Back when Republicans were putting forward a fraudulent piece of legislation in the name of Rep. Jack Murtha, I advised that Democrats shouldn't even dignify it with a vote. Just flat out refuse to vote on it, en masse. Show the Republican leadership that they wouldn't cow to such bullying tactics. Instead, a majority of Democrats voted against it. I guess that was the next best thing, but it didn't accomplish anything. Had the Democrats refused to vote, steadfastly rejecting the premise the Republicans had put forward, they would have turned the tables on them and turned the story from one about lack of a unified Democratic position on Iraq into one of Republican abuse of Congressional power. Alas, the wisdom of Scott Shields didn't effectively permeate into the House Democratic caucus.
And once again, I find myself shaking my head as to why Democrats find themselves incapable of rejecting a Republican premise. Case in point, ethics reform in the Senate. Writing at Talking Points Memo, Paul Kiel documents the problem.
Today, the Senate Rules Committee voted on two different reform proposals. One was the Democrats' Honest Leadership and Open Government Act; the other was an earmark and lobbying reform bill by Sen. Lott (R-MS). The Democrats' bill went down on party lines, 10-8. Lott's bill passed unanimously. In other words, in one short committee meeting, the Republicans completely co-opted the issue.
Let's think about your job for a moment. You pitch an idea and a colleague pitches an idea. Both are put to debate and vote. Your colleague calls you an idiot and votes against your idea. Do you then respond by throwing your weight behind his idea? Probably not. Sure, his idea may not have been completely terrible, but yours was better. So why, then, would you sell yourself out like that? More than likely, you would simply reject the premise that his idea was the superior one by voting it down. Is this really too much to ask of the Democratic members of Congress?
I honestly believe the problem here is that, God bless 'em, the Democrats just want to do what's right. So if some Republican comes up with a piece of legislation that brings them 60% of the way to good policy, they'll support it because they seem to think that 60% good is better than 0% good. And while that may be an admirable goal and a somewhat logical conclusion, at the end of the day, it's bad public policy. There's a lot of corruption Republicans can figure out how to shoehorn into that remaining 40%. And it's also bad politics. There can be no cooperation with Republicans on ethics. It's like cooperating with a pack of wolves on a plan to protect the sheep.
So here I am, once again, begging and pleading with the Democrats. Stop accepting every premise the Republicans put forward. Hardly anyone agrees with them. In fact, most people want to see them voted out of office. With the exception of the old handwringers in the Beltway Punditocracy who will yelp loudly at your lack of bipartisanship, no one will mind one bit if you simply say no to the Republicans. By November, they're going to accuse you of being obstructionists, anyway. You might as well actually try obstructing something in a meaningful way and show the country, when it comes to good government and ethics reform, compromising your principles is not an option.
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