for lower court appointments). There are currently 40+ federal judicial vacancies. The Republicans might be able to fill a few of them before the new Congress takes office in January, but I don't expect many vacancies will be filled after that. The exception would be Supreme Court vacancies as few are willing to let those languish.

The Democrats don't have a large enough majority in either house to override a Presidential veto, so there will be a lot of horse-trading.

[dda]

It is likely that Pelosi can control the democrats sufficiently to pass many items of legislation through the House. All tax and revenue must originate in the House. She will have to remain somewhat centerist if she doesn't want the "Blue Dog" Democrats to abandon ship and ally with the Republicans.

However, since things which pass the House are often defeated in the Senate or vetoed by the President the Democrats may decide to pass legislation out of the house which sounds all "peachy keen" but which tweeks Republicans. The Republicans will then either kill the legislation in the house or put Bush in the position of vetoing it.

Since the Democrats did not, at any time during the past six years come out with a plan of their own, they thrived on blaming the Republicans for any thing which they could convince the public, with the help of a very sympathetic media, that was wrong. By putting forth an agenda now, they can again blame the Republicans for anything that goes wrong by putting the Republicans in the position of blocking it.

I think that the person most upset about the Democratic victory is Hilary Clinton. She now has lost the focus of attention with Pelosi and Reed being brought to the forefront. It will also be difficult for her to present herself as a a savior. Additionally, the public may now expect the Democrats to put up or shut up. The swing voters are ever more disaffected with both parties and could easily go the other way in two years. A recent analysis indicates that 78,000 votes changed over a number of very close congressional races would have been enough to leave the Republicans in power in both houses. The Democrats need to realize they didn't receive a mandate.

The next few months should be interesting.