We now have two vacant Democratic Senate seats, the one duly won by Al Franken in Minnesota and the one vacated by Barack Obama, to which Roland Burris has been appointed by "embattled" Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich.
Regarding the Franken seat, this is over. There is no reason beyond Republican petulance not to seat him at once. But Republicans will always choose petulance over cooperation, and so they are doing now. Senator Franken's vanquished opponent, the incumbent Norm Coleman, has pointlessly challenged the result of Minnesota's meticulous recount in court even though, were Coleman to win every challenge his people have been able to concoct (mostly out of whole cloth), still he would not earn enough additional votes to prevail.
If we wanted to show some strength and create a Senate environment where we will actually be able to move this country properly in the right direction, we would forcefully attempt to seat Franken and let the Republicans try to mount a filibuster. If their filibuster succeeded initially, we should use their obstructionism to change the Senate rules to revert to the OLD filibuster rule, the one we saw in "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington" and during the civil rights struggles of the '60s, where the minority must actually physically hold the floor for cloture to enter into the mix, and otherwise the majority can just wait them out. Or abolish the filibuster entirely.
Under the rules, this would require only a MAJORITY of the Senate, with the concurrence of the President of the Senate (currently unavailable to us because Dick Cheney wouldn't agree, but this will change in less than two weeks when Joe the Biden is sworn in). The Republicans would scream bloody murder but would not be able to avert the attainment of a quorum to enact the change. If we succeeded they would try to shut down the Senate, but without Democratic defections they do not have the numbers to make it stick. This would present some public relations complications but in my opinion it would be worth it in the long run, making compromise with evil so much less of an issue when we try to enact the Administration's various badly needed proposals. Remember, they snookered us out of the filibuster when they held a Senate majority, and I say sauce for the goose...
The current cloture rule is NOT a long-standing Senate tradition and should not be viewed with any particular reverence. To require a supermajority to prevail over an obstinate, obstructionist minority is not reasonable and is not an effective means of governance.
The second seat, the one in Illinois, is demonstrating rather conclusively that the current Senate leadership is too weak to be permitted to endure. Whatever one may think right now of Rod Blagojevich, I might urge that you reserve judgment on that point until more is known, given the partisan nature of prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald's history (remember, he protected Karl Rove and Dick Cheney from scrutiny during the Valerie Plame scandal, allowing Scooter Libby to become the lone scapegoat for illegal actions that originated right at the top) and his highly improper grandstanding in the current case. I have not heard the entire contents of his wiretap tapes, but what I have heard lends itself to a variety of alternative, less incriminating interpretations than would warrant Fitzgerald's jury-tainting public behavior. Remember, it is unethical for a prosecutor to bring charges or order an arrest unless he has a substantial reason to believe that he would prevail in court, and it is entirely unclear if any illegal act was committed or planned by Rod Blagojevich.
Be that as it may, Mr. Blagojevich remains the duly elected Governor of Illinois with not only the power, but the sworn DUTY, to appoint a successor to fill Barack Obama's now vacant Senate seat. To do otherwise would be an unforgivable breach of his responsibility as governor to serve the needs of Illinois citizens, particularly during this period when legislation plays such an important role in recovering from Bush's various messes and quagmires and a single vote in the Senate may prove decisive in determining the difference between a return to prosperity or a deepening depression.
There is no evidence whatsoever that Roland Burris has done anything even remotely illegal or unethical. Even if Patrick Fitzgerald's worst allegations of wrongdoing by Mr. Blagojevich prove to be true, that does not relate in any way to Roland Burris's qualifications or fitness to hold the Senate seat to which he has been duly appointed.
Harry Reid has been made to look the fool in this, and not for the first time. His whole reaction to it has been inexplicable, childlike in its whinyness, wimpy in its flaccid weakness, and counterproductive of not just the current power but the future stature of the Democratic Party. It is time that we voted in a new, more effective leader more attuned to the needs of the dangerous present and uncertain future.
I have several candidates for the post, each of whom provides various strengths that seem to be absent in Mr. Reid. To name three: Charles Schumer of New York, whose seat is safe and whose willingness to go to the mat against Republican obstructionism (except in the weird matters surrounding the treatment of Wall Street income as tax-favored capital gains instead of earned income) is impressive; Dick Durbin of Illinois, whose intelligence and predilection for partisanship might serve us well against our Republican adversaries; Carl Levin of Michigan, whose record on security and defense are unassailable and whose positions on social matters, particularly worker rights, are exemplary, and who positively drips intellect from every pore.
Maybe Harry Reid was the right man for the times when we were in the minority and needed conciliation in order to preserve whatever we were able to save from the predations of the Republican right wing, but that time is past and we need stronger leadership, leadership that remembers which party won the last few elections and which way the people of the United States want us to go with our legislative affairs. This is NOT served by denying Democrats the seats in the Senate they were elected or appointed to fill.
There are also some good suggestions of what Obama and Congress need to do to get the economy back on track. Trying to "reach across the aisle" with the GOP whose policies created the mess we are in is not the way to go.
The problem is too serious for band-aid solutions.
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