Good ‘Reidance’ to Nevada’s Senate-wrecker

LeRoy Goldman OPINION3:05 p.m. EDT April 3, 2015

Citizen-Times

Good ‘Reidance’ to Nevada’s Senate-wrecker

Harry Reid recently announced, “We’ve got to be more concerned about the country, the Senate, the state of Nevada than about ourselves, and as a result of that I’m not going to run for re-election.” Leave it to Reid to indict himself as he throws in the towel. His rationale for bowing out suggests that it was acceptable for him to not be concerned about thecountry, the Senate and Nevada for the past 28 years.

Reid’s legacy will demonstrate that neither the well-being of the country nor the integrity of the Senate were his priorities. I say this and what follows not in anger, but in sadness. I had the privilege of working in the Senate as the staff director of its Health Subcommittee during most of the 1970s. Then, unlike now, the Senate worked. Was it perfect? Of course not. But it worked. One of the main reasons it worked was because of then-Majority Leader Mike Mansfield. His style sought accommodation. He instinctively understood that major legislation had to be bipartisan to garner the public support necessary for its survival. His effectiveness was more a function of his humility than his tenacity.

Major legislation was considered, amended and approved. And that legislation emanated from the Senate’s legislative committees, not from closed sessions in Reid’s office. Filibusters then were rare, not commonplace, as they were under Reid. Back then the Republican minority was respected, had the opportunity to offer amendments to virtually all bills, and only rarely engaged in obstruction. Conferences between the Senate and the House to hammer out the final provisions of legislation on its way to the president were routine, not rare, as they have been under Reid. The Republican minority in those days took comfort in the certain knowledge that the day would come when they would hold the majority. And when Howard Baker (R-Tennessee) became majority leader in 1981, he continued the Mansfield tradition of comity, respect and a bipartisan approach to the legislative process. He likened leading the Senate to herding 99 cats, a formidable undertaking that Harry Reid couldn’t possibly comprehend.

During his eight years as majority leader, Harry Reid has willfully and skillfully unleashed more destructive force on the Senate than all of his predecessors. That force has eviscerated the Senate.

What makes the Senate unique is the right of all senators to freely engage in debate and to offer amendments to pending legislation. Reid twisted the Senate’s rules to destroy that right.

He did so by repeatedly using his prerogative as leader to employ what is called the right of first recognition. Being recognized first enabled Reid to then offer trivial amendments to the bill under consideration. It’s called “filling the amendment tree.” Once Reid filled the tree other senators were precluded from offering their amendments. Then Reid would submit a cloture petition to terminate debate on all amendments. That move locked in all of Reid’s trivial amendments and blocked other senators from offering further amendments. Reid used this destructive parliamentary tactic far more than any other majority leader in the history of the Senate.

This abuse of the Senate’s rules and procedures is what explains why the Republicans then mounted filibusters against pending legislation. Having been precluded from offering amendments to a bill left the minority with only two choices. They either had to accept Reid’s version of the bill, or kill it with a filibuster. It’s called gridlock.

But Reid didn’t stop there. He also employed what is known in the Senate as the nuclear option which enabled the Democrats to approve all presidential nominations to the federal judiciary, excepting the Supreme Court, with a simple majority vote. In so doing Reid has set a precedent that he and the Democrats may well come to regret. When the GOP next controls both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue they may expand the nuclear option to cover Supreme Court nominations and all legislation. At that point the genie is out of the bottle.

Reid’s abuse of power could and should have been stopped by the old bulls in his party who knew better, senators like Levin, Leahy, Feinstein and Schumer. They could easily have reined in Reid. But they did nothing. Shame on all of them.

This nation would have been better served had Reid never gotten beyond his first job on Capitol Hill in the ’60s. He was a Capitol Hill cop in an unprofessional, patronage-dominated workforce.

Good REIDance, Harry.

Goldman lives in Flat Rock. He was member of the federal government’s senior executive service for many years.

The Shadow Always Welcomes Comments:  Please Contact Me:

EmailMe