I just hammered this out. Screw off, Grammer-Nazi's.
I’m tired of talking heads that can’t
do “maths” talking about this imaginary 2 year filibuster proof majority that
the Democrats held in the U.S. Senate. For those that can A) do math, or B) remember anything in the past, further than a few years, we
know this to be a lie. If you cannot
remember that far back, let me do the “maths”. Also, in this I'll be looking at physical days that certain people held office, not based on that person being able to vote. I'll explain as I go.
After
the swearing in of Senators post 2008 elections, the Democrat/Republican vote
was 58/41. (That 58 number includes the
two independents that caucused along with the Democrats.) The reason those two numbers don’t add up to
100 will come in just a moment..
On April 28, 2009, Arlen Spector (R)
pissed off the Republicans by switching sides to the Democratic party. He would remain a Democrat until his
death. So now, active voting Senators
went to Democrats 59/Republicans 40.
The 60th seat for the
Democrats would not come until July 7th, 2009, when after a long
and bitter recount, Al Franken (D) was seated in the Senate. He had been tied up in a recount fight with
Norm Coleman (R). (The fight did have Al
Franken loosing until the end of the re-count, so I’ll take that fight that Mr.
Coleman thought he legitimately won, and not a stalling tactics to restrain the
Democrats, as others have said.) This is why I said before, that the numbers wouldn't add up to 100. Now they do. All is right with the universe.
So now the seats in the Senate are
60/40, with the Democrats having a super majority. This was July 7th, 2009.
On August 8th, 2009, Ted
Kennedy (D) died. He had been bedridden and
not able to vote for about 4 months before this due to brain cancer, but if we
are looking at seats held, and not ability to physically cast a vote, then that’s
where it stood. In fact his health
issues really began to escalate during Barack Obama’s inaugural luncheon, when
Kennedy collapsed with a seizure, but again, we’re only looking at seats held,
not the ability of the Senator to cast a ballot.
From Al Franken being sworn in til the
death of Ted Kennedy – 32 days.
Paul Kirk (D) was put into place as
an intern Senator for the state of Mass., until a special election could be
held. He was sworn in on September 24th,
2009. He held that position until the
special election ended, and Scott Brown (R) was sworn in on Jan 19th,
2010. Democrats 59 / Republicans 41. (Am
I the only one that remembers him being called “The 41st Senator??)
From Paul Kirk being sworn in til
Scott Brown’s seating – 117 days.
117 days + 32 days = 149 days. Of course nothing moves quickly in
Washington, so you could easily shave a few days off those to give new Senators
time to find paperclips, and move to D.C., but again as I’ve said before, we’re
talking about days where a majority was held, not the Senator’s ability to vote
in those positions. 149days converts to
5 months (-1 day).
Democrats held a “Super Majority” in
the 111th Congress for a period of 5 months (149 days). There are 24 months in a congressional term,
so when people say President Obama held a Super Majority, they are officially
off by 19 out of 24 months, or 79%.
Oddly enough, the idea that “Obama
held a Super Majority for 2 years and could have done anything, but didn’t” is touted
as some kind of flaw. If either the
Democrats or Republicans held super majorities in the White House, Senate and
Congress, and just rammed everything they wanted up the butt of the opposing
party, then shame on them! As if
President Obama’s restraint in not sending dozens of bills to his leaders in
the House and Senate daily and signing them faster than rounds are fired in a Kalashnikov,
is some weakness. Are they telling us that if they took that
kind of power, that the minority of the country had better put on flak jackets?
Food for thought.
