Did we ever have 60 Democratic Senators in the past 20 months......and if so, for how long?

[FrenchieCat]

Election 2008 gave us a total of 58 Democratic Senators.
Spector switched parties in April, which brought the count to 59.
Sen. Franken (I love the sound of that!) didn't get sworn in until July 7, 2009,
which is when the count went up to 60.
Ted Kennedy passed away in August,
and his replacement was named at the very end of September,
and replaced with a Republican in January.

And the Following Senators, although counted as part of the Dem 59 Senator majority,
were never, ever reliable votes for anything resembling aggressive progressive legislation.

Mary Landrieu (LA)-
Joe Lieberman (CT)-
Mark Pryor (AR)-
Evan Bayh (IN)-
Max Baucus (MT)-
Ben Nelson (NE)-
Blanche Lincoln (AR)-


So when did the Democrats have a solid 60 Votes majority that was reliable in any way?

Cause, when I count, seems like we've only really had 52, and only if legislation was
still somewhat conservative....

because there's also the following Senators, that although not "Conservative", are
not true progressives by any means:


Diane Feinstein (CA)-
Mark Warner (VA)-
Bill Nelson (FL)-
Kay Hagan (NC)-
Tim Johnson (SD)-


So that leaves 47 Senators who might back what DU might call real Progressive Legislation.....
and of course, that's if Sen. Tester, Sen. Webb, and Sen. Dodd were on board....

Otherwise, that leaves us with 45 Senators that would probably vote for legislation more progressive
than what ended up passing.


So, actually, the more I think of it, the more I realize that considering the make up of the Senate,
Pres. Obama has done suprisingly well in the past 20 months!

Just saying again....cause it bears repeating, based on what I am reading here at DU.

[RUMMYisFROSTED]

1. Don't need 60.

:shrug:

[joeybee12]

3. You're right, we don't need 60...we need leadership, though.

[FrenchieCat]

5. One would need a media that allows the progressive viewpoint

to get a fair hearing, and at least 60 Senators who would vote
for Cloture on such legislation reflecting that progressive viewpoint...
because the Republicans, not you....get to decide when a cloture vote is required.

[FrenchieCat]

4. Well, you've only really got 48 at best.

or please name a legislation that would have passed termed "truly progressive",
and who would have voted for it. Thank you.

[elana i am]

22. exactly.

i seem to be one of the few progressives around here who sees the big picture.

no i'm not an obama "fan". no i'm not happy with the healthcare or the any of the other big-business-friendly legislation that the dems have achieved.

but i'm not stupid. as much as the repugs are being obstructionist scum, they are not obama's biggest problem. it's the blue dogs in our own party. you can argue the point all you want about obama not being forceful enough. but he doesn't have the position of greatest power here and neither do the repugs.

a small minority of dem blue dogs plus lieberschmuck have the administration by the balls. forget the repugs. they help the blue dogs by being lock-step opposition, and eliminating any chance of the admin having some leverage against the blue dogs, but they aren't ultimately the biggest obstacle.

have people not been paying attention? do you know why obama endorsed blanche lincoln instead of bill halter? three guesses and the first two don't count.

like it or not obama has to play ball with the blue dogs and their corporatist masters. that's just the facts of the matter. and progressive legislation is not going to have a chance for a a couple more elections at least, until the blue dogs can be weeded out.

besides, we've got bigger problems at the moment. what good is having elected progressives if we lose the majority?

[elana i am]

19. didn't have 51 either.

[RUMMYisFROSTED]

31. Touche.

[treestar]

23. Yes, we do

Quit with that fantasy.

[northoftheborder]

2. Yes, this needs to be pointed out over and over.....

The Democrats have hardly been "in charge" of anything since the Repubs have forced a 60 count vote through obstruction; only the majority to be able to elect the Speaker, and hold committee chair assignments.

[truedelphi]

6. You and others here keep omitting the most heinous aspect of the last

twenty one months - CONGRESS DOES NOT NEED SIXTY VOTES.

Congress only needs a simply majority, but our Congressional LEADERS decided to handle cloture in such a way that sixty votes became a requirement.

And then there was this little thing of the Democrats in office being terrified of a filibuster.

Also, it should be pointed out that there are always five or six Republicans who are more liberal than their counterparts, to offset the nasty people that Obama's good buddy Rahm set up to be elected in as Democratic leaders. In many elections, Rahm went to the locale where a progressive was trying to run, and threw the primary over to the more "Centrist" candidate. (Circa 2003 to 2007)

If none of this convinces you that the Two Parties are in collusion, please start reading Matt Taibbi's excellent articles in the Rolling Stone.

I don't know about you, but when I read in print that our fine "Democratic Senate Majority leader Harry Reid ignored the Democrats in office attempting to put teeth into the Financial Reform Act and instead spent his time cultivating the interest of Republicans who wanted to water down the bill so that Reid could indeed get the bill watered down, well, words fail me...

[FrenchieCat]

7. LOL!

You say....."it should be pointed out that there are always five or six Republicans who are more liberal than their counterparts"

Who would those be, and how would they vote on "True" progressive legislation???? :rofl:

[frazzled]

34. You are really confused

This thread is about the Senate, and 60 votes. You blame Rahm Emmanuel for the situation in which we have fewer progressives. Only, doh. Rahm Emmanuel had zero to do with recruiting or electing Senate candidates. He was chair o the DCCC, not the DSCC. The House (with all of Rahm's people in it), has reliably voted progressive on almost every issue these past 20 months (the Bart Stupak debacle aside). It's the Senate that has mucked everything up.

When you rely on charlatans like Matt Taibbi for your information, you can get really confused.

[Ganja Ninja]

8. Aren't you really making the case that liberals can't trust the Dem's to deliver?

Isn't that why so many people here are pissed off at the party and not just Obama?

[sandnsea]

10. So putting the Republicans back in is an answer?

No the case is not that Dems can't deliver. It's that nobody EVER said they were going to deliver a Green/Socialist agenda, most specifically no Democrat ever said that. And if you expected it, then you only need to look at who is actually in the Democratic Senate to get an answer as to why there isn't a Green/Socialist agenda passed. And yes, single payer health care and getting out of Afghanistan right now and letting the detainees out of Gitmo - would be a Green/Socialist agenda.

[Ganja Ninja]

13. Keep going you're really winning me over.

Lets see, they don't support what I support and they never will. And you would blame me if I didn't show up on election day. It seems you guys have everything figured out.

[sandnsea]

26. Hey, vote Nader again. How'd that work out for ya? n/t

[truedelphi]

16. Not for people who think out of the Box.

After all both parties are beholden to the Big Corporate Interests.

So eventually if people wise up, they will decide that there needs to be a different style of party.

We either take back our two parties, and convert them to what they were historically, or we start working on a third party. (When one listens to Howard Zinn, one finds out that even the Republican Party took out ads in Chicago papers to extoll the virtues of those striking in the streets in the 1890's. However, currently neither party cares about workers any more - they both liked NAFTA and the 1999 Banking "Reform" Act -- two measures that handed the Big Financial people the biggest transfer of wealth in history.)

After all, being loyal to those who use us like Toilet Paper for their Corporate Owned Behinds is not the answer for working or unemployed people.

[sandnsea]

27. I've been suggesting a strong Green Party since 2004

Clearly there either aren't enough on the far left, or they just don't know how to organize. So you can bloviate all you want about the corporatocracy and global slavery but the only people who are going to be able to slow it down, AT ALL, are Democrats because Greens can't organize their way out of a shoebox. Now that's just reality. Nobody wishes it were different more than I do, but it's not. So you just keep throwing anchors at the people who are trying to save your sorry ass and see what you're whining about in December.

Kind of like the people who threw anchors at the stimulus, and then turn around and whine when unemployment is cut, food stamps are cut, schools are cut, jobs programs are cut.... Fucking Idiots.

[truedelphi]

33. anI point out that there ws only one small (Comapratively)

Stimulus for the real people.

Some seven hundred billion, and much of that tax breaks. Needed by us in the middle class, but not much good for poorer people. The rest of the fourteen trillion in Bailouts went to the Big Monied Crowd, who are using it to help each other accomplish super mergers, and to buy nature preserves in Patagonia. (Like Goldman Sachs did.)

And yet, somehow government officials in Ireland have gotten it figured out. When their government bought up the toxic assets to save their financial system, the government wisely put in covenants such that homeowners found that their below water mortgages had been saved. So the foreclosure rate there is far below that of people here.

[FrenchieCat]

12. No. I'm making the case that if you want progressive policies to pass and be implemented,

you have to elect, first and foremost Democrats,
but as importantly, you have to elect progressive Democrats
during the primaries. If you can't do that, then screaming
at the President is not gonna get it.....as a progressive government
can only be gotten from the people......not from the President.

[Ganja Ninja]

14. Nobody's screaming at the President.

And your post only proves that at least 15 of the Dem's aren't trustworthy.

[FrenchieCat]

15. Nobody is screaming at the President?

Sorry, but mostly everyone has been screaming at the President.

Perhaps in the last 2 weeks, some of it has died down,
but please....between the teabaggers, the media and "disappointed" progressives,
there were more believing that the Prez should have gotten it all done by now,
than not.

[truedelphi]

20. Well some of us used to be screaming at the President.

After we tried to call, email and fax, usually in vain. Now since it's obvious he doesn't care, we gave up.

[FrenchieCat]

21. I remember when the screaming began......

January 2009.

[Name removed]

28. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[truedelphi]

32. Yep. When it became obvious due to the appointment of

Rat Bastard Rahm, and Rat bastard Geithner that We the People had been scammed again.

[FrenchieCat]

35. Calling people names doesn't make you right,

it only make you appear juvenile.

[truedelphi]

37. I didn't call you a name.

And I won't call you a name now.

But Rahm is the architect of the legal wording of NAFTA, wording he was paid by the Clinton Administration to come up with. Much of our joblessness comes about on account of NAFTA.

Somehow, Obama, who campaigned on getting RID of NAFTA, instead made Rahm, the legal architect of NAFTA, the Chief of Staff. So much for "Change."

So if I want to say that I feel he is a rat bastard, I think I have a lot of reasons to. In my County, I have at least 6,300 reasons. (And my county is quite small, only 79,000 people here. But 18% of all households are on Food Stamps.)

And Geithner is not only a Rat Bastard, he should be impeached. I have caught him in three separate lies to Congress, and a single lie is enough for impeachment.

Geithner is also the Rat Bastard that sank the Japanese economy - he was sent over to the Far East to help Japan, and instead gave their economy such a kick in the pants that it is still in the toilet, many years later.

[uponit7771]

36. Been under a rock for while no?

[treestar]

25. Deliver what?

Politicians can only support what they want to support and sometimes have to give to make deals. There are always other forces. That's the way it is supposed to be.

Presidential tyranny, party tyranny, neither exist.

[sandnsea]

9. Oh gosh... Dorgan, Conrad, McCaskill, Bennet, Reid, Begich...

There's a whole slew of them that can't be counted on to vote a Democratic agenda, let alone "progressive".

Then there's the rest of them who can be counted on for 80% of the platform, and then totally waffle when the issue isn't popular locally, like logging in my state.

DUers need to take their mule blinders off.

[FrenchieCat]

11. Yes, you are correct in naming these additional Senators......

who tend to have votes all over the place, but never reliably progressive.

[Ter]

17. It's always been like that with either party

In recent years, what's the most Senators the GOP has had? 56, 57? Yet there were not more than 50 pro-life GOP votes. At least 10 supported Roe vs. Wade.

Getting an outright progressive, filibuster proof 60 seat majority may be impossible.

[FrenchieCat]

18. Here's a thread for additional insight.......

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=433x467790

Need so help there in listing senators!

Thanks! :hi:

[treestar]

24. No, didn't even at its height it included Lieberman?

And he's not a real Democrat any more.

[Major Hogwash]

29. Recommended and kicked

Because of course we could never count on just ONE fucking Republican to do the right thing at all, ever!!!

This isn't supposed to be a country ruled by just one party, but the Republicans have blocked anything and everything we tried to do to fix the problems those bastards created in the first place.

Even if we start complaining about the 6 or 8 or 10 Blue Dawg Democrats, we would still have to deal with the 40 Goose-stepping Goons of the GOP that march in lockstep and vote as a bloc.

Never in our lives have we ever seen anything like this.
And I am convinced, totally convinced at this point, that it is more about racism than it is about any fine points concerning politics.

They -- the Republitards -- even voted against extending the unemployment benefits to Americans out of work.
How in the fuck is that going to help them get reelected???

They don't want Obama to solve any of these problems, because then they know that he will have a chance to get reelected in 2012.

That's why I never complained about Rahm Emmanuel.
Rahm's little diatribes about whining Democrats didn't mean anything in the long run.
And when examined under a microscope, they didn't mean anything in the short run, either.

We got healthcare.
It aint' great.
But, it's a start.

I will never vote for a Republican as long as I live.
Not ever.
Never.

[zbdent]

30. The Senate hasn't had 60 Democrats in decades.

You had 57 Democrats, two "independents" who "caucus with the Dems" (and when did Lieberman caucus with the Dems???), 40 Republicans, and one Bush v Gore going on as long as they could.

[ncteechur]

38. In 1964, the Senate had 66 democrats and still couldn't pass Civil Rights legislation without a

load of northern republican support because the dixiecrats voted against it.

The senate is one fucked up place.