From “Haggis” to “Scrapple”–It’s Still Offal

With Arlen Specter coming over from the other side, I’m gonna try calling him "Scrapple" for a while, instead of "Scottish Haggis." It’s still offal–but it’s our offal now.

Like pretty much every Democrat outside of the incumbency protection racket in DC–particularly those who have long friendships with Haggis Scrapple–I’m utterly skeptical that Scrapple’s switch to the Democratic Party is going to work out all that well for us. He has already promised not to vote for EFCA. He really is unreliable–in the sense that his votes rarely match his stated values. And I’m dubious that those who encouraged this flip really thought through what it means for legislating effectively.

On that point, you really must read Kagro’s two posts on what’s going to happen organizationally:

 There are a million aspects of that worth examining. But here’s one for process nuts. Check out the Senate Judiciary Committee Rules:

IV. BRINGING A MATTER TO A VOTE

The Chairman shall entertain a non-debatable motion to bring a matter before the Committee to a vote. If there is objection to bring the matter to a vote without further debate, a roll call vote of the Committee shall be taken, and debate shall be terminated if the motion to bring the matter to a vote without further debate passes with ten votes in the affirmative, one of which must be cast by the minority.

In other words, Scrapple’s flip just created a ginormous bottleneck right in the middle of the Judiciary Committee, behind which every judge, every new reform of the judicial system, and Obama’s lingering appointments to DOJ may be stuck.

Though Kagro has a short-term solution.

Memo to GOP: Seat Franken or we’ll keep Specter’s committee seats

That’s the bottom line.

Seat Al Franken and give him his committee assignments now, or we’ll block a new organizing resolution that would let you reassign Specter’s previously Republican committee seats to one of your own.

Until a new organizing resolution is adopted, Specter’s committee seats (Appropriations, Judiciary, Veterans’ Affairs, Environment & Public Works, Special Aging) are locked in. He’ll be caucusing and (sometimes, anyway) voting as a Democrat, but will be occupying Republican seats.

Democrats should demand Republican agreement to seat Franken and give him his committee assignments now, or they’ll just block a new organizing resolution until he arrives, and change it as they see fit later on. After all, with 60 Democrats (once Franken is finally seated), they can give themselves any ratios they want, whether they opt to remain true to the 60/40 split in the Senate or not, since there won’t be enough votes to filibuster an unfair organizing resolution.

Of course, the chances of Harry Reid playing that kind of hardball are … not good. 

Though this brings me to my second glimmer of hope with the Scrapple flip.  Harry Reid no longer has his favorite excuse about needing a filibuster-proof majority to get things done. Ben Nelson can no longer hide his votes to sink Democratic priorities behind narrow margins. In an ideal world, this would make it a lot harder for Harry Reid not to enforce party discipline on priority items. From this point foward, every legislative failure is Harry Reid’s legislative failure.

And, as AL says, the promise of a Democratic primary (albeit one the incumbency protection racket has implied they’ll back Scrapple in) will push Scrapple to the left, rather than the scary right the way he has been going. 

Finally, Scrapple should read these warnings from a party-switcher we gladly welcomed, John Cole:

I’m still waiting on my Soros check and forty virgins, so don’t get too excited, Arlen. Oh, and by the way, wingnuts- how is that Republican purity treating you? Is the GOP small enough to drown in a bathtub yet? Going to love hearing how a loyal foot soldier for three decades in the GOP wasn’t “conservative enough.”

Like Scrapple’s constituent Atrios, I take some solace in the news that "Republicans in the Senate are visibly in agony right now."