The Senate Convenes: 2:00pmET
Following any Leader remarks, the Senate will proceed to a period of morning business with senators permitted to speak therein for up to 10 minutes each. There will be no roll call votes during Monday’s session of the Senate. However, the Majority Leader hopes to reach an agreement to begin consideration of S.223, the Federal Aviation Administration Act.
Tell Sens. Merkley, Udall and Harkin: Thank you for showing what real leadership looks like on filibuster reform.
http://act.credoaction.com/r/?r=6896&id=15715-2591629-a2G1Mzx&t=1
These three champions of filibuster reform deserve recognition for their leadership.
Clicking here will automatically add your name to this petition to Sens. Tom Udall, Tom Harkin and Jeff Merkley:
“Thank you for showing what real leadership looks like on filibuster reform. We support you in the continuing fight to fix the Senate.”
The end game for Senate rules reform has become clear, and it’s not pretty.
Despite the best efforts of Senators Merkley, Tom Udall and Harkin, in the near future we’re likely to see only a weak, bipartisan gesture towards Senate reform. At most there will be a few minor tweaks to how the Senate is run without any attempt to address its underlying dysfunction.
While disappointed, we cannot and will not stop fighting for reform as long as the Senate remains a place where good legislation goes to die. The stakes are simply too high.
And as we recommit to this fight, we should recognize the tremendous effort by Democratic champions for filibuster reform, particularly Sens. Tom Udall, Jeff Merkley and Tom Harkin to put this issue on the table.
Tell Sens. Merkley, Udall and Harkin: Thank you for showing what real leadership looks like on filibuster reform. Click here to automatically add your name to the petition.
http://act.credoaction.com/r/?r=6897&id=15715-2591629-a2G1Mzx&t=9
By all accounts, the overwhelming majority of Senate Democrats supported the move known as the “Constitutional Option” to fix the filibuster and other Senate rules by majority vote. This would allow Democrats to change the rules with 51 votes.
However, the Constitutional Option was only available on the first “legislative day” of a new session of Congress (a technical term that does not correspond to a calendar day).
When the Senate adjourned on Tuesday night, the first legislative day ended, and the Democrats lost their only opportunity in this session of Congress to pass Senate rules reform with a simple majority vote. Any rules changes in this Congress now face a 2/3rds supermajority requirement to pass, and nothing significant will have the votes to overcome that threshold.
The inability of the Democrats to capitalize on this opportunity is a substantive failure for all of us who wanted to see Senate reform enacted any time soon. But even more than that, it demonstrates a monumental failure of leadership by the top Democrats in the Senate.
Democratic leaders like Harry Reid and Chuck Schumer have time and again blamed Republican filibusters for their inability to move the Democratic legislative agenda through the Senate.
This was a sentiment shared by their colleagues. Just a month ago, Democrats in the Senate were so fed up with the endless abuse of the filibuster by Republicans that every single returning senator in the Democratic caucus signed a letter to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid about the need for rules reform.
However, a handful of reluctant Democrats (we’ve been told as few as six or seven) were unwilling to support the Constitutional Option. And Democratic leadership decided it would rather negotiate with Republicans than bring the caucus into line.
Nominally, these holdout Democrats were worried about setting a precedent for the Republicans — under the false notion that not taking action when they had the chance would make Republicans hesitant to change the rules to their own advantage when they eventually regain the majority.
In essence, these weak-kneed Democrats were willing to forfeit any chance at governance in the next two years, including giving up a reasonable chance to address the crisis in the judiciary and end the Republicans hostage-taking approach to judicial appointments. And all in the hopes that when the Republicans take power they will play nice.
The Democratic leadership faced a choice — they could whip the votes for the Constitutional Option and undercut the ability of the Republican minority to abuse the rules, or they could accept the decision by a fraction of their members to give the Republicans what is in effect a veto over the Democratic agenda. I think you know what they chose.
When push came to shove, rather than address the issue of filibuster reform head on, the Democratic leadership forfeited their ability to stop the abuses.
We now face a long-term effort to fix the Senate. Without buy-in from the leadership of the Democratic caucus, we’ll continue to need rank and file Democrats like Sens. Udall, Merkley and Harkin to join us in this fight.
And as they continue fighting, they need to know we support them.
Tell Sens. Merkley, Udall and Harkin: Thank you for showing what real leadership looks like on filibuster reform. Click here to automatically add your name to the petition.
http://act.credoaction.com/r/?r=6897&id=15715-2591629-a2G1Mzx&t=10
Thank you for standing up for real filibuster reform.
Matt Lockshin, Campaign Manager
CREDO Action from Working
Shannon Croteau was 11 classes away from a degree from Kaplan University Online (a for-profit college owned by The Washington Post Company) when she learned she was out of financial aid, $30,000 in debt, and here’s the kicker – the degree she was working toward would be worthless in her state of New Hampshire.
She was billed for loans she never signed up for, enrolled in classes she didn’t choose and, when she complained, was given the runaround by a succession of fake “loan officers” who wouldn’t tell her the truth, let alone their last names. “They lied and cheated,” Shannon told us at “It has ruined me.”
She’s just one of millions of students to have her financial life devastated by the fraudulent and predatory practices of for-profit colleges. Countless other Kaplan students have come forward, saying they’ve been charged for classes even after they’ve withdrawn, stalked by aggressive admissions officers or had their degrees held hostage if they don’t ante up “surprise” fees.
Shannon has started a petition on the Change website , demanding that the Washington Post Company stop preying on low-income students.
add your name.
It’s important to understand that for-profit colleges stay in business by taking billions from the federal government: During the 2008-09 academic year alone, for-profit colleges siphoned off $4.3 billion of federal student aid.
And if the students can’t pay those loans back, who cares? Students who attend for-profit colleges account for only 12% of America‘s college students, but they represent nearly half of student loan defaults. Those students will be hounded by creditors for the rest of their lives. Our tax dollars cover their debts. And the for-profit colleges never have to give back a dime.
They don’t care whether the students they recruit can afford college, or even whether those students will be able to use their degrees if and when they graduate. For these businesses, each new recruit represents a profit. Nothing more, nothing less.
But Shannon Croteau and a group of former Kaplan students are fighting back – and Change.org members can help. By raising the profile of these appalling institutions, we can pressure the Washington Post Company to get out of the business of preying on people’s dreams of better educations and better careers.
Please take action today to tell Washington Post Company Chairman Donald Graham to either stop the fraudulent practices or shut down Kaplan University:
Thanks for taking action,
Judith and the Change.org team
Be a Seed for Change 