Stacking The Deck

First they wooed Arlen Specter over to their side, then they screwed Norm Coleman in Minnesota. They wanted that 60-seat filibuster-proof majority in the U.S. Senate, did the Democrats, and they would get it by hook or by crook. Then Robert Byrd fell ill, becoming a liability due to his chronic absence from debates and votes, and Ted Kennedy passed away, effectively pushing them back to 58 votes.

Now the Obama White House is meddling in states affairs by lobbying the Massachusetts legislature to change their law regarding a vacated U.S. Senate seat. Currently, the law states that there must be a special election for the seat no sooner than 145 days and no later than 160 days after a vacancy occurs, and prohibits an interim appointment by the governor. No matter, for Democrats, laws were made to be either changed or broken. After all, they've done it before, in the same state.

Prior to 2004, Massachusetts law allowed for the interim appointment of a vacated senate seat by the governor. The only problem at the time was that long-sitting senator John Kerry was making a run for the White House and, if victorious, would have left his Democratic seat open for the governor to replace him. And since the governor at the time was Mitt Romney, a (gasp!) Republican, the Democrats moved swiftly to change the law to prevent that from happening.

With Obama desperate to inflict his health care monstrosity upon an unwilling nation, the senate leadership is poised to exercise the "nuclear option", changing the rules to require a simple majority for passage of a bill instead of the requisite two-thirds. In effect, they would pass it without Republicans even participating, but they know they risk a severe backlash from the people if they do that.

Since they clearly believe that the American people are either stupid or, at the least, have short memories, they are trying to choose the easier rule to change and foist on the people an allegedly rational explanation as to why it must be done. It should be obvious to everyone that all they are trying to do is stack the deck from which they will then deal from the bottom.

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