Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) and the White House may want to send a few dozen roses to Sen. Jim Bunning (R-Ky.) for throwing them a lifeline last week.
By blocking a short-term extension of unemployment and health insurance benefits, highway funding and Medicare payments to doctors, Bunning has unwittingly given Democrats measurable evidence that the much-maligned Republican filibuster is the real reason for Washington’s gridlock.
Bunning’s unforced error could not have come at a worse time for Republicans, who are ramping up an aggressive campaign to tar as an abuse of power the Democrats’ expected use of reconciliation to pass health care reform.
House and Senate Democrats have bitterly complained about GOP obstruction for the better part of a year, but those arguments have done little to change public perception that they are running a do-nothing Congress. Polling data has also consistently indicated that the public views the use of filibuster-busting reconciliation rules to pass sweeping health care reform as inappropriate.
But Democrats seem to have caught some wind at their backs: Bunning’s filibuster has the unpopular side effects of imperiling benefits to tens of thousands of unemployed workers and forcing furloughs on a couple thousand Department of Transportation workers.
“We now have exhibit A in Republican filibuster abuse from Sen. Bunning. I think he’s done more in the last few days to draw public attention to Republican procedural abuses in the Senate than anything we’ve seen before,” Assistant to the Speaker Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) said Monday.
Van Hollen quickly sought to broaden his attacks. “It does, of course, come on the heels of Sen. [Richard] Shelby [R-Ala.] using the same kind of tactics to try and hold up all sorts of Obama administration nominees until he got a few things for his state, another example of abuse.”
Bunning kicked off his filibuster late last week, arguing that the benefits extension must be paid for and forcing a Thursday night standoff with Majority Whip Dick Durbin (D-Ill.). Little did Democrats know then that Bunning’s one-man crusade could give Van Hollen, Reid and other Democrats the opening they have desperately been looking for to turn the tables on Republicans, who have charged the Democrats with being an ineffective and out-of-touch majority.
In fact, Democratic operatives in the Senate were all smiles when discussing the implications of Bunning’s filibuster. Over the next several days, aides said, Democrats hope to recast themselves as the friend of average Americans while charging that Republicans are standing in the way of delivering much-needed aid to the poor and jobless.
More broadly, Democrats will look to justify the use of tactics such as reconciliation to get legislation passed — namely, health care reform.
“This is a part of the wake-up call to the American people that Republicans are abusing procedures in the Senate, and it is — it is costing the American people in terms of the important Medicare access, as well as other health care access and employment compensation that they otherwise would be receiving,” Van Hollen said, previewing an argument Democrats are expected to make more frequently as the effects of the filibuster become more pronounced.
Rep. Bill Cassidy has his blood drawn by Alesha Barbour during a free hepatitis screening in the Rayburn House Office Building hosted by the Congressional Viral Hepatitis Caucus to recognize "National Viral Hepatitis Testing Day."
Roll Call has launched a new feature, Hill Navigator, to advise congressional staffers and would-be staffers on how to manage workplace issues on Capitol Hill. Please send us your questions — anything from office etiquette, to handling awkward moments, to what happens when the work life gets too personal. Submissions will be treated anonymously.
