The U.S. Senate is broken. With everything requiring 60 votes to begin and end debate, (without actual fillibusters happening mind you, just the threat of them) and with individual members able to place holds (secret or not) on nominees and legislation for any reason, it’s no wonder that nothing is getting done. The Senate, essentially, is where good legislation goes to die. That kind of obstruction was a big part of the reason why we drafted Halter to take on Senator Lincoln, besides her just being a crappy Senator. There is a big push to get some reform of the Senate rules come 2011, but there are still a lot of people standing in the way. Surprise surprise, one of them is our other crappy Senator, Mark Pryor.

Sen. Mark Pryor (D-Ark.) said he recognizes his colleagues are frustrated over the failure to pass measures such as the Disclose Act, campaign legislation that fell three votes short of overcoming a Republican filibuster Tuesday.

“I think as torturous as this place can be, the cloture rule and the filibuster is important to protect the rights of the minority,” he said. “My inclination is no.”

As precious as the rights of the minority party are (and yeah, when we were in the minority we fought to protect the fillibuster) Republicans and a few bad Democrats have taken the country hostage when we’re in the worst economy since the thirties. I know the Senate is supposed to operate on tradition and congeniality and all that bullshit like the country club it is, but frankly the country can’t afford that kind of patrician nonsense. It’s time to get rid of holds, and while we might not want to get rid of the fillibuster entirely, they should at least make them stand and read from the phone book rather than just threaten to do so.

As usual, Pryor has showed himself to be absolutely useless, even more so than our senior senator, who has at least committed to getting rid of secret holds. He’s an agent of conservative obstruction, plain and simple.

Sadly, the DISCLOSE Act, part of the remedy to Citizens United, has been held up by Senate Republicans.  Joe Lieberman, for some reason, had to miss the vote, though he plans to vote with the Democrats next time around, but the ball got left in Senator Olympia Snowe’s court, and she continued to prove that there is no such thing as a moderate Republican.  Basically, the DISCLOSE Act requires that companies and interests groups (with some exceptions that a few powerful interests, namely the NRA, got into the bill) to reveal their contributors, have CEOs stand by the ads their corporate PACs fund, and ban foreign money.  Somehow, apparently, requiring the people who put up ads like what we saw in the Senate race here to reveal who they are counts as silencing critics in the view of Minority Leader McConnell.

Free speech exists for the benefit of the people and for our democracy.  To put it simply, it guarantees the free flow of ideas that a free country needs to survive.  But if the Supreme Court is going to interpret the First Amendment to allow corporations to buy elections, then we should at least get to know who’s buying them.  Apparently, Republicans would rather let shadowy corporate contributors operate in secret-even foreign companies.  But hey, they are their base after all.

Just a quick note here. I’m watching the Kagan hearings at work and, frankly, I really, really, really want to see shorter opening statements, even from the guys I like. The funny thing is Kagan, who if I recall correctly once called for Supreme Court confirmation hearings to be more substantial, looks as if she’s struggling not to show her disgust with the idiocy these senators, Democrats and Republicans alike. Lol, I have to say that makes me feel a little better about her.

Oh, and I’ve got to say, it’s bad when the most real and substantive conversation on the role of the Courts comes from none other than Crazy Coburn from Oklahoma…

By the way:Media matters has a nice little take down of all the myths that have been thrown at Kagan by the right. Hat tip to Max Brantley.

Update:I’ve got to say, while I’m not much on long winded speeches in these things, Senators Whitehouse and Klobuchar (Ds from Rhode Island and Minnesota respectively) really came across as true statesmen in their speeches.

God I love Al Franken.

This story from TPM really bugs me.

In the latest blow to the prospects of climate and energy legislation, the third ranking Democrat in the Senate suggested today that Dems will start small, instead of bringing a comprehensive bill to the floor.

Appearing on MSNBC this morning, Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) confirmed that Majority Leader Harry Reid will move an energy-only bill next month, based on a template authored by Energy Committee Chairman Jeff Bingaman, and predicted that Sens. John Kerry (D-MA) and Joe Lieberman (I-CT) will have a chance to offer their much farther-reaching climate change legislation as an amendment to the base package.

“Kerry has a proposal that has pretty broad support,” Schumer said. “He’s going, in my opinion, going to get a chance to offer it in the form of an amendment.”

That procedural avenue would make the chances of rounding up 60 votes for capping and pricing carbon more difficult, but is of a piece with the noises coming out of Reid’s own office. Keying off the oil spill in a letter delivered last week, Reid asked several committee chairmen to offer up ideas in time for him to put together an energy bill in July–this despite the fact that the Kerry-Lieberman bill is already drafted, and has been at the center of the energy debate in the Senate for months.

They never seem to learn. You don’t aim low, that’s a recipe for disaster. The opponents of this bill will work to water it down or kill it no matter what is offered, so the best chance for negotiations to produce a successful bill is to be as ambitious as possible. That way, while the negotiating process may whittle it down a bit and remove some good things from it, we’d still have a bill that could address the problems we face.

Energy and the environment are too important for Democrats to aim low on this one. The future of all mankind really is at stake here.

Update: And Shumer walks it back for the time being.  That didn’t take long.

Finally, after much obstruction and after many strong amendments from progressives got shot down, the Senate has passed Wall Street Reform!

The bill itself calls for new regulations aimed at making the failures that led to the 2008 financial crisis less likely. Though it’s not the final bill President Obama will sign, the reforms would create much greater transparency in the derivatives-trading market, capital requirements for systemically significant financial firms, and a resolution and liquidation mechanism, to wind down those firms when they fail. It would also mandate a broad audit of the Federal Reserve and create a new government agency, tasked with protecting consumers from predatory financial practices and products.

Lincoln’s derivatives reform measure that she really didn’t want made it through (thank us progressive activists and Bill Halter for that one).  However, there’s still some legislative wrangling to do, and part of that seems to be an effort (by Dems and Republicans alike) to water the bill down, apparently in the name of “bipartisanship”, or more likely in favor of their corporate contributors and lobbyist friends:

The shape of the final bill is unknown, but House and Senate aides expect that the legislation the President signs will call for several, though not all, of the Senate’s stronger provisions–but will aim not to lose the support of any swing vote senators. Likewise, the White House will push to adopt the Senate’s narrower Fed Audit provision, and to weaken the Senate’s derivatives title, which calls for financial firms to spin off their swaps desks. However, the final derivatives title will likely still be stronger than the House-passed version, which, after an intense, below-the-radar lobbying effort, includes a number of loopholes and carve outs for favored industry players.

Oh, and all that effort to get Republicans onboard?  Didn’t work out so well:

Another surprise: Weeks ago, conventional wisdom held that the very same politics that helped strengthen the bill would also lead to broad bipartisan support. Though GOP leaders were not so resolutely opposed to this legislation that they forced their caucus to oppose the bill unanimously, in the end very few Republicans actually chose to vote with the Democrats. In a floor speech before final passage, Sen. Richard Shelby (R-AL)–the GOP’s top financial reform negotiator–called the bill “a liberal activist’s dream come true.”

One more example of why Democrats should stop waisting time and energy on “bipartisanship”.  If Republicans want to opposed good, popular legislation, then let them.  Then go and beat them over the heads with it at the polls.

But anyway, now this legislation is going to be ironed out in conference committee and then brought back up in the House and Senate.  That’s when we’ll really have to push hard on our representatives and our two senators.  And our warning to them is simple.  We are watching.

The Senate will vote on the first of several jobs related measures next week.  The first bill is a rather limited measure, but none the less deserves a yes vote.

The Senate’s $15 billion proposal is centered around $13 billion in tax breaks to businesses that hire unemployed workers this year, a provision championed by Sens. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) and Orrin Hatch (R-Utah). Other components include an extension of highway funding, a bonds provision allowing state and local governments to borrow cash at lower rates, and another business tax break empowering companies to write off more expenses. The bill, Democrats say, is just the first in a series of legislative efforts designed to spur hiring.

The question is whether or not the votes are there to override a fillibuster.  Enter Blanche Lincoln:

And of course, there’s Blanche Lincoln, who “said last week she opposed the loss of provisions such as the research tax credit and farm disaster aid.” All this in a bill that was supposed to be about jobs.

Those breaks, mind you, were in the massive Baucus version of the bill with a twelve digit price tag for corporate welfare, much of which wouldn’t create any jobs.  Way to go Blanche.  Way to show off those fiscal consverative credentials.  Almost as good as kicking uninsured Arkansans to the curve.

Regardless, pick up the phone and tell Lincoln to support this measure:

 202-224-4843

And Pryor too:

(202) 224-2353