Posts tagged Senate

Senate Watch: March, 2013

26
2 months ago
by Michael Weiss in

200px-Seal_of_the_United_States_Senate.svg_It’s 19 months to elec­tion day. So why on earth am I writ­ing a Sen­ate Watch now? In part because we’re already hear­ing news of Sen­a­tors retir­ing at the end of their terms. There’s more to look at, but that will wait for upcom­ing arti­cles. Thus far, five Sen­a­tors have announced that they will not be seek­ing reëlec­tion next year. Those five are:

  • Saxby Cham­b­liss (R-​​GA)
  • Tom Harkin (D-​​IA)
  • Mike Johanns (R-​​NE)
  • Frank Laut­en­berg (D-​​NJ)
  • Jay Rock­e­feller (D-​​WV)

And there’s a sixth wild­card seat, aris­ing from Sen­a­tor John Kerry (D-​​MA) mov­ing to replace Hillary Clin­ton as Sec­re­tary of State. What do those six seats’ prospects look like? Let’s take a look. (more…)

Replacing a Replacement

10
2 months ago
by dcpetterson in
U.S. Senator John Kerry of Massachusetts

About to have replace­ment replaced

With John Kerry’s con­fir­ma­tion as Sec­re­tary of State, a seat opened in the U.S. Sen­ate. Mass­a­chu­setts Gov­er­nor Deval Patrick named his for­mer chief of staff, William “Mo” Cowan, as his interim replace­ment, and he was sworn in on Feb­ru­ary 7, cre­ated a record two (2) African Amer­i­cans in the Sen­ate at the same time.

A spe­cial elec­tion will be held June 25 to choose a “per­ma­nent” replace­ment for the five-​​term Sen­a­tor Kerry. It isn’t really very per­ma­nent, because it will only fill out Kerry’s cur­rent term, which expires after the 2014 midterms. In other words, there will be yet another elec­tion for that seat next year.

Here is a brief run­down of some can­di­dates who have so far declared their inten­tion to run in the June spe­cial elec­tion. (more…)

Getting the Special Treatment

18
9 months ago
by dcpetterson in

Two votes hap­pened in the U.S. Sen­ate last Wednes­day, votes which high­light how Repub­li­cans and Democ­rats feel about tax rates.

Sen­ate Repub­li­cans voted to raise taxes on all Amer­i­cans. Sen­ate Democ­rats voted to avoid rais­ing taxes on all Amer­i­cans. A Democratic-​​sponsored bill that lim­its tax increases was passed, despite Repub­li­can oppo­si­tion. Repub­li­cans are now insist­ing that the bill the Sen­ate passed has no chance in the Republican-​​controlled House. In other words, Repub­li­can votes could force everyone’s taxes to go up.

How in the world will Grover Norquist spin this?

That’s not the most amaz­ing part. Democ­rats have been try­ing to make the argu­ment that Repub­li­cans only care about the super-​​rich. Repub­li­cans have been try­ing to deny this charge. So to demon­strate their posi­tion, Sen­ate Repub­li­cans forced a vote on a bill to lower taxes on the super-​​rich as the quid pro quo for avoid­ing tax increases on every­one, appar­ently not notic­ing that this proves the Democ­rats’ point.

Let’s review how we got into this pecu­liar sit­u­a­tion. (more…)

Let’s (Maybe) Make a Deal

21
1 year ago
by dcpetterson in

Will they still like the deal?

A deal has been reached in the Sen­ate, to extend the pay­roll tax hol­i­day and unem­ploy­ment ben­e­fits for two months, along with the peren­nial “doc fix” that pre­vents health care providers from receiv­ing smaller reim­burse­ments from Medicare. Pres­i­dent Obama has agreed to this deal. It passed the Sen­ate, in a rare Sat­ur­day vote, by an over­whelm­ing 89 to 10. Seven Repub­li­cans, two Democ­rats, and one Bernie Sanders voted against it.

The deal also has a strange and unre­lated rider on the Key­stone pipeline. Pres­i­dent Obama had pre­vi­ously promised to veto any deal that forced an early start to pipeline con­struc­tion, before an alter­nate rout­ing of the pipeline could be found that avoided dan­ger to the nation’s largest aquifer. (more…)

Where are the Jobs?

66
1 year ago
by dcpetterson in

The 2010 midterms revolved around the anger of Amer­i­cans at los­ing so many jobs, and the slow pace of the eco­nomic recov­ery after the crash of 2008. This anger was epit­o­mized by Speaker Boehner’s iconic demand, “Mr. Pres­i­dent, where are the jobs?”

President of the United States Theodore Roosev...

Will destroy­ing his dreams cre­ate jobs?

Since tak­ing con­trol of the House and nar­row­ing the par­ti­san gap in the Sen­ate, Repub­li­cans have done noth­ing to cre­ate more jobs in Amer­ica. Instead, they have con­cen­trated on cre­at­ing more job­less­ness, by attempt­ing to cut fed­eral spend­ing, thus throw­ing hun­dreds of thou­sands of Amer­i­can work­ers out of work. Even as unem­ploy­ment in the pri­vate sec­tor has dropped, and hir­ing has risen, these gains were nearly wiped out by increased unem­ploy­ment in the pub­lic sector.

In response to Repub­li­can inac­tion, last month Pres­i­dent Obama announced the Amer­i­can Jobs Act, an attempt to do what the pub­lic demanded be done in the elec­tion of 2010.

Last week, Repub­li­cans in the Sen­ate refused to allow the Amer­ica Jobs Act to merely come up for a vote. A few days later, they released their own jobs bill, though it isn’t get­ting much atten­tion, and right­fully so. It isn’t a jobs plan; it’s no more than a laun­dry list of Repub­li­can talk­ing points. There’s noth­ing new in the plan, it doesn’t do any­thing to cre­ate jobs, and it strives to undo leg­is­la­tion on health care and envi­ron­men­tal pro­tec­tions that Pres­i­dents have been seek­ing since Theodore Roo­sevelt. (more…)

Too Kohled to Leave the House

4
1 year ago
by Michael Weiss in
Press photo of Secretary of Health and Human S...

Tommy Thomp­son (Image via Wikipedia)

Paul Ryan announced today that he will be stay­ing in his House seat. But a new name popped up as a prospect for the Sen­ate seat to be vacated by Herb Kohl: Tommy Thomp­son.

(more…)

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