You can tell that Jim Bunning likes the attention. He always has, from his time as a Hall of Fame pitcher (this must be mentioned in any article about the man) to his absurdist campaigns, where he mocks opponents as "limp wristed," compares them to Saddam Hussein's children, and then declares he gets all his news from Fox. His latest project is more sinister: gleefully, and single-handedly, holding up one of the Senate's short-term efforts to extend unemployment insurance and a half-dozen other needed programs.
Outrage in the press and around the country has focused on Bunning's eccentricity -- he complained about missing a college basketball game to continue the filibuster -- and the partisan implications of his obstruction. The more important story, though, is that this is the capstone of the argument for reforming Senate procedure.
The Kentucky senator, objecting to the bill and flipping off reporters, deprived 400,000 jobless Americans, a number that rises every day, of their unemployment insurance and sent thousands of workers home on temporary furloughs without pay. He acted alone and in protest: Senate Democrats told him they would hold a vote on his amendment to demand the bill be paid for with stimulus funding rather than borrowing. Bunning refused, acknowledging that his proposal would fail.
He then objected to the bill for days before being shamed into a new deal with the Democrats. Bunning ceased his objections in exchange for a vote on a measure to push payment of the bill in future legislation; it failed and the final bill passed, predictably, 78-19.
The dominant theme of this Congress has been the challenge the Democratic majority faces in trying to overcome the Republican minority's procedural obstruction, leading to broader attention to possible Senate reform. Forget the chorus of progressives, everyone from congressional expert Norm Ornstein to bland centrist Sen. Evan Bayh has called for some kind of reform of the upper chamber. Sens. Tom Harkin and Joe Lieberman -- oh, yes -- have put forward legislation to weaken the filibuster significantly.
Yet there's no real action. The pathways to reform either involve rules changes -- which require 67 votes, considered an insurmountable challenge -- or the involvement of Vice President Joe Biden, who can brush aside procedural objections while exercising his constitutional mandate to preside over the Senate. Some Democratic senators are reluctant to push for change, and the White House remains silent. To avoid partisan conflict, pundits suggest a long-term bargain, with changes to the rules kicking in years down the line, but no members of Congress have echoed that prescription.
Fear of criticizing procedure has even infected the mundane procedure of budget reconciliation, which, though used frequently by both parties to pass major bills and, yes, fix health-care policy, now comes under fire from Republicans. Democratic efforts to use reconciliation to modify a Senate health-care bill that already beat a filibuster has been declared an affront to democracy, even though reconciliation still requires a full majority of votes.
So one senator who likes the attention can keep the whole body busy for days while the economy remains mired in recession and needed programs suffer. The National Flood Insurance Program expired: Hello, New Orleans. A 21 percent Medicare pay cut for doctors came when another provision wasn't extended: Hello, seniors. Democrats gave up on trying to rein in Bunning -- a cloture vote would have taken days, and modern filibuster rules essentially preclude forcing long speeches when more than one senator is united in opposition. While Senate Republicans supposedly support this extension, they have proved unable and unwilling to stop their newest maverick, even praising him on the Senate floor.
"I admire the courage of the junior senator from Kentucky, Senator Bunning," Sen. John Cornyn said. "Somebody has to stand up, finally, and say enough is enough, no more intergenerational theft from our children and grandchildren by not meeting our responsibilities today."
The Democrats, who are expected to meet today's responsibilities, toiled on, persuading Bunning to give up even as they gamely attempted to to pass a long-term extension of these programs as fast as they could. (The blocked short-term bill was originally intended to provide relief until the long-term bill came into effect.) They expect to get the job done in about a week. Then they'll try to get health-care reform through reconciliation and overhaul financial reform. New objectors will step up. Little will be accomplished.
Perhaps if the bold party of Franklin D. Roosevelt succeeds in passing a once-in-a-generation health-care reform bill with the aid of reconciliation, Democrats will stop worrying and learn to love the simple majority. Maybe desperation will someday set in when the exponential rise in filibusters continues, giving even more weight to Senate reform efforts.
If it doesn't, Republicans won't be blamed when their party blocks votes -- voters will see either the attention-grabbing Bunnings of the world, or will become bored with mind-numbing process talk. Then, an anti-incumbent mood will punish the Democrats, who played by bad rules when they should have changed them.
