Monday, March 30, 2009
Editorial: Reconciling hypocrisy
Debate over an obscure parliamentary procedure paints neither national party in a good light.
From the RoundTable blog
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If hypocrisy were a valuable commodity, the federal government's money worries would be over. Even trillion-dollar deficits would go away if Congress could trade hypocrisy for gold.
Alas, hypocrisy is worse than worthless. But it is abundant.
The latest display of shameless hypocrisy from both sides of the aisle in Washington, D.C., is over a somewhat obscure parliamentary procedure called reconciliation.
Democrats are discussing inserting some of President Obama's most ambitious and contentious proposals -- a cap and trade system for carbon emissions, health care reform, etc. -- into budget reconciliation bills that would eliminate the ability of Senate Republicans to filibuster.
Republicans are crying foul -- just as Democrats did when Republicans used the same maneuver to evade Democratic filibusters during the Bush administration.
In both cases, the minority party was most likely correct. Important legislation should not sidestep Senate rules meant to ensure sufficient deliberation -- even though the filibuster itself has been somewhat abused in recent years. It is no longer used to continue debate, but to kill legislation outright.
But it is amazing that Sen. Judd Gregg, R-N.H., for instance, can get worked into such a lather about the potential that he would liken it to "running over the minority, putting them in cement and throwing them in the Chicago River."
Ironically enough, it was Republicans who originally changed reconciliation rules to allow the debate-limiting process to be used even on budget bills that did not reduce the deficit. The rule was changed in 1996, protecting proposed tax cuts from a filibuster.
Gregg had no problem when Republicans again used reconciliation to push through President Bush's tax cuts in 2001, 2002 and 2003.
The Republican Party also had no problem contemplating the "nuclear option" to eliminate use of the filibuster for approving judicial nominees, one of the more important duties of the Senate.
Democrats are equally hypocritical. When they were in the minority and reconciliation was used against them, they brayed every bit as loudly as Gregg.
There are appropriate times to use this process to limit debate, but it shouldn't be used to ram through major policy initiatives.
