U.S. Senate | Be a Seed for Change

It’s common wisdom that nothing gets done in the U.S. Senate without a 60 vote supermajority, but this common wisdom is entirely too optimistic. Although only a small minority of senators object to any one of President Obama’s judicial nominees, confirmations have slowed to such a glacial pace that Republican control over federal trial courts increased since Obama took office. Likewise, a massive 372 bills that passed House during the Obama presidency have yet to receive a vote in the Senate. Only a handful of these bills were even remotely controversial in the House, and 44 of them passed the House unanimously. Such obstruction works, even against uncontroversial bills and nominations, because the Senate’s system of filibusters, delay tactics and secret holds empowers just one senator to bring the institution to a standstill. The Senate does not operate by majority rule; It does not really even operate by supermajority rule. Increasingly, the Senate can only act unanimously.

THE TOOLS OF OBSTRUCTION: The most valuable commodity in the Senate is not votes, it is time. Sixty senators can break a filibuster through a process known as “cloture,” but filibustering senators can force up to 30 hours of post-cloture debate once a filibuster is broken. Although 30 hours may not seem like a lot, when you multiply it across the hundreds of judges, ambassadors and other officials that require Senate confirmation — not to mention the 372 unpassed bills — it adds up to more time than there actually exists to move business forward on the Senate floor. For example, take Obama’s 44 unconfirmed judicial nominees. At 30 hours per nominee, it would take nearly two months to confirm each of these judges, and that’s assuming the Senate worked around the clock on both weekdays and weekends, and that it passed no bills, confirmed no other nominees, and took up no other matters for this entire period. Moreover, in part because just one senator can initiate a filibuster, it’s possible for the Senate’s single most radical member to bring the entire body to a standstill. To top all of this off, that one senator often doesn’t even need to reveal who they are thanks to “secret holds.” According to one count, there are 132 secret holds on Obama’s judicial nominees and no way to know who is behind them.

THE COST OF OBSTRUCTION: The Senate is not a rubber stamp, and it can and should reject bills that don’t deserve to be law. But as long as the right can — under cover of secrecy — delay Senate business into oblivion, it is unlikely that more than a few the 372 languishing bills will ever be considered on their merits. Beyond essential bills to prevent catastrophic global warming and mitigate the damage caused by the Supreme Court‘s egregious decision allowing unlimited corporate funds into American elections, these bills were almost entirely uncontroversial in the House. They include measures to prevent prisons from becoming breeding grounds for AIDS, to authorize relief for torture victims, and to ensure that college dorms are equipped with fire sprinklers. Even bills to enable a full investigation into BP’s catastrophic oil spill and to ensure that BP is held accountable for this spill are being denied a Senate vote. Meanwhile, obstructing Obama’s judicial nominees has one purpose: maintaining the right’s stranglehold on the federal judiciary. Until this stranglehold is broken, everything from health care reform and stem cell research to the environment and the fairness of American elections is in jeopardy.

THE POWER OF ONE: Obstructionism could get a whole lot worse if any one of the Tea Party’s radical slate of candidates joins the Senate. Under the Senate’s anachronistic rules, just one senator can forbid any Senate committee from holding hearings after 2pm. Likewise, a single senator can demand that every proposed amendment to a pending bill be read aloud — wasting hours of time in the process. Indeed, the Senate’s ability to function is built upon unanimous consent agreements. If just one senator refuses to join any of these agreements, the body will effectively shut down. This is not an academic concern. When Nevada GOP Senate candidate Sharron Angle served in the state legislature, it was common to say that bills passed “62 to Angle,” because of Angle’s pattern of casting solitary “no” votes. Likewise, Kentucky GOP candidate Rand Paul has promised to oppose any budget which includes a penny of deficit spending, effectively demanding that the Senate do the impossible. Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC), who is already staking out a role as the leader of the Senate’s emerging extremist faction, admitted that his goal for the Senate is “complete gridlock.” In other words, next year’s Senate class could include a number of senators who simply aren’t in touch with reality, and it only takes one to sabotage the entire legislative body.

The Progress Report

Tell the Senate: Reduce spending for the nuclear weapons complex.

$55 billion.

That’s how much the U.S. spends each year maintaining its nuclear arsenal. That’s also what it would cost to provide 350 million people worldwide with clean drinking water. Or help 30 million children survive past their 5th birthday.

But instead of relieving the suffering of millions around the world, the U.S. continues to spend billions on nuclear weapons and systems. Even though the Cold War era is over, leaders in Washington keep asking for more funding for new nuclear weapons every year, and taxpayers foot the bill every time.

We need to reassess our priorities.

There is a new Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New START) that calls for the U.S. and Russia to agree upon reductions in the size of their respective nuclear arsenals. But before that happens, START must be ratified by 67 votes in the U.S. Senate.

Tell your Senators to phase out our nuclear arsenal and pass START now >

The issue isn’t just the exorbitant expense of nuclear weapons – it’s their inherent instability. With the U.S. and Russia maintaining thousands of nuclear weapons on hair-trigger alert and nuclear-armed foes India and Pakistan, the elimination of nuclear weapons is more urgent than ever.

With the continued development of a nuclear arsenal, the U.S. is helping make sure nuclear weapons continue to threaten the people of the world with catastrophic possibilities. Building and maintaining nuclear weapons means there are production sites all over the world that are vulnerable to terrorist attack or to theft of weapons or weapons-grade materials.

Getting New START through the Senate is not going to be easy. Some senators still want to continue to invest billions of dollars in new nuclear weapons production facilities in exchange for a “Yes” vote on ratification.

Tell your Senators to ratify the new START agreement without preconditions or billions in new funding for the nuclear weapons complex >

If we don’t speak out and take action for a world free of nuclear weapons, who will?

Thank you for taking action,

The Change.org Team