As Matt and I have argued for some time, 60 votes in the Senate is not actually a magical goal. Matt has correctly pointed out that virtually all major legislation passes the Senate with far more than 60 votes, and the real target should to be a progressive block of 25-30 Senators without whom nothing can get done in the chamber. I have argued that, in terms of passing actual legislation, the real target is six more seats (for 56 plus Lieberman). Tack on the Employee Free Choice Act, and the target is eight (for 58 plus Lieberman).
Now, some experts are backing up our arguments, pointing out that 60 Democratic Senators is simply not a magic number for an Obama administration:
Experts in both political parties say that a majority in the high 50s would clear the path for a lot of legislation.
"I think that a 58- or 57-vote Democratic majority in the Senate would be able to get cloture in a very large number of instances where the current Senate was not able to, and that's simply because of the 42 or 43 Republican senators that will come back," said Scott Lilly, a senior fellow at the liberal Center for American Progress and a former House Appropriations Committee staff director. "Those are the guys who are going to be under real pressure to show they can cooperate to move an agenda."
"Any Democrat[ic] pick-ups beyond 55 essentially get you to 60 on almost any issue without exception, barring card-check and right to work," a Republican strategist said, referring to two hot-button workplace issues that pit labor against business. "Whether you have replaced a Smith with a Merkley, a Collins with an Allen, or a Smith and a Collins remain, the ability of Reid to add them to his total to be able to invoke cloture, and the challenge for McConnell to keep them with him at 41 to beat cloture, is easy for Reid and increasingly hard for McConnell."
This is essentially the same argument I have been making for some time. A closer look at voting patterns in the Senate reveals that 56 Democrats is a magic number for most legislation already on the table. Beyond that, 58 plus Lieberman and Specter would be enough for one of the four major positive feedback loops: the Employee Free Choice Act. We should be able to pass two other feedback loops, election reform and media reform, with 56 votes. The fourth positive progressive feedback loop, immigration reform, does not appear viable unless we win something like 15 seats. Maybe we can pull that one off in 2011-2012.
Leaving my bean counting tendencies aside for the moment, I want to return to Matt's basic argument. Sixty Democratic votes in the Senate doesn't mean a progressive governing majority has arrived if there is no progressive leadership or voting block in the Senate. Remember, the majority of Senate Democrats voted for the authorization for the use of military force in Iraq, for example. Also, large numbers of Senate Democrats, in some cases a majority, voted for blank check war funding, retroactive immunity for telecoms, and the bailout package. It is important to disabuse ourselves of the notion that only Republicans are blocking a progressive legislative agenda. Sixty votes is not a substitute for progressive leadership, and focuses only on the "more" side of "more and better Democrats." It would be nice, but there is nothing magical about the number. |
