Is it time to get rid of the automatic filibuster yet?
by David Atkins
Shocking. Positively shocking.
On Tuesday, Democrats will use what would normally be a straightforward exercise of the Senate’s advise and consent powers to begin a political campaign aimed at preserving one of the party’s signature Obama-era accomplishments.
At 10:00 a.m., in the Dirksen Senate office building, the Senate Banking Committee will convene a hearing to advance the nomination of Richard Cordray to head the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.
If you recognize Cordray as the current director of the CFPB, you’ll wonder why the Senate has anything left to say about his role as one of the top cops on Wall Street. But its involvement is a direct consequence of a GOP effort to combine the Senate’s filibuster rules with its advise-and-consent powers to gut the agency. And unless the Democrats can force an end to that effort, the CFPB will lose its director — and many of its existing powers at the end of the year.
Color me unsympathetic. Senate Democrats knew what they had to do in order to put a stop to this sort of gamesmanship. Most of them were on board with doing it. But there weren't enough of them.
It's true that Democrats may lose in the Senate in 2014. That's all the likelier if the country is dysfunctional. But it's also true that President Obama holds the veto pen in a potential Congress wholly controlled by Republicans--and the Senate should remain or be back in Democratic hands in 2016 The only reason for good Democrats to avoid fixing the filibuster is if they don't trust the President to hold the line against a rabidly austerity-mad Republican Congress.
Oh....wait.
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