20 January 2010

Republican Party Gains One Seat in U.S. Senate

Massachusetts election could affect health care, other Obama initiatives

 

Republican Scott Brown, at lectern surrounded by supporters, celebrates his election to the U.S. Senate.

Republican Scott Brown, at lectern surrounded by supporters, celebrates his election to the U.S. Senate.

Washington — The seat in the U.S. Senate held for 46 years by the late Senator Edward M. Kennedy will now pass into Republican Party hands as the result of a January 19 special election.

Massachusetts voters selected Republican Scott Brown to fulfill the remaining years of Kennedy’s term, through 2012. Brown defeated the Democratic candidate, Massachusetts Attorney General Martha Coakley, in a race that many political pundits see as a referendum on President Obama’s push for health care reform.

Brown’s swearing in as a U.S. senator will deprive Democrats of the hard-won, 60-vote majority they achieved in the 111th Congress when Democrat Al Franken was declared the winner of a Minnesota Senate race in June 2009, nearly eight months after ballots were cast in the general election.

Holding 60 seats is important because Senate rules require 60 votes to end a filibuster — a parliamentary procedure that allows senators to continue a debate indefinitely and block or delay a vote on a measure or nomination. In 2008, prominent Democrats campaigning in U.S. Senate races across the country reminded voters of their party’s goal to reach the “magic number 60.”

Filibusters have been employed effectively throughout U.S. history. It was a tactic frequently used by Southern senators seeking to block civil rights legislation in the 1960s. More recently, filibusters were used a record number of times in the 110th Congress, effectively preventing the Senate from holding votes on certain issues.

The term filibuster, coined from the Dutch word for pirate, came into use in the 1850s. But the practice of filibustering to keep the legislative body from voting on a bill predates this term. In 1917, senators adopted a rule allowing debate to end with a two-thirds majority vote. This device, called “cloture,” can halt filibusters, but it was used rarely because it was so difficult to gain the support of that many senators. In 1975, the Senate reduced the number of votes needed for cloture to three-fifths (60).

Brown’s election is not a death knell for Obama’s legislative agenda, any more than the 60-vote Democratic majority in the Senate was a guarantee that all his initiatives would be passed by Congress. Even with 60 senators, a political party cannot always prevent filibusters, and filibusters always can be broken when enough senators wish to vote on a particular measure. Like any group of American legislators, U.S. senators hold a wide range of political views, and rarely vote as a block on any issue, regardless of party affiliation.