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Right Turn
Harry Reid’s reign of paralysis
By*Jennifer Rubin
August 4, 2014
Senate Democrats have a number of arguments for keeping themselves in the majority:*The war on women. (They believe there is one and are against it.)*Impeachment.*Republicans are racists. Republicans are obstructionist.
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https://img]Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) speaks to reporters on Capitol Hill on July 29. (J. Scott Applewhite/Associated Press)
Aside from being entirely made up by Democratic consultants who think Americans are dolts, these “arguments” for the Democrats’ reelection share*a common feature. They are all arguments*against*the Republicans. But what is the argument for the continued reign of*Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid*(D-Nev.) and a Democratic majority?
The Senate has not voted on jobs bills sent by the House, any “fix” for Obamacare or a domestic energy development bill. The Senate will not take up a real vote on the Keystone XL pipeline. It will not take up Iran sanctions. It did pass Veterans Affairs legislation and Iron Dome funding, not exactly difficult votes. Other than that, not much of consequence has gone on in the Senate, but not because of Republican objections. The GOP would love to take up many of these subjects, debate them and offer amendments; it is Reid who either won’t take up meaty issues or won’t allow any minority amendments, a practice he has taken further than any modern Senate leader. Speaking to the press on Tuesday, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said succinctly: “Well, if you look at the last six years, the president and his people, I think, believed they got just about everything they wanted legislatively the first two years.”
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In essence, the Senate has become an adjunct of the White House.*Reid’s side*comes up with no innovative (or even non-innovative) initiatives of its own and doesn’t allow any from the GOP. It*changed the Senate rules*to rubber-stamp Obama appointees and won’t allow votes on things that will make the White House uncomfortable. It is not that the Senate has been unproductive; that would be an improvement. Rather, it has been counterproductive time and again. It propagates nasty partisanship. “The Senate majority did not want the president to be challenged on anything, which of course leaves him free to pursue his agenda through the bureaucracy, all of whom work for him,” McConnell said. He pointed out, “And of course that serves the president’s purpose because it gives him a Congress to run against and it gives him the freedom of his bureaucrats to pursue his agenda, largely unimpeded by the kind of restrictions on the spending process that Congress would normally write in to appropriation bills if they ever passed them.”
