US Politics was: The Fate of VM ... 4443

Boy, have you been asleep for most of the last decade.

The Republicans definitely do have a voting majority in both House and Senate. They don't have absolute control in the Senate because Senate Republicans lack a super-majority and so far, at least, have remained civil enough, barely, to not change the Senate rules to eliminate the filibuster -- although they have pretty well intimidated the Democrats by laying out the strategy by which they would effectively eliminate it, requiring only a questionable ruling by the presiding officer of the Senate and a simple majority of Republicans to back his ruling. The only thing holding them back is the fear that breaking with tradition will come back to haunt them when they become the minority.

The Republican leadership in the House and Senate control the simple majority it takes to control the selection of Committee chairs, to control the rules by which bills reach the floor and are discussed, and to put a Republican majority on all committees that consider bills that go to the floor. If the Republican leadership wants to amend the bills coming out of committee to add additional pork or whatever, the current rules allow them to regularly do this in the House, submit the modified bill to the floor with insufficient time for other members to study the changed details, and "require" enough Republican support (by threats of withdrawal of campaign support, committee positions, etc.) to pbutt the bill over any objections. Over 70% of bills reaching the floor last year were subject to rules that did not allow amendments from the floor. Not surprisingly, last-minute earmarked "pork" abuses in bills have increased to ten times the rate present when Democrats were in control of Congress. Bills written in secret, voted on in ignorance, and not subject to serious review tend to have a high crap-factor.

Should the less docile Senate come up with a different version of a House bill, the Senate and House leadership select only Republican members for the Senate-House joint conference committee, which then resolves the differences in secret (under the Democrats, both parties were represented in conference committees). The resulting "compromise" is brought back to both houses of Congress for a vote with minimal debate and minimal time for analysis.

The Republican majority on all committees and the Republican leadership in both houses effectively controls what topics and all the bills that will be discussed, and also controls (and chooses not to exercise) the subpoena power required for effective Congressional oversight. What part of of the word "control" do you not understand?

It would appear you need to follow your own advice and do a more careful reading of the Consbreastution. The only places the Consbreastution requires more than a simple majority (one more vote than the other side) to pbutt (or prevent from pbutting) any act of congress is (1)to override a Presidential veto (not an issue with the current President; (2)for the Senate to approve a treaty (not a problem with a President that doesn't believe in diplomacy); or (3)for the Senate to convict an impeached official (not a issue when there isn't a simple majority in the House to vote to impeach). Any other cases requiring more than a simple majority are not by Consbreastutional requirement but a matter of House or Senate procedural rules, which by the Consbreastution the individual houses could change by a simple majority vote.

You need not just re-read the Consbreastution, but also become familiar with the procedural rules and practices actually in effect in Congress. If the relatively few moderate Republicans had time to read the bills and were allowed to vote their conscience, the Republican leadership might have more trouble maintaining a majority; but that's not the way things are being run. By exercising tight control over distribution of money from lobbyists and other Republican contributors and by punishing those that don't toe the line, the Republican leadership in the House and Senate have had little trouble in recent years keeping enough Republican votes in line to a maintain a working majority in both houses. The Democrats in the Senate may occasionally be able to block some of the most radical efforts of the House or delay the appointment of someone who is too blatantly incompetent or radical, but their current influence with their less-Draconian leadership is limited.

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