OpenLeft: "Gentleman's Club" Senate isn't working for us

[marmar]

"Gentleman's Club" Senate isn't working for us
by: Chris Bowers

Mon Nov 23, 2009 at 18:30


I was a little surprised to read Susie Madrak writing about Joe Sestak's potential conflicts with other Senators as a negative:

It's a legitimate question since, as Howard Dean pointed out, the Senate is a gentlemen's club and your effectiveness is closely tied to your ability to build relationships.

I can certainly confirm what Susie writes about Joe Sestak expecting his staff to work very hard, and I can also confirm that he isn't going to build great relationships with the leadership. But really, why is this a bad thing? He was still ranked as the most productive freshman in the House back in 2007. Further, current Senate effectiveness does not seem particularly effective to me, largely because relationships are valued so much more than solving major problems. Supposedly, these relationships are built so that major problems can be solved, but how's that working out for us now?

Last week, Senator Claire McCaskill said the Senate was putting off the climate change bill for several months, because pushing it now was too hard and would make too many Senators mad:

Some senators are skeptical lawmakers will be ready to tackle another huge issue after finishing health care. "After you do one really, really big, really, really hard thing that makes everybody mad, I don't think anybody's excited about doing another really, really big thing that's really, really hard that makes everybody mad," Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo., said. "Climate fits that category."

To put it one way, maintaining Senate collegiality is more important than taking steps to avoid ecological apocalypse. Don't we actually want to do away with this attitude, rather than support it? ...........(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.openleft.com/diary/16170/gentlemans-club-senate-isnt-working-for-us

[Jim Sagle]

1. These jags loaf too much to give us even half a loaf.

[optimator]

2. sounds creepy

I don't want to know what kind of sick shit they do privately.

[ChairmanAgnostic]

3. the sick shit's precisely what they do every day.

and the nation suffers.

I suspect that our founding four fathers, or however there were, would be sick at what DC politics had devolved to.

[Captain Hilts]

4. We need to call the senate what it is: Our House of Lords. nt

[Vidar]

7. Precisely correct.

[mojowork_n]

5. Gentlemen's Club??? Gentlemen's Club???

No wonder the cover charge is so steep, to get in.

Hardly surprising to realize that there might be a lot of money being passed around -- but not in plain sight -- for favors unspoken.

Next, I suppose, I'll have to give up the cherished illusion (so often repeated and reinforced) by Chris Rock, that "there is NO sex in The Champagne Room."

[Selatius]

6. So, I take it they would rather party and talk it up amongst themselves than work hard???

What a bunch of whinny pansies. Life is hard for the vast majority of us. They should be forced to work just as hard as any of us have to do to pay the fucking bills and keep the lights on.

[mojowork_n]

10. It's not like they're incompetent or indifferent or oblivious.

Come on, the Distinguished Gentlemen in both houses of Congress are just doing their job. That facade of well-spoken, collegial, patrician bonhomie just makes it easier for everyone to maintain the public fiction that our democracy isn't just one big, colossal sham. We used to take it for granted, growing up, but somewhere near the end of the last century (the turn of the millenium), the job description of our elected representatives was rendered obsolete by the global oligarchy. Nobody noticed, because the job descriptions all changed about the same time, in journalism and the media, too.

[KharmaTrain]

8. Well...Guess We Need A Constitutional Convention...

It's not as though the Senate just began this type of realtionship...many constitutional scholars will say the collegiality is what makes the Senate work best. It's supposed to be the "cooling" off point...a counterbalance to a House or Executive that may be swayed too far in one political direction or another. For example, it was this "cooling" that prohibited the Clinton inquisition from turning into a full-blown political lynching that the rushpublicans were hoping. In that case, the 67 vote threshold was not only welcome but served a good purpose (consider how things would be if we had only 51 votes when the GOOP was in control and all the damage they could have really done).

Yes, its frustrating that there aren't 60 Senators who want a public option or single payer and that this debate is now based on special interests, but again, this is how the Senate is supposed to work. While some will look at Landrieu taking 300 million to help her still disabled state recover as a "bribe", but to the people who will be getting immediate relief from that money, their Senator served a more important interest. Healthcare means little when you're life is still in shambles 4 years after Katrina. Or for a "Conservo-Dem" whose focus and state interests are vastly different than someone from a solid blue state.

Don't like the current system? Then it's time to put together petitions and put pressure on holding a Constitutional convention to codify new rules...or requirements to hold public office.

[rucky]

9. Term limits, anyone?

Look at our Freshmen senators: Franken, Whitehouse & Sherrod Brown in particular, and tell me you don't see a difference between them and some of the longtime club members and their stupid clicks and factions.

2 terms & out. This ivory tower crap is part of the problem.

[anonymous171]

11. We should have federal recall elections. nt