If we ever had any doubts that the U.S. Senate was truly the nation's most exclusive—
and perhaps isolated and calcified—club, last week's behavior by Majority Leader Harry
Reid wiped away those doubts.
The Senate Democratic leadership has refused to rally Democratic senators to stand up
and face down Republicans on issue after issue for the last four years. When Democrats
were in the minority, Reid did not think it was worth a Democratic filibuster over two
right-wing appointments to the Supreme Court—Samuel Alito and John Roberts.
Roberts even refused to hand over the legal advisories he wrote as a Justice Department
official in the Reagan administration, which would have given the nation a better idea of
where he stood on constitutional issues. Roberts said no, and the Democrats, being
consistent, said, well, OK, never mind that we asked for them—go ahead and take a job
(chief justice) that you will have for the rest of your life, from which you cannot be fired,
and which will allow you to set policies that will affect all Americans for decades to
come.
Similarly, Reid did not rally his party to stop the Military Commissions Act of 2006,
which gave President Bush the authority to imprison people indefinitely and torture
them based only on suspicions rather than on evidence.
When Democrats became the majority party in the Senate, Reid did not rally his party to
call the Republicans' bluff that they would filibuster bills to expand health care for lowincome
children, restore habeas corpus rights taken away in the Military Commissions
Act and give longer home leave time for U.S. service personnel in Iraq. A majority of
senators supported each of these proposals but when the Republican leadership
threatened a filibuster, maintaining order in the club was more important than taking a
stand.
How sad it is that when Reid finally found the strength to fight, he decided to make the
fight about whether to allow Roland Burris to be sworn in to fill President-elect Barack
Obama's vacant Senate seat.
Roberts is not worth a fight—and Burris is? Think it through, Democrats. Maybe it's time
for a change.
John Russonello is a partner in the public opinion research and strategic communications firm Belden Russonello & Stewart in
Washington.
