"Major Power Brokers On The Left"

Last night, Rachel Maddow tells me broke some news.

We can report exclusively tonight that two major power brokers on the left have told MSNBC that they are encouraging a Senate strategy now in which the leadership would revoke chairmanships and other leadership positions from any Democrat who sides with a Republican filibuster to block a vote on health reform. Regardless of how individual senators would vote ultimately on the bill, committee chairmen or subcommittee chairmen who allowed Republicans to force a 60-vote requirement for passing health care...under this type of strategy would be in danger of losing their chairmanships.

I don't know what that means. "Two power brokers on the left"? Who? Senators? Fundraisers? People who want health reform? I'm encouraging this, am I one of the power brokers? If it's Senators, this isn't really news, as Tom Harkin said this about Max Baucus back in July, even before the vote. Jay Rockefeller has intimated it as well, with respect to having a vote on leadership and chairmanships instead of using seniority. And with Rockefeller and Baucus not even speaking to each other before this critical vote, I'm assuming that hasn't changed.

Mind you, I'd LOVE for this to be the strategy. It wouldn't take effect until 2011, and I don't know if it can filter down to subcommittees - Ben Nelson and Mary Landrieu don't chair any committee, for example - but it's one of the tools in the shed for the Senate caucus leadership. I hope they use it. This report doesn't convince me they will, however.

Stop Him Before He Capitulates Again!

Having done his best to destroy the health care bill, Max Baucus wants a stab at the climate change bill.

But while Baucus has been the public face of health care negotiations, a dedicated team of his aides has been working on the climate bill. As the Finance Committee chairman and the second-most-senior Democrat on the Environment and Public Works Committee, Baucus is in a uniquely powerful position on climate issues.

The Finance Committee is charged with overseeing the flow of money in and out of government, a jurisdiction that Baucus believes gives his committee control over how hundreds of billions of dollars in pollution allocations would be distributed to industry and consumers under a cap-and-trade system.

That turf puts Baucus in direct conflict with Sen. Barbara Boxer, chairwoman of the Environment and Public Works Committee, who believes her committee has control over cap-and-trade allocations. Boxer would fold the provisions into her broader climate and energy bill, which would establish caps on greenhouse gas emissions for the next several decades, according to Senate Democratic aides.

Massachusetts Democratic Sen. John Kerry, who’s working with Boxer to draft the climate and energy bill, says they are still working out the jurisdictional dispute with Baucus.

I've got a way to work it out. Tell him, "Butt out or we'll take your gavel away." Seriously, nobody elected Max Baucus President, and his philosophy does not reflect the majority of Democrats in the Senate, let alone in the country. Senate Dems have been talking about a way to have secret votes to keep committee chairs on top of their committees - it's beyond time to brandish that as a weapon.

My other question is, how the hell does a coal-state Dem get to be #2 in rank on the Environment and Public Works Committee?

Dodd Stays At Banking

I knew that Tim Johnson would not be permitted to chair the Senate Banking Committee:

Sen. Christopher Dodd (D-Conn.) has decided against succeeding his close friend and mentor, the late Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.) as chairman of the Senate's health committee, a senior Senate aide said Tuesday night.

The decision sets in motion a final game of musical chairs involving committee chairmanships after Kennedy's death.

Dodd's decision leaves the chairmanship of the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee to Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa), who follows Dodd in seniority. Multiple sources in the Harkin orbit, requesting anonymity to discuss internal deliberations, said that he is certain to take over the HELP committee.

Harkin is currently chairman of the Agriculture Committee and would have to give up that position. He would likely be replaced at Agriculture by Sen. Blanche Lincoln (D-Ark.), who faces a difficult reelection bid in 2010. Other Democrats are more senior than her on the Agriculture Committee, but they hold more prestigious chairmanships already.

Dodd isn't great chairing Banking, but he's ten times better than Johnson, and I'd rather have financial regulation in his hands. Meanwhile, Tom Harkin, who's a great liberal except when it comes to agriculture, now goes to a committee to show off his talents. And I think the Senate just gained some leverage over Blanche Lincoln, who will need to be reasonably loyal to keep that slot on the Agriculture Committee. When Max Baucus was foundering there was talk of switching committee chairs, and that should still be on the table for squishes like Lincoln and Joe Lieberman if they participate in a filibuster of policies Democrats have sought for 60 years.

Johnson To Banking?

I don't want to sound insensitive to the disabled, and Tim Johnson appears to have all of his mental faculties with him. But Johnson is two years out from a debilitating stroke, and chairing a committee in the Senate is demanding work. Robert Byrd lost his gavel because he was physically incapable of performing the chairmanship on Appropriations. I would just be very surprised to see Johnson get the chair of the Senate Banking Committee if Chris Dodd moved over to run the HELP Committee to replace the late Ted Kennedy.

There's the other matter that Johnson clearly is a total shill for corporate banking interests, many of which are hid away in his low-regulation state of South Dakota. With consumer protection legislation coming up, absolutely nothing of worth would get through a Banking Committee under Johnson. But it would be simply terrible optics to have someone who may not be able to handle the job up there trying to put together this high-profile legislation. I just can't see it.

Next in line on Banking after Johnson would be Jack Reed, which would be a major improvement over Johnson and Dodd. If Reed gets it, we're seeing some serious change. If Dodd stays put and Barbara Mikulski takes over HELP, it's the status quo. If Johnson really gets that seat, the country is seriously ruled by corporate whores and sellouts.

Maybe I shouldn't be so unequivocal in my prediction.

The Nelson/Landrieu Conundrum

A recent AARP poll shows 79% support for a public option competing with private insurance companies, although the poll question is kind of odd and doesn't reflect what's on offer. Nevertheless, other polls that accurately depict the public option show support in that range. However, that is not equally spread throughout the country. For instance, in a conservative state like Nebraska, more people don't support a public option (by a plurality) in health care reform, for whatever reason, and Democrat Ben Nelson gets 56% support for his handling of health care thus far. We don't have hard data on Louisiana, but Mary Landrieu, who has actually more strongly opposed a public insurance option than Nelson, may also be more in line with the interests of her state than some realize.

Speaking before what was described as a friendly crowd at the Monroe Chamber of Commerce yesterday, Sen. Mary Landrieu said she was opposed to much of the Democrats' legislative agenda.

Asked under what circumstances she would support a public option, Landrieu responded, "[v]ery few, if any. I'd prefer a private market-based approach to any health care reform that would extend coverage," according to the Monroe News Star.

"I'd like to cover everyone -- that would be the moral thing to do -- but it would be immoral to bankrupt the country while doing so," Landrieu said. The public option as currently conceived is expected to be a deficit reducer.

Dishonest? Absolutely. But out of step? Perhaps not.

What can we realistically expect from Democrats like this in red states? Obviously, under a "split the bill" scenario, they could signal support for the more broadly popular elements of reform, like insurance regulations, while opting out of the more controversial elements that only require a 60-vote standard. Or, they could simply opt to allow cloture, the wish of the majority of their caucus, while voting against the final bill. Markos polled this in the case of Nelson:

If Ben Nelson joined Republican Senators in filibustering and killing a final health care bill because it had a public health insurance option would that make you more or less likely to vote for him or would it have no real effect on your vote?

	More	Less
All	21	15
Dem	7	24
GOP	31	9
Ind	19	15

We can assume Nelson will vote against any bill with a robust public option. The big question is whether he will join Republicans in filibustering such a bill. Nebraska Republicans would sure love that, but at the end of the day, they'll vote for a real Republican in a contested election. Nelson would gain a small sliver from Independents, per this poll, but his real danger is among Democrats -- where he would lose a full 17 points of support [...]

If Nelson was to play this properly, he'd vote against any robust public option (and be justified doing so, given his constituency), but allow an up-or-down vote on the bill. Given the political realities of his state, that's the best we could hope for.

How can we position this so that Nelson comes around to this reality? I would look at how Republicans are pressuring Chuck Grassley. Grassley has something only the caucus can give him - the ranking membership of the Senate Judiciary Committee or the Budget Committee. And so he feels the pull from his members to not join in any bipartisan deal. Nelson and Landrieu both have pretty low seniority at the moment, although there's been a near-historic amount of turnover in the Senate recently. But if they have any designs on better committee assignments, or eventual chairmanships, the caucus should inform them of how they would do best to stay in their good graces. This pressure, by the way, should theoretically be much stronger on a Max Baucus or Kent Conrad, who already have that seniority. In addition, Landrieu and Nelson should be asked, pointedly, if they want to go down in history as having stopped access to health care for all Americans for a generation.

Enzi Invents New Six-Member Unicameral Parliament, Appoints Self Prime Minister

Steve Benen hit this yesterday, but I just noticed it. Mike Enzi, like most Senators, finds himself very, very important. So much so that he believes the November election leading to 60 Democratic Senators, 258 Democratic House members and a Democratic President sent the message that his word must be law.

With liberal Democrats on and off the Finance Committee already angling to pull the measure to the left when it is combined with a rival passed by the Health Committee, Enzi indicated his support is contingent on Democratic leaders leaving any Finance Committee agreement intact.

“I also need commitments from Sen. [Harry] Reid [D-Nev.] and Speaker Pelosi, as well as the administration, that the bipartisan agreements reached in the Finance Committee will survive in a final bill that goes to the president,” Enzi said.

There are six Senators involved in the Baucus caucus in the Senate Finance Committee. Together they represent about 2.8% of the total US population.

Let's add in some additional facts. Five Congressional Committees are working on health care legislation. The legislative process works like this: the bills coming out of the committees in the respective chambers are merged into single bills for a floor vote. Senators and House members have the opportunity to offer amendments. Those amendments are voted up or down, then there are final votes on passage of the bill in the House and the Senate. The bills coming out of the respective chambers go to a conference committee, where they are merged, with the details ironed out, and then returned to each chamber for a final vote.

That's how government works.

Mike Enzi's conception of government is this: Mike Enzi agrees to a compromise with 6% of the total Senate representing 2.8% of the population, and it becomes law.

I will say that his version has speed on its side.

The bill Enzi wants to fast track has a favorable CBO score going for it, reportedly costing under $1 trillion over 10 years and covering 95% of all Americans. But the only way to do that is to cut subsidies to the bone, making coverage unaffordable; or to phase in the program later in the ten-year budget window, maintaining the current broken, crappy system for as long as possible. It also apparently eliminates the successful Children's Health Insurance Program.

And by the way, they can't get it done until after the August recess.

Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, and Sen. Michael Enzi, R-Wyoming, dropped the bombshell news to CNN and two other reporters in Capitol hallways Wednesday night. They have spent weeks behind closed doors, trying to hammer out an agreement with their Democratic counterparts on the Senate Finance Committee but said too many issues remain unresolved, making it virtually impossible for them to sign on to a deal before the break.

“There are a lot of tough decisions to make and they aren’t going to be made real quickly,” Grassley said late Wednesday when asked whether negotiators should kick their talks over to September.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nevada, had already postponed Senate floor action on health care legislation until the fall, but Democrats had hoped the Senate Finance Committee could finish its work before the summer break. In fact, one senior Democratic source said meeting that deadline was the central thrust of the president’s meeting with Reid and Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus, D-Montana, last Friday [...]

Enzi, a soft-spoken conservative, was furious about headlines Wednesday morning that suggested he was close to reaching a deal with the Democrats.

“I felt my reputation was in danger,” he said.

In Enzi's world, signing on to a compromise with Democrats would ruin his reputation. So obviously we should just let him set the policy by himself. After all, 189,046 voted for him last year.

The silver lining here is that liberal Democrats in the House are resisting going along with this nonsense. From CongressDaily (sub. req.):

A trumpeted healthcare reform agreement with conservative House Democrats set off a firestorm of criticism from the party's liberal wing Wednesday, pushing back proceedings in a key committee and casting doubt on the strength of the leadership-backed accord.

Leaders and White House officials worked for days to reach an agreement with Blue Dogs, who had been holding up the legislation in the Energy and Commerce Committee because of concerns about cost, burdens on small business and a public insurance option [...]

"There's angst; there's questions; there's some anger," Rep. Eliot Engel, D-N.Y., a member of the Energy and Commerce Committee, said of the meetings with Waxman. "The question is, have we given up too much for the goals that we need?" he said of the agreement. "I don't want to see the insurance companies subsidized by middle-income taxpayers."

The Progressive Caucus called the Waxman/Blue Dog deal "unacceptable" and vowed to defeat such a compromise on the House floor.

Meanwhile, in the best news I've heard in years, Senate Democrats are making threats to Max Baucus' committee chair.

In an apparent warning to Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus (D-Mont.), some liberal Democrats have suggested a secret-ballot vote every two years on whether or not to strip committee chairmen of their gavels [...]

"Every two years the caucus could have a secret ballot on whether a chairman should continue, yes or no," said Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa), the chairman of the Senate Agriculture Committee. "If the ‘no’s win, [the chairman’s] out [...]

Some senators suggest privately that Baucus might be more open to persuasion if his chairmanship is subject to regular votes.

Another senior Democratic senator endorsed Harkin’s suggestion but declined to speak on the record for fear of angering Baucus.

"Put me down as a yes, but if you use my name I’ll send a SWAT team after you," said the lawmaker when asked about a biennial referendum on chairmen.

Civil rights legislation in the 1960s didn't move forward until the House Rules Committee chair, a segregationist Southern Democrat, saw his power neutered by an expansion of the committee. Process changes often precede policy changes. Sen. Baucus, take note.

A Few Good Allies

We know that 13 Senators voted to strip Joe Lieberman's committee chair yesterday. Published reports before and after the vote listed Patrick Leahy and Bernie Sanders as opposed. Now we can add Jeff Merkley:

U.S. Senator-elect Jeff Merkley (D-Portland) spoke up in a Senate Democratic caucus meeting on Tuesday regarding whether U.S. Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) would be stripped of his chairmanship of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee after he supported former presidential candidate John McCain in the November election [...]

“Jeff Merkley did speak at the meeting, and he expressed how profoundly disappointed he was with Lieberman’s actions,” Edwards said, adding that Merkley said he had been a big supporter of the Connecticut Senator when he was a vice presidential candidate in 2000, and that thousands of Oregon Democratic volunteers worked tirelessly on his behalf. “He also believes that the chairmanship is not an entitlement, it’s a privilege.”

And Barbara Boxer:

The resolution that passed today did not reflect Senator Boxer's belief that Senator Lieberman should remain in the Democratic caucus but not retain his full Committee Chairmanship- she voted accordingly.

Good votes by both of them. In a Senate where one member holds a tremendous amount of influence, it's going to be important in the future to cultivate these relationships.

...also important to note that President-elect Obama clearly wanted Lieberman to remain in the caucus and by proxy in the committee chair, so these two were willing to buck the leader of their party on this vote. That kind of independence is frankly needed from the legislative branch.

Lying Us Into War Has Its Privileges

Just to put a coda on today's heartfelt welcoming back of Joe Lieberman to the Democratic caucus (I swear, all this bipartisanship and comity brings a tear to my eye), let's go over one loose end that Mr. Connecticut for Lieberman hyped endlessly throughout the election season. It was considered absolute by him that Iran was supplying weapons to Iraqi militia that were using them to murder American soldiers. This was the basis for the Kyl-Lieberman Amendment, which threatened to "combat, contain and stop" Iran if they continued these efforts against coalition forces. In fact, Kyl-Lieberman contained as evidence this language:

(2) Ambassador Ryan Crocker, United States Ambassador to Iraq, stated in testimony before a joint session of the Committee on Armed Services and the Committee on Foreign Affairs in the House of Representatives on September 10, 2007, that "Iran plays a harmful role in Iraq. While claiming to support Iraq in its transition, Iran has actively undermined it by providing lethal capabilities to the enemies of the Iraqi state."

(3) The most recent National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq, published in August 2007, states that "Iran has been intensifying aspects of its lethal support for select groups of Iraqi Shia militants, particularly the JAM [Jaysh al-Mahdi], since at least the beginning of 2006. Explosively formed penetrator (EFP) attacks have risen dramatically."

(4) The Report of the Independent Commission on the Security Forces of Iraq, released on September 6, 2007, states that "[t]he Commission concludes that the evidence of Iran's increasing activism in the southeastern part of the country, including Basra and Diyala provinces, is compelling... It is an accepted fact that most of the sophisticated weapons being used to 'defeat' out armor protection comes across the border from Iran with relative impunity."

Set aside for a moment the fact that the current government in Baghdad is actively supported by Iran, and that Tehran was "in the room" during the recent negotiations on the status of forces agreement. Let's focus on the fact that Lieberman was promoting this idea that Iran was supplying lethal weapons to Iraqi militias to kill American troops, an act of provocation that he was willing to go to war over to stop.

(CBS) The United States should launch military strikes against Iran if the government in Tehran does not stop supplying anti-American forces in Iraq, Sen. Joe Lieberman said Sunday on Face The Nation.

"I think we've got to be prepared to take aggressive military action against the Iranians to stop them from killing Americans in Iraq," Lieberman told Bob Schieffer. "And to me, that would include a strike into... over the border into Iran, where we have good evidence that they have a base at which they are training these people coming back into Iraq to kill our soldiers."

Funny story about those Iranian weapons - they were a complete fabrication, representing an infinitesimal fraction of the weapons used in Iraq.

According to the data compiled by the task force, and made available to an academic research project last July, only 70 weapons believed to have been manufactured in Iran had been found in post-invasion weapons caches between mid-February and the second week in April. And those weapons represented only 17 percent of the weapons found in caches that had any Iranian weapons in them during that period.

The actual proportion of Iranian-made weapons to total weapons found, however, was significantly lower than that, because the task force was finding many more weapons caches in Shi'a areas that did not have any Iranian weapons in them.

The task force database identified 98 caches over the five-month period with at least one Iranian weapon, excluding caches believed to have been hidden prior to the 2003 U.S. invasion.

But according to an e-mail from the MNFI press desk this week, the task force found and analysed a total of roughly 4,600 weapons caches during that same period.

The caches that included Iranian weapons thus represented just 2 percent of all caches found. That means Iranian-made weapons were a fraction of one percent of the total weapons found in Shi'a militia caches during that period.

The extremely small proportion of Iranian arms in Shi'a militia weapons caches further suggests that Shi'a militia fighters in Iraq had been getting weapons from local and international arms markets rather than from an official Iranian-sponsored smuggling network.

These were pretty obvious lies, considering that the military could never manage to give a coherent briefing about the origin of those Iranian weapons. But there was one man in the US Congress willing to believe these lies and pass a resolution seeking to escalate tensions with Iran over them - Joe Lieberman. This false narrative of Iraqi arms running pushed us to the brink of yet another war based on erroneous information.

For this, George Bush was used as the foil throughout Barack Obama's Presidential campaign and one of the key reasons he will be 44th President. For this, Joe Lieberman got his Homeland Security Committee gavel and a hug.

And this is the kind of fearmongering, overhyping and agenda-driven bluster you can expect coming out of the Homeland Security Committee, in the name of "protecting Americans," over the next 2-4 years.

Can't say you weren't warned.

Lieberman Letter Very Strongly Worded

Suck. On. This.

WASHINGTON – Sen. Joe Lieberman will keep his chairmanship of the Senate Homeland Security Committee despite hard feelings over his support for GOP nominee John McCain during the presidential campaign.

The Connecticut independent will lose a minor panel post as punishment for criticizing Obama this fall.

Lieberman's colleagues in the Democratic caucus voted 42-13 Tuesday to approve a resolution condemning statements made by Lieberman during the campaign but allowing him to keep the Homeland Security Committee gavel. He will leave the Environment and Public Works panel, however.

I'm sure that condemnation cut him to the quick.

I was never that interested in saving Obama or the Democratic caucus from the mole in their midst, if they weren't interested in saving themselves. I do think it will ultimately have negative consequences, but it's their own fault. And I'll take no pleasure in being right.

Quite an auspicious debut for the newly powerful Democratic caucus.

...what Jane Hamsher said.

I hope this puts to rest the notion that this is all some master stroke of kumbayah, of keeping your friends close and your enemies closer.

This is about telling you that you mean nothing. That democracy is a nice word, but it should never threaten the entitlement of the most exclusive club in the world.

No matter what Joe Lieberman does, the people who are protecting him hate you much more than they hate him.

...I didn't realize that Lieberman wasn't just taken off a subcommittee panel of the Environment and Public Works Committee, but taken off the committee entirely. While some are saying that this is a meaningless punishment because Lieberman doesn't have differences with Democrats on climate change, that's not entirely true. His Lieberman-Warner climate bill was an awful giveaway to polluters because it didn't sell carbon credits 100% at auction, which Obama favors. If he's replaced by, say, Jeff Merkley on that committee, it does shift it to the left.

Joe's Staying

Continuing on the theme of sabotage, this time self-sabotage, Senate Democrats have no stomach to strip Joe Lieberman from his committee chairmanship.

According to sources familiar with negotiations, Democrats are expected to vote in favor of letting the Connecticut senator keep his chairmanship and seniority, but give up the gavel on a subcommittee he chairs. The vote happens tomorrow morning by secret ballot.

The tide turned in Lieberman's favor, sources say, after two events in recent weeks. First, President-elect Obama told Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid that he wanted Lieberman to stay in the Democratic caucus. Later, in a meeting with Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, Lieberman told him it would be "unacceptable" for him to give up his gavel. That was considered by some as a veiled threat that Lieberman would jump to caucus with Republicans if he was forced to give up the gavel.

Obama tipped the scales in Lieberman's favor, one source said. The source essentially explained it like this: If the wrath was directed at Obama and got over it, shouldn't the Democratic caucus do the same?

So bipartisan hope and unity has put a rival in charge of the committee that can seek to subpoena anyone in the Obama Administration. That's really his problem, which is why I viewed this with not much more than contempt. Too many Senate Dems are basically spineless and their little club is very exclusive, so I wouldn't have ever expected them to do something so partisan. They're going to have to deal with the consequences, too. What Markos said:

If this is the "starting point", and given the Senate Democrats' history of capitulations, expect Lieberman to come out of that meeting as majority leader.

Hehindeedy.

Worm Turning?

Joe Lieberman is maybe starting to lose some support on Capitol Hill. Byron Dorgan called his actions unacceptable over the weekend. And one of the Senators making calls on his behalf, Tom Carper, thinks something needs to be done.

Sen. Tom Carper (D-Del.), a close ally of Sen. Joe Lieberman, said the Connecticut Independent should pay a price for his campaign attacks against President-elect Barack Obama.

"There need to be consequences, and they cannot be insignificant," Carper said in a Monday interview with The Hill.

I wouldn't put a lot into this. The vote tomorrow will be by secret ballot and it will be difficult after the fact to extract any sort of consequences from those who vote for him to retain the Homeland Security Committee. There are a few willing to make public statements, but most have clammed up, and I expect tomorrow to see a lot of go-along to get-along from Senate Democrats. And after the vote, there will be a lot of calls for calm, that the issue is a settled matter and we now must move forward with the new agenda. And you'll be more hard pressed to find a Senator who voted to keep Lieberman in charge of the committee than an African-American who voted for McCain. I agree with Josh Orton that it makes policy sense to put a Homeland Security Committee chair who actually seems to care about fulfilling his responsibility, but that's not how this will be decided. It's a political play and Senate Dems don't seem willing to expel anyone from their little club. It would be too nasty and partisan.

Cracks In The Facade

I guess not EVERYONE is enamored of comity and bipartisanship as a cover for backstabbing and despicable behavior. First, Patrick Leahy announced his opposition to Joe Lieberman keeping his committee chairmanship.

Money quote #1: "I’m one who does not feel somebody should be rewarded with a major chairmanship after doing what he did.."

Money quote #2: But I felt that some of the attacks that he was involved in against Senator Obama .... I thought they went way beyond the pale, that they were not fair, that they were not legitimate, that they perpetuated some of these horrible myths that were run about Senator Obama

Money quote #3: I would feel that had I done something similar that I would not be Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee in the next Congress.

That's the key. You can look at the committee assignments as basically the spoils for the victor. Lieberman lost. He ran against the nominee of the party and some of its Senate candidates. And yet somehow, people want to reward him for that behavior with a committee chair.

Not Leahy. And not Bernie Sanders either.

"To reward Senator Lieberman with a major committee chairmanship would be a slap in the face of millions of Americans who worked tirelessly for Barack Obama and who want to see real change in our country," Sanders in the statement sent our way by his office.

"Appointing someone to a major post who led the opposition to everything we are fighting for is not 'change we can believe in,'" Sanders continued. "I very much hope that Senator Lieberman stays in the Democratic caucus and is successful in regaining the confidence of those whom he has disappointed. This is not a time, however, in which he should be rewarded with a major committee chairmanship."

Joe Lieberman is an unpopular figure in Connecticut, too, not just among Vermont Senators. His re-elect number is only 35. Ned Lamont would crush him if the election were held today. What Markos said:

So Lieberman can threaten all he wants to caucus with Republicans if he doesn't get everything he wants. Fact is, he's in shaky electoral territory, and it would only get worse if he decided to become a Republican.

Call his bluff. Give him another committee chairmanship in an area where his ideology matches up with the Democratic Party. He won't leave the Democratic caucus. It would be career suicide.

No one likes Joe except for Republicans, yet there are the Senate Dems, once again ready to capitulate. Apparently, old habits die hard.

But maybe they'll prove us wrong and do the right thing.

At least two of them will.

Evan Bayh: Dupe

I actually watched this last night, and it was pathetic:

BAYH: I don't think this is about Joe Lieberman, Rachel. I think this is about maximizing our chances of making the changes that we need in America, maximizing the chances that President-elect Obama will meet those expectations you referred to by addressing the challenges that we face that you also reported on just a few moments ago.

And let me explain to you what I mean. If this was just about Joe Lieberman and the things he said in the campaign, well, I'd say we'll let it go. I mean, if people want to settle scores, fine. I mean, he's a big guy, he can live with the consequences of his actions.

But one of two things will be likely to happen if we were to kick him out of his chairmanship. No. 1, he might very well decide to just resign from the Senate. You know, he probably would not want to be a person without a home, wandering the hallways without any influence of any kind. And Connecticut has a Republican governor, who would appoint a pure Republican to that seat, who would vote against the wishes of the president-elect and the Democratic caucus, you know, the vast, vast majority of the time. That's No. 1.

No. 2, Lieberman, Joe Lieberman might decide to stay and be embittered. And what would happen there would be from time to time, we have close votes. You've been reporting on the Alaska race and the Minnesota race and the Georgia race. We could be at 58, 59, maybe even 60 votes. Every two or three or four months, there's going to be a critically important vote, very close, every vote will count. And it might come down to one vote.

Now, if Senator Lieberman has a strong view, he'll vote his conscience, but if he's conflicted, frankly, you know, doesn't really
know what to do, and we've exacted revenge on him, I suspect we could probably expect the same in return. That's really not where we want to go. Let's see if we can move this in a better direction.

And the final thing I'd say is, if he does retain his chairmanship, we still exert oversight over him and control over him. He doesn't have the ability to just do whatever he wants. The caucus still has the right to remove him from that position at any time if he starts going off on some kind of tangent.

Shorter Evan Bayh: we're a-feared of Droopy Dog!

If Senate Dems can't defend themselves, I really don't see why I should expend any effort helping to defend them. The danger of Lieberman at Homeland Security, as I see it, is that he'll play "fun with subpoenas" on the Obama Administration. Well, let him. Obama doesn't seem too concerned with it, so why should I be? And under no circumstances should Lieberman be tossed after given the gavel if he does anything untoward. Senate Dems will have had their chance, and stifling Joe after the fact would just be the same instance of using the Congress as a human shield for executive power, much as the Hastert/Frist Congress did from 2001-2006. In fact there's a Constitutional argument to be made that at least a confrontational Joe would be a check on the executive. It'll all be frivolous and based on faulty logic, but at this point any check might be beneficial.

As for appeasing him (Neville Chamberlains!) because he might go ahead and vote against the party, if I'm a sanctimonious windbag like Joe Lieberman I'm probably already embittered by having to fight for my chairmanship, so whether I get to keep it or not I'm going to be a thorn in the side of the Democrats. After all, it's in my nature. And furthermore, important legislation rarely hangs on one vote, and each victory in these remaining races makes Joe that much more irrelevant.

I could tell you to call your Senators but I'm not really interested in helping dupes.

Establishment Circles The Wagons Around Lieberman

Chris Bowers wrote yesterday that, with a vote next week on Joe Lieberman's chairmanship on the Senate Homeland Security Committee, it was time to set up a whip count. However, he based a portion of it on Howard Fineman's report that Dick Durbin and Chuck Schumer wanted Lieberman booted. ANd now Fineman has come out and said the opposite:

FINEMAN: Senator Dick Durbin is a key factor there and I think he's moving toward allowing Lieberman to stay. Dick Durbin was somebody who was extremely angry at Lieberman for campaigning for John McCain.

But I'm now told after having gone through a horrible week or so, where he was mourning the death of his 40-year-old daughter to congenital heart disease, he's come out of that and looked around and, also, heard what Barack Obama has had to say, and Durbin is now saying he's willing to give Lieberman a chance.

I think that's going to go to a vote next week but I bet that Lieberman gets to keep his committee chairmanship because Obama has signaled that he wants him to.

I think liberal bloggers are in denial about this. Many are saying that Obama didn't signal that Lieberman stays in the chairmanship, but the sequence of events pretty clearly suggests that he did. Lieberman balked at losing the chairmanship and threatened to bolt the party, and then Obama, through aides, said he wants Lieberman kept in the party. As President it's not his decision to make, but it's hard to see that as not exerting influence. And Durbin is Obama's chief ally in the Senate.

Obviously, the Senate, which is a clubby, insider organization, doesn't want to punish Lieberman because they don't see the upside in it. They think in terms of getting cloture votes, and Lieberman can help at the margins, so there's no need to irritate him. What they don't feel pressured by is any downside, and that's where the progressive community comes in. We have to keep making calls and let these Senators know that our memories will be long and our wallets suddenly tight if nothing is done to Lieberman.

But ultimately, this is up to the Senators themselves. If they want to project an attitude of lacking self-respect, of allowing a member of their caucus to endorse the opposing Presidential candidate, make all sorts of slanders and accusations against their standard-bearer, and welcome him back with open arms, it's really on them. And the mischief he ends up causing will be their doing. I will let my representatives know how I feel, but I'm kind of tired of protecting them from their own actions.

UPDATE: Politico has more. The establishment figures are whipping support for Lieberman. They'll only be stopped if we choose to make our voices heard.

Committee Rumblings

The committee structure in the Senate is about to undergo a major overhaul, which is healthy. The chairmanships play a key role in shaping policy, and that's never been more important. In addition to Vice President-elect Biden leaving Foreign Relations, and Joe Lieberman about to get dumped, one way or the other, from Homeland Security and Government Affairs, Robert Byrd is stepping down as chair of the Appropriations Committee.

“To everything there is a season and a time for every purpose under heaven,” said Byrd, who had fended off earlier challenges this past spring and summer. “Those Biblical words from Ecclesiastes 3:1 express my feelings about this particular time in my life.

“I have been privileged to be a member of the Senate Appropriations Committee for 50 years and to have chaired the committee for ten years, during a time of enormous change in our great country, both culturally and politically,” Byrd continued in a statement released by his office. “I have learned that nothing is quite so permanent as change. It is simply a part of living and should not be feared.”

Sen. Daniel Inouye (D-Hawaii), who is 84, will take over for Byrd on the powerful panel, which oversees hundreds of billions of dollars annually in federal spending. Byrd will officially hand off the gavel on Jan. 6, 2009.

That probably means Hawaii becomes the new Alaska in terms of porkbarrel spending.

What I'm looking for is to get a fighting, reform Democrat on one of the high-profile committees. That could happen with Russ Feingold at Foreign Relations.

Vice President-elect Joe Biden leaves an open chairmanship on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that could end up being filled by one of the most outspoken critics of the Iraq war.
Sen. Russ Feingold (D-Wisc.), among the chamber's most liberal members, is the fourth Democrat in line on the committee, behind Biden, Sen. Chris Dodd (Conn.) and Sen. John Kerry (Mass.).

Dodd said Thursday he plans to stay on as chairman of the Senate Banking Committee. Kerry is reportedly lobbying to be President-elect Barack Obama's Secretary of State.

That leaves Feingold, an unapologetic champion of civil liberties and a staunch opponent of the Bush administration's war in Iraq, next in line. Feingold opposed the war from the start and was the first senator to call for a U.S. troop withdrawal timetable.

For accountability and judgment, there could be no better captain at the helm of Foreign Relations than Feingold. One of the Iraq War's strongest opponents (and the sole dissenting voice on the PATRIOT Act), Russ would be the perfect prescription after eight years of Bush foreign policy. And he's not one to pull punches or bow to politics, even with members of his own party: just over a week ago (and right before a Presidential election), Feingold wrote an op-ed in the Christian Science Monitor questioning the conventional wisdom of sending more troops to Afghanistan.

That was a superlative op-ed. I'd be very interested in having this happen. It'd be something to see anyone who got the Iraq war right succeed upwards, wouldn't it?

Negotiating With Himself

It's funny, Joe Lieberman thinks he's some kind of bonus baby who can get a luxury car and a sweet penthouse apartment overlooking the National Mall out of either caucus in the Senate. At this rate he won't be satisfied until he's Majority Leader. The only problem is that nobody wants to offer him anything.

Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) has reached out to Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman (I-Conn.) about the prospect of joining the Republican Conference, but Lieberman is still bargaining with Democratic leaders to keep his chairmanship, according to Senate aides in both parties.

“Sen. Lieberman’s preference is to stay in the caucus, but he’s going to keep all his options open,” a Lieberman aide said. “McConnell has reached out to him, and at this stage, his position is he wants to remain in the caucus but losing the chairmanship is unacceptable.”

A Republican Senate aide said Friday morning that there was little McConnell could offer in terms of high-ranking committee slots, which is why Lieberman is resisting overtures from the Republican side [...]

Lieberman’s aide told Politico on Friday morning that “essentially what transpired is that Sen. Reid talked about taking away his position perhaps for another position, and Sen. Lieberman indicated that was unacceptable.”

A person with direct knowledge of the Reid-Lieberman meeting yesterday on Capitol Hill said Reid turned to Lieberman at one point and said, "I prefer to work this out" after Lieberman hinted he would "explore his options" with Republicans if he was stripped of the committee.

Hilarious. Like he has clout. Lieberman would end up being a headache on either side of the aisle - a mole on the Democratic side, a Judas on the increasingly extremist Republican side. What's more, Republicans don't have any committee chairmanships to hand out, either. And nobody's going to put their seniority aside for him.

Of course, his operatives have one goal - to make it look like bolting for the Republicans would make any difference whatsoever, fooling accommodationist Dems into reverting to measures of conciliation and healing. They've already snookered Evan Bayh, who's eminently snooker-able.

BAYH: And I think if Joe came before the caucus and said look, if I said some things that came as offensive, I’m sorry, but they were, you know heartfelt in my support of John McCain. I think we had to just let bygones be bygones. We’re going to need him on healthcare and energy independence and education and a whole lot of other things.

Bayh concluded that Lieberman is “strong on national security.” “And we’re going to prove that there is a place for Democrats who are strong on national security in the Democratic Party,” he said.

I hope I miss when I try to shoot myself shortly after posting this.

If we do nothing, Lieberman will be welcomed back into the party, and they'll probably throw a brunch in his honor. If we call these Senators and let them know that a mole chairing the main oversight committee in the Senate is unacceptable, maybe they won't be so keen to allow it. If after getting stripped on his chairmanship, Lieberman wants to stay in the party, I personally think that's up to him. But making sure he isn't a one-man subpoena machine is the bare minimum of accountability that we should expect.

The number for the Capitol switchboard is (202) 224-3121. Start with your own Senator, but call the more conservative members of the caucus too. Ask whether they support Lieberman remaining as Chair of the Homeland Security committee, given his unfair attacks on President-elect Obama. Be polite, and calm. The young people who answer the phones are entry-level staffers.

Post what you hear in the comments. Let's outflank Lieberman.

On Bended Knee

Joe Lieberman is begging to stay relevant:

Bolstered by a newly expanded majority, Harry Reid met with Joe Lieberman on Thursday to sketch out the conditions by which the Connecticut independent could continue to caucus with Senate Democrats. But Lieberman did not accept Reid's initial offers, leaving his future in the caucus uncertain, and potentially setting off a campaign to pressure the Democratic steering committee to decide Lieberman's fate.

Reid offered Lieberman a deal to step down as chairman of the homeland security committee but take over the reins of another subcommittee, likely overseeing economic or small business issues officials said.

Immediately after his meeting with Reid, Lieberman told reporters that he had not made a decision about his future in the caucus, and appeared to launch his first public appeal to members of the Democratic steering committee, whose members decide committee chair assignments.

"I completely agree with President-elect Obama that we must now unite to get our economy going again and to keep the American people safe. that is exactly what I intend to do with my colleagues here in the Senate in support of our new president, and those are the standards I will use in considering the options that I have before me," Lieberman told reporters.

The thing is that Lieberman has very little leverage. There is no reason that Reid could possibly keep someone who continually defamed Barack Obama in the chairmanship of the committee that would oversee the White House. What's more, he was terrible at his job in the 110th Congress, practically never holding any oversight hearings. He's dead weight on the committee.

Lieberman is in no position to demand anything. He's not the crucial 60th vote, and he's never going to get re-elected in Connecticut. In the Republican caucus he'd be a minority of the minority, and the mouth-breathers would quickly tire of his moderate positions on certain issues. Reid has all the leverage and he ought to pull the trigger.

Here's Jane Hamsher:

My guess? Reid told him he can stay in the caucus if he steps down from his committee chairmanship (a campaign we started shortly after the 2006 election, thanks to everyone who participated with pitchforks and torches). I imagine Reid told him they'll wait to do anything until the other Senate races are decided, but that's the way it's going to go down. Those are the rather well-source rumors circulating, anyway.

Joe now goes to see if he can get a better deal from the GOP, knowing his chances of winning in Connecticut as a Republican in 2012 are about "zero."

What the heck could he possibly "get" from an even more ideologically rigid GOP? A ranking membership? The internal dissension would be enormous.

Reid is walking down the right path here, but he'd better watch it. It's bad enough that a swing-state Senator is in charge of the caucus to begin with. If he cozies up to Lieberman after all this, the outrage would be palpable.