Stupidest Republican of the Day: Judd Gregg

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Sen. Gregg of New Hampshire, almost a member of Obama's Cabinet, has come out swinging against the use of reconciliation, but, speaking on the Senate floor on Thursday, he struck out. From his remarks:

Why did they choose that bill called reconciliation to do this? Or why will they? Because under the Senate rules, anything that comes across the floor of the Senate requires 60 votes to pass. It's called the filibuster. That's the way the Senate was structured. The Senate was structured to be the place where bills which rushed through the House because they have a lot of rules that limit debate and allow people to pass bills quickly, but they don't have any rule in the House called the filibuster which allows people to slow things down.

The Founding Fathers realized when they structured this they wanted checks and balances. They didn't want things rushed through. They saw the parliamentary system. They knew it didn't work. So they set up the place, as George Washington described it, where you take the hot coffee out of the cup and you pour it into the saucer and you let it cool a little bit and you let people look at it and make sure it's done correctly. That's why we have the 60-vote situation over here in the Senate to require that things get full consideration.

There's so much stupidity here, and, honestly, I'm just too tired -- at 12:21 am -- to do it justice. Thankfully, we can turn to Matthew Yglesias, who has ripped Gregg's "argument" apart and exposed it for the nonsense it is:

It's true that the Founding Fathers wanted checks and balances, but this is why we have bicameralism and presidential veto power. Those are the checks. The filibuster rule is not in the constitution. But since the Founding Fathers did specify supermajorities to override a Presidential veto and to ratify a treaty, presumably there would have written a supermajority rule into the ordinary legislative process if that’s what they'd wanted to do. I don't think "the Founders wanted it this way" should carry a ton of weight in our arguments, but it's very clear that the Founders didn't intend the Senate to vote by supermajority; if they'd wanted that, they would have written the constitution that way.

Meanwhile, just to point out that Gregg is an idiot, where on earth has he gotten the idea that the Founding Fathers "saw the parliamentary system" and "knew it didn't work?" There were no countries operating on a modern parliamentary system when the constitution was written. And why doesn't it work? It seems to work in Australia, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Finland, Germany, Hungary, India, Japan, Korea, etc.

Arguably what history has shown is that the "strong president" system used in the United States doesn't work. It's worked out okay for us (despite that Civil War business) so far, but the vast majority of enduring stable democracies go parliamentary or semi-presidential systems. 

Yglesias vs. Gregg just isn't a fair fight.

Gregg clearly has little to no understanding of the Consitution and the intent of the Founding Fathers, little to no understanding of comparative politics, and little to no understanding of how the Senate works -- after all, Republicans were happy to use reconciliation when they were in the majority (and when they wanted just a simple majority to get things done), including when Bush was president (and so not so very long ago -- how convenient that Gregg doesn't seem to remember).

Here are the facts:

-- Health-care reform bills have already passed both the House and Senate. In the Senate, the Democrats were able to break the Republican filibuster with 60 votes.

-- Democrats have no intention of passing the entire comprehensive package through reconciliation. There's no need to (see above). Reconciliation would only be used for so-called "patches," minor changes to the bill to appease the House (which, hopefully, will pass the Senate bill as is).

-- Reconciliation is in the Senate rules, just like the filibuster. It's not like Democrats are pulling a trick out of some magic hat. Republican talking points use the word "trick" to make it seem as if Democrats are behaving in some grossly un-democratic and even un-American manner (though what's so un-democratic about simple majority rule?), but Republicans have used reconciliation, too, and frequently. Gregg knows this. He was all for reconciliation as recently as 2005.

So just what is Gregg? An idiot? A hypocrite? A partisan hack? All of the above?

Yes. And pretty fucking stupid.