Why the Party Is Important

Greetings from the Left Coast, where we here at Left Coast Blues do the heavy thinking for those who just can’t be bothered.

If the last several months have taught us anything, it should have taught us about the importance of political parties, and laid to rest the old fallacy that “voting for the candidate, not the party” is somehow a noble or virtuous approach to elections.

My father, God rest his soul, was proud of the fact that he didn’t belong to any political party, and was a firm believer in voting for the person he believed was the best candidate, regardless of party affiliation. Since that’s the way I was raised, that was the philosophy I took with me into the voting booth, starting way back in 1970 when I voted for the first time, and for a long time after that.

No more. I can state unequivocally that there are no circumstances that I can imagine that would ever cause me to vote for a Democrat again. It has become painfully obvious that when it comes down to crunch time, in the majority of cases, politicians vote their party affiliation regardless of whether it’s in the best interests of the American people in general or their constituents in particular. Nowhere has this been more obvious than in the debate over the health insurance legislation, which has now been rammed down the throats of the American people despite the fact that a large majority of the people didn’t want it.

When a particular party holds a majority in either the House or the Senate (and, of course, the Democrats currently hold majorities in both), that means that all of the committees are chaired by that party. It also means that the majority party will compose a majority of the members of each committee (with the sole exception of the Senate Ethics Committee, which was explicitly created as a committee with equal party representation). Since Congressional committees ultimately control what legislation does and does not make it to the floor of the House or Senate for a vote, the majority party pretty much controls the legislative process, if they can hold their members together.

The only real check on this kind of power is the fact that, in most cases, it takes a “supermajority” in the Senate to agree to end debate on a bill and call for an up or down vote. If that supermajority doesn’t exist, then debate can theoretically continue indefinitely, with the bill never coming to a vote. That’s called a filibuster.

For the past two years, we’ve been living with a “perfect storm” that gave the Democrats nearly absolute power: they held a majority in the House, they held a supermajority in the Senate, and they held the White House. We’ve now seen the abuse of power that results when the traditional checks and balances of government aren’t functioning.

Thanks to Scott Brown’s victory in Massachusetts, the Democrats no longer hold a supermajority in the Senate. That’s why it was crucially important to the party leaders that the Senate version of the legislation should be passed unaltered by the House – because any changes they House made would have to go back to the Senate for approval, and approval could no longer be guaranteed.

Don’t be misled. The “House Reconciliation Bill” that was passed at the same time the House passed the Senate bill is a long ways from being law – and the Representatives that voted for it are well aware that they may never see any actual changes in the Senate bill. The reconciliation bill must now go to the Senate. It’s debatable, by they way, whether it even falls under the Senate’s “reconciliation” rules. The Democrats are going to try to shove it through that way, because it would therefore be exempt from the supermajority requirement. But the Senate’s own rules state that the substance of any provisions in a reconciliation bill must be substantially weighted to the budget, and not to policy.

Violating this rule will set a precedent that is sure to lead to more and greater abuse in the future. Senator Barak Obama was strongly opposed to this sort of thing back when the Republicans were considering it. Funny how things change, isn’t it?

By the way, if the Senate makes any changes to the reconciliation bill, it has to go back to the House again. So we could see a protracted game of ping-pong with this reconciliation bill, while the original bill the Senate passed gets signed into law by President Obama. And you’ve got to ask yourself what motivation exists for the Senate to approve a bunch of changes that the House wants to make to their bill, when at this point all they need to do is to do nothing, and their own version becomes law. But, amazingly, Nancy Pelosi said, “Trust me,” and apparently 218 of her fellow Democrats did. Which brings me back to my original assertion: it’s stupid to vote for the person and not for the party – because when the chips are down, odds are that the person you elected is going to vote for the party and not for you.

So what can we do? Not much between now and November other than to give our money to the opponents of the people who voted for this monstrosity. Then, when November rolls around, vote them out of office. Every single one, if possible. And I sincerely hope that the voters in Louisiana’s 2nd Congressional District have a better Republican candidate this fall than Representative Anh Cao, who was the single Republican to vote in favor of this bill.

And what of the 39 Democrats that voted against it? Well, I appreciate their courage in breaking from their leadership. But please go back and re-read the section above where I discuss the implications of a given party holding a majority in the House or the Senate. The fact is that as long as there is a “D” after their names, they affect that balance of power and, in my opinion, must be targeted for defeat.

Thanks for listening.