I just wanted to point people to this post by Jonathan Singer at MyDD, "Having 60 Votes Does Matter." What prompted Singer's diary was, as he writes, "Open Left['s] Matt Stoller start[ing] up a bit of a discussion with a post in which he was less than excited (to put it mildly) by Mark Warner's decision to run for the United States Senate in Virginia." As you may recall, Raising Kaine was in the middle of that discussion, arguing strongly for Mark Warner and for a "big tent" Democratic Party.Now, Jonathan Singer of MyDD has weighed in, arguing that achieving a filibuster-proof 60 votes in the U.S. Senate is a goal that is both achievable and desirable:
...I can't minimize the importance of having 60 votes in the United States Senate. That's right -- 60 votes, a filibuster-proof majority. No GOP obstruction of progressive jurists to the federal bench, no Republican filibuster of legislation ending the Iraq War or creating a universal healthcare system. For the first time in decades the Democrats could have a truly working majority in Congress.
For that reason, Singer argues, we need to elect Democrats from different parts of the ideological spectrum. True, they won't all be super-progressive, but they'll be a lot better than any likely Republican alternative. As a commenter writes, "I think 60 votes with some senators who aren't progressive, but still still wear the D next to their name is much more beneficial to progressives than 55 and having to deal with filibuster after filibuster after filibuster."
I couldn't agree more with the commenter. And, I couldn't agree more Singer writes: "Mark Warner will make a fine Senator and that, in the case that he is elected this cycle, Virginia will have one of the best teams of representation in the Senate of any state, red or blue."
About the imperial presidency, which has been in expansion for a long time, not just the Bush presidency, requires a check:
Most legal scholars believe that these changes to the structure of American democracy deviate from the vision of the Founders, who hated monarchies and had a pessimistic view of human nature. To reduce the damage that a bad leader could inflict, the Founders divided control over the government among three coequal powers so that each could check the others. Focused in particular on keeping the president from becoming an elected king, they gave Congress the power to make the big decisions about going to war and broad authority to regulate how the executive branch carried out its work....
And, of course, lawmakers are not always vigilant. During Bush's first six years, a friendly Congress largely abandoned oversight while passing laws that broadened the president's power over detainees and strengthened his ability to impose martial law. Today, Congress has changed, but those laws remain on the books. And the administration's departures from traditional restraints and its novel assertions of power are now historical precedents.
Having intellectual powerhouses like Webb and Warner in the Senate will mean a reassertion of Congress's power, as it should be. Whether the president be Democrat or Republican (oh, please lord, let it be Democrat), we need to scale back presidential powers, as it is bad for our democracy. A muscular and assertive Congress can get that done, especially if it has 60 votes.