Jim Bunning and the Beginning of the End for the Senate Filibuster

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The 111th Congress can be summed up in two words: Jim Bunning.  Over the course of the last week or so Senator Bunning has gone from a fairly low-profile Baseball great turned Senator to the veritable poster boy for the Republican obstructionist agenda.  In so doing, Bunning highlights the profound dysfunction of the Senate, the serious risks and dangers brought on by its de facto requirement of a 60 vote majority, and the very real prospect that the exceptional recalcitrance of the Republican minority could well become the status quo in the United States’ Senate.

Bunning was thrust into the headlines on account of his February 25th filibuster of “an extension of unemployment and COBRA insurance benefits.” (RollCall)  The programs, wildly popular in tough economic times, expired on Sunday and as a result some 2,000 federal employees are furloughed, 400,000 are without unemployment benefits, Medicare reimbursements are down 21%, and even more cuts are looming on the horizon. 

Those following the political play-by-play in the Senate might be tempted to write this off as yet another example of the GOP’s long-term strategy of obstructionism during the Obama Presidency.  While that shoe fits, the political fallout from Bunning’s filibuster has the GOP in full damage control mode.  Everyone from Bunning’s fellow Senators to their staffers is working hard to distance themselves from him while the underlying message of his protest leaves them in the precarious position of  not precisely disagreeing with him either.  Politico quoted one senior GOP aid as saying “Bunning has been throwing them high and inside regardless of what is good for the team… He acts on his own.”

To an electorate long used to a lock-step GOP, however, Bunning’s apparently-on-message filibuster may not seem nearly as maverick as the Republican leadership would like it to be.  Bunning’s legislative tantrum comes on the heels of the largest increase in obstructionism in Senate history and for better or worse his actions will almost inevitably be ascribed to his party when the 111th Congress passes into the history books.

The political ramifications of Bunning’s last stand are not difficult to predict.  McClatchy DC has conveniently broken the impact of Bunning’s filibuster down by state and even an untrained political eye can’t help but notice which states are hardest hit.  The list of most affected states reads like the “must win” list of any Presidential hopeful: California, Texas, Illinois, Florida, Pennsylvania, Michigan, and New York each saw in excess of 50,000 citizens loose unemployment benefits.  Between them those states represent 216 electoral votes; Illinois and Pennsylvania both have toss-up Senate races this year which raise the stakes even farther and Democrats are sure to use Bunning’s filibuster to attack the Republicans on what is sure to be the biggest issue of the race: jobs.

Republicans are worried about what Bunning’s grand-standing could mean for them in the short term but the story behind the story is in the long term.

After years of Republican obstructionism the Democrats are finally talking about passing healthcare reform through reconciliation.  Meanwhile, Lamar Alexander’s (R-TN) promise that the GOP will campaign on a platform of repealing the measure suggests a certain degree of defiant resignation on the part of the Senate Republicans.

There is more to that campaign platform than meets the eye.

In order for the Republicans to repeal healthcare reform a number of very improbable things would have to happen.

First, the GOP would have to win back not one but both Houses of Congress.  Democrats are up by fairly decent margins but Republicans have done an outstanding job of bouncing back from the political disaster that was the Bush Presidency.  It is still an uphill climb for the Repubilcans but not nearly so steep as it was just two years ago.

Second, the Republicans would have to take the White House in 2012.  That is a more significant challenge but again, not an insurmountable one.  Obama’s fund raising advantage will likely be largely nullified by the recent Supreme Court ruling in Citizens United v Federal Election Commission and while the President will have the advantages of incumbency, he will lack successful romantic, historic, and anti-establishment components of his successful 2008 rhetoric.

Most significantly, the Republicans would have to get past a Democratic filibuster.  Partisan relations being what they are, the Republicans can expect to get as good as they gave the next time they are in the majority and – once passed -  the Democrats need only prevent a repeal of the health-care bill in order to claim a victory there.  For the Republicans to repeal the measure they have to pass a law and to pass a law they have to get it past both houses; that includes the Senate and the minority filibuster.

The question thus becomes the following: how, even under their most optomistic of scenarios, do the Republicans defeat a motivated Democratic filibuster and make good on their campaign promises?  In short, how do the Republicans plan to defeat the strategy they themselves are presently employing?  Granted, the GOP tends to vote in a tighter block than their Democratic counterparts and so overturning a filibuster should be easier for them but 60 vote super-majorities are, historically, few and far between.  Running on a platform of repealing healthcare reform bespeaks a confidance that it will pass and confidance that it can be overturned as well.

There are several ways for the Republicans to accomplish this thing but they amount to variations on two themes.  One is to win enough seats in the Senate that the Democrats cease to matter.  As stated earlier, this is unlikely; super-majorities are  the exception rather than the rule in Senate politics and if the GOP is counting on that when they are nearly 20 votes down the Republican leadership has another thing coming.  The other is to do what the Republicans are presently wailing and gnashing their teeth over: subvert the filibuster.  How is immaterial – either through reconciliation or a return to the wholesale elimination of the procedure via the Bush Era “nuclear option,” the result is the same: the filibuster ceases to be a meaningful component of the Senate rules.

The Republicans have been hypocrites on the issue of reconciliation before.  As Bob Beckel pointed out earlier this week, “every Republican who’s complaining about [reconciliation in the health-care process] now voted for reconciliation on George Bush’s tax bills.”  Now, it seems, policy has become politics.  This is the Republican Senatorial campaign platform: the filibuster is a vital guardian of minority rights…. but only when Republicans are in the minority.