BY MICHAEL JOHNSON
The Sunday talk shows again this week devoted a lot of attention to the dysfunction of Congress. In fact, it was the theme of Face the Nation, which featured two members of the Senate with a reputation for bipartisanship, Democrat Bayh of Indiana and Republican Graham of South Carolina.
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BY JOHN PATRICK FEEHERY
Most people looked at the president’s March 18 healthcare deadline and saw a totally unrealistic, pie-in-the-sky, Hail Mary pass from a guy who has set down several totally unrealistic, pie-in-the-sky, Hail Mary pass deadlines in the past.
Remember when he wanted a healthcare law on his desk last August? Or when he wanted it done before Thanksgiving? Or Christmas?
Some years back when I served in the Congress I was told that for every complex, complicated problem there is a simple, easy answer. And invariably that answer is wrong.
Whenever I hear the President or Administration spokesmen talking about passing their health bill with a “simple up and down vote” or a “simple majority” I am reminded of what I was told years ago.
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BY GARY ANDRES
President Obama confirmed the worst kept secret in Washington this week: Democrats will move health legislation forward in Congress without any Republican support, despite a bevy of polls saying slow down or start over.
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By John Feehery
Andrew Kohut of the Pew Charitable Trust released an interesting snapshot of America’s youngest voters.
Legislation recently has been introduced to change the way the United States Senate conducts its business. That legislation calls for ending the use of the filibuster in Senate deliberations. I agree that the filibuster rule should be changed. I do not agree that the right change is to end its use. Instead, I would argue that the requirements for stopping a filibuster should be made more stringent.
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BY TONY BLANKLEY
If you want to see broken government, consider the fall of the constitutional Roman Republic and the rise of Julius Caesar: “Fortune turned against us and brought confusion to all we did. Greed destroyed honor, honesty and every other virtue, and taught men to be arrogant and cruel, to neglect the gods. Ambition made men false. Rome changed: A government which had once surpassed all others in justice and excellence now became cruel and unbearable.” So said the historian Sallust at the time.
BY GARY ANDRES
I first encountered the word Zugzwang in a 1985 New York Times Magazine column by the late William Safire. It’s a chess term that means “compelled to move, but imperiled by doing so.” The word’s political implications are profound.
For the past 25 years, I’ve regularly witnessed the repercussions of that hard-to-pronounce term. During the 1990s, my friend Arne Christenson (who served as chief of staff to former House Speaker Newt Gingrich) and I would lament some thorny political problem faced by Republicans or Democrats and how being “compelled to move” would cause unavoidable collateral political damage. Arne would just shake his head and say, “Zugzwang.” We both knew exactly what he meant.
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Many immediately proclaimed last week’s Citizens United v. FEC Supreme Court decision as a huge win for business “special interests.” But those quick draw reactions are based more on ideology and political rhetoric than hard facts. While this latest change in the campaign finance landscape creates new options for both business and labor, it’s unclear if and how either side will use these new opportunities.
The Citizens United case overturns a variety of campaign finance laws enacted over the past century. For example, it nullifies part of a century-old statute known as the Tillman Act (1907), which barred corporations from using treasury funds to engage in the political process. It also vitiated similar prohibitions imposed on unions after World War II. Moreover, the decision invalidates part of the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002 (McCain-Feingold) that prohibited certain types of ads within 60 days of a general election and 30 days from a primary. Bottom line: Both corporations and labor unions may now use their general treasury funds to pay for unlimited independent expenditures, including advertisements, for or against candidates at any time.
