Boot Joe Lieberman

by: Matt Stoller

Fri Oct 31, 2008 at 03:43


He shouldn't be in the caucus.

Today, the Hill reports:

One Democratic source said Lieberman is not likely to lose his position in the Democratic caucus, even if the party picks up several seats in next week's election... "There's no sense in cutting off our nose to spite our face," one source said.

When will Democratic leaders realize that every time Joe Lieberman spouts right-wing talking points on TV as a "Democrat" or attends a Republican press conference as a "Democrat," that spites their face big-time?

So here's the plan. Immediately after Election Day, if Democrats don't need Lieberman as their 60th vote in the Senate, progressive activists in Nevada will stand in front of Harry Reid's office for hours and read your letters to Harry Reid about Joe Lieberman.

Media will be invited. It will be a grand spectacle, and Harry Reid will get the hint that in the progressive era, he needs to be bold. And the first step is to boot Joe Lieberman. Write your letter to Reid here.

Lieberman is not a Democrat, and he shouldn't be counted as one.  It's clear that's the case, and in 2009, Democratic Senators will no longer have an excuse to keep him in the caucus because they need his vote to organize the Senate.  They'll just be keeping him in there because they want to.

And that is not ok.
Matt Stoller :: Boot Joe Lieberman

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Boot Joe Lieberman | 25 comments
Damn (4.00 / 2)
We need to end this nonsense about Lieberman being the 60th senate vote right now. The only vote where having him in the caucus matters is the one for senate leadership. We will undoubtedly have a majority without him. There is no leadership or general procedural vote where we need 60 Democrats.

Where we do need 60 votes (they don't need to be Democrats) is on cloture votes for every seriously progressive piece of legislation we want to pass. For these votes it does not matter whether Lieberman is in the caucus or not. All that matters is that he votes the way he usually does on domestic policy.

Now its possible that kicking him out would piss him off so much that he would actually start voting like a right winger on domestic issues- but I think that prospect is very unlikely. At most it would happen once, not again and again on every piece of Obama's agenda.

So to conclude: Even if we have 59+ Lieberman we should STILL kick him out since we don't need 60 people who call themselves Democrats just 60 people willing to end debate on every piece of legislation!

Consider another option-- (0.00 / 0)
Kicking him out of the party would be satisfying, but would it serve our purposes? How about kicking him out of the chair, but leaving him in the caucus and some committees -- as long as he's good. Let him know that one sentence parroting GOP talking points, one appearance on a talk show, and he's a man without a party and without a committee membership. And mean it.

He'd essentially be serving, as the phrase goes, at the pleasure of the majority leader, permanently teetering on the edge of a cluff, permanantly reduced to walking on eggs. It's a win-win: the Dems get their most reliable vote, and Lieberman serves out his last term suffering daily reminders of his worthlessness. Doesn't get much better than that.

[ Parent ]
Right (0.00 / 0)
Thats what I'd support. But I'm pretty sure kicking him out of the Chair would precipitate him leaving the caucus in exchange for a ranking member spot with the Republicans (though maybe they wouldn't offer since it wouldn't flip control).  
[ Parent ]
Why would they deal? (0.00 / 0)
I don't see some entrenched wingnut senator giving up his/her ranking member status without a disastrous fight. The GOP has been busy for decades purging anybody left of McConnell, so why would they want to voluntarily add another "enemy"? I think Lieberman's options are much sparser than you suggest.
[ Parent ]
McCain (0.00 / 0)
might still be able to call in a few favors, it would be a media cycle win for Republicans- at a time when they'd probably be desperate for good press.

Theres no good option for the guy but I'm not sure I'd sit by and do nothing as I was stripped of my chairmanship.

In any case theres really no difference between a Lieberman who nominally caucuses with the Democrats but has no real power and a Lieberman who caucuses with the Republicans but has no real power.

[ Parent ]
I don't care about the caucus (4.00 / 3)
I want him out as a committee chair, so he has some punishment and can't cause so much trouble for Obama.  Everything else is a matter of politics -- what we gain by making an example of him vs what we lose in making his vote less reliable.  We have to pass a health care plan this time and an energy plan.  And I do not want to be a politician because I don't enjoy such calculations.  

Yes, I donated to Lamont.

New Jersey politics at Blue Jersey.

maybe I should add (0.00 / 0)
that I would love to see him gone, but I'm saying I don't know if it is right thing to hope for or not.  

New Jersey politics at Blue Jersey.
[ Parent ]
He'd still get a vote in committee (4.00 / 2)
Stripping the chair would help, but he'd still cause problems if he's allowed on any important committee by voting with the Republicans. He needs to be stuck on committees like Indian Affairs and HHS with no foreign or national security relevance.

Forgotten Countries - a foreign policy-focused blog
[ Parent ]
Isn't there some committee (0.00 / 0)
that decides on the Senate cafeteria menu or something? He could have the power to mandate Neoconsmme. Which is more than he deserves.
[ Parent ]
"Give 'em Hell Harry" (4.00 / 2)
Harry Reid will get the hint that in the progressive era, he needs to be bold.

Harry Reid is to boldness as Joe Lieberman is to integrity as oil is to vinegar.

How the hell did Harry Reid become majority leader? He's surpassed in wimpiness only by Chuck Schumer. The two senators who strike me as having any kind of intestinal fortitude and leadership ability are Sheldon Whitehouse and Russ Feingold.

well, he talked that Republican senator (0.00 / 0)
into defecting in 2001, thereby giving Democrats control of the senate. That kind of maneuver, it turns out, doesn't sow you'll be a good majority leader, but I bet it impressed his fellows.


New Jersey politics at Blue Jersey.
[ Parent ]
There will be a leadership fight after the election, right? (0.00 / 0)
I've heard too much about Dodd wanting the job to really believe otherwise.
[ Parent ]
what is Lieberman thinking? (0.00 / 0)
He's made recent statements which sound like he's trying to mend fences with Obama - I guess he's concluded that McCain is going to lose and that the dems are going to make significant gains in both houses.

We know that Lieberman is a rabid neo-con warmonger to the extent that he's been willing to overlook environmental, economic and civil liberties issues in order to try to get what he wants on foreign policy. But that option will be off the table, so is he really so bitter and twisted that he'd spend the rest of his miserably career fighting alongside the wingnuts on issues he doesn't agree with just to spite the democrats?

I mean, even if he's stripped of his seniority it he really going to support a filibuster against, for example, trying to reduce global warming??

The nuclear option (0.00 / 0)
While we're on the subject, could someone please explain what this is, and whether you think it would be used if the dems have 58 or 59 and repubs keep filibustering everything as they are now?
the idea, as I understood it, (4.00 / 2)
was that you would get the VP -- being "in charge of the senate" LOL -- to rule that filibusters didn't apply to court nominations. Then you just proceed with an up or down vote. I suppose it could theoretically be deployed, but it would be hard for Republicans to all filibuster a nominee, plus Democrats don't seem to believe in taht kind of stuff.  



New Jersey politics at Blue Jersey.

[ Parent ]
thanks (0.00 / 0)
hmmm ... well, it's hard to imagine even Lieberman, much less Susan Collins, filibustering an Obama SCOTUS pick. I'm certain Obama and his team would pick someone with impeccable qualifications. I'm more worried about healthcare.
[ Parent ]
After all this, the Dems need to grow a set (4.00 / 3)
and kick Joe to the curb. He has actively campaigned for the other side, gleefully slandered our nominee, apparently forgotten where he's come from and who got him there, kneecapped our Senate candidate (twice), etc etc, and so on, ad infinitum. It has nothing to do with gotchas. His judgement is shit, he doesn't deserve to serve. The people of CT sent that message (myself included, as a resident at the time), but he snuck around and got in via the know-nothings and the Repubs.

I don't think we need to be vindictive about this. I think he'll be royally irrelevant come Nov. 5, but wtf. Pelosi and Reid have pussyfooted around for the last two years. With the coming Dem surge in Congress, let's show these blue dogs and this one particular "independent" the door.  

Substitute Lieberman and Powell in your response... (0.00 / 0)
And you sound like Rush Limbaugh!  
[ Parent ]
This is such nonesense (4.00 / 1)
There is no point trying to stick it to him. Stripping committee chair from him is punishment, and I'm much more concerned about votes for important legislation than getting revenge on someone who isn't even in the top 100 villians of the last decade. We have lots of dems from red states who are going to be hard to nail down as a vote on various issues, so even if we had 65 seats this would be dumb.
Make him Secretary of State (4.00 / 1)
Obama should embrace Joe as a bipartisan gesture and appoint him to Secretary of State.  

And then fire him.  Ha!

[ Parent ]
I'm all for humilating Lieberman (0.00 / 0)
In an ideal world, Democrats would pretend to be nice to Perfidious Joe and act like they are willing to make up, then yank the rug out from under him and kick him out of his committee chairmanship at the last minute, preferably double-crossing him after making him jump through hoops with public statements.

Things You Don't Talk About in Polite Company: Religion, Politics, the Occasional Intersection of Both
Thank you Nevada progressives for this event (0.00 / 0)
From Connecticut.

"I think the economic logic behind dumping a load of toxic waste in the lowest wage country is impeccable and we should face up to that."
-Lawrence Summers
And after we kick out Lieberman, should we do the same to... (0.00 / 0)
Prior, Bayh, Landrieu, Ben Nelson, and Johnson?  According to Progressive Punch, they all have lower progressive scores than Lieberman in 2007-08 (by their "Chips Are Down" ranking).

http://www.progressivepunch.or...

What's really funny is that Barack "most liberal member of Congress" Obama is ranked BEHIND Lieberman in the overall ranking, at #46.  In the "Chips Are Down" rankings, Obama is one ahead of Lieberman at #45.

(Caveat - I don't have time to look at the issues they used to determine their rankings, so this could be a load of crap.  I'll leave it to others to decide, if anyone is interested.  But FWIW, they aren't just basing their rankings on 5 or 10 votes, they've got over 100.)

Sorry, I don't see the point of kicking Lieberman out of the caucus.  It sure makes it a lot tougher to twist his arm when you need one more vote.  And as others pointed out, just because you have 60 Dems doesn't mean you have 60 votes.  Sure, take away the chairmanship, but kicking him out of the caucus doesn't do us any good at all (except making us feel good, I guess).

Um, Prior, Bayh, Landrieu, Ben Nelson, and Johnson (0.00 / 0)
are Democrats. Lieberman is not. I don't know if you even CAN kick a Dem out of the Dem caucus. Your comparison doesn't make sense.

Still, I agree with your basic point. Worse things could happen to Lieberman than being kicked out of the caucus. Like retaining a few minor majority privileges at the pleasure of the majority leader, subject to cancellation any time he fails to behave as a Democrat.

[ Parent ]
"In the Caucus" (0.00 / 0)
What exactly does "in the caucus" mean?  What would being kicked out of the caucus mean?  That he would not be allowed to vote for Democratic leadership?  That makes no sense either tactically or physically; no one can control his vote on anything.

Does this mean he would count as a Republican when filling committee membership?  That might actually make sense.

But without explanation of what booting Lieberman out of the Democratic caucus actually means I don't see how I can have a solid opinion on the matter.

I am 100% in favor of not letting him chair any committee, though; that just seems obvious.

Boot Joe Lieberman | 25 comments
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