For much of 2009 the political world in Washington was mesmerized by a Democratic “Super-Majority” in the Senate, with 60 votes there supposedly being a magic number that along with a big Democratic majority in the House would ensure the Obama agenda would become law. Now that 60-vote, veto-proof majority is gone. And good riddance!
In reality terms rather than Beltway bubble terms, such a belief was a charade at best, and from the standpoint of bringing about positive legislation a dead weight. It had three main defects. First, it was an illusion; second, it allocated power in a totally inappropriate way; third, it solidified the opposition.
It was an illusion because as everyone from Will Rogers to Jay Leno has known, and indeed maybe since the Andrew Jackson era, the Democratic Party is not so much a party as an unwieldy political assemblage that can be beaten into some kind of unity only on rare occasions and only by a rare breed of people, operators like Lyndon Johnson. And Harry Reid ain’t no Lyndon Johnson. So having 60 of them in the same chamber at the same time was never going to guarantee quick or easy passage of anyone’s agenda.
Then there was the matter of allocation of power. If all your hopes and dreams are based on getting a go-along from the likes of Joe Lieberman or Ben Nelson, such worthies become as important or more important than the other 59 Democratic Senators. A truly dependable vote from Joe Lieberman? For heavens sake, this guy was John McCain’s first choice for Vice-President on the Republican national ticket in 2008.
And then there’s the unifying the opposition factor. Nothing solidifies in politics like the threat of total powerlessness. Republicans in the Senate (Democratic commentator views not withstanding) have their own hostile cliques that won’t always go along on everything their party dictates and will never compromise with the opposition. It was a 60-vote super Democratic majority that did more than anything else to turn Republicans of all stripes into a rock solid opposition bloc.
The Democrats tried doing big things with a veto-proof Senate majority. They had such a majority and it didn’t work. That’s not a theory. That’s the history of the last year. So now the Democrats have a chance to do it another way. A better way. And having 59 possible votes in the Senate, a big House majority and a Democrat in the White House, isn’t a bad start for improvement.