Our beloved Sen. Lindsey Graham, a man I respect, has been making incredible statements this week. Graham claims that if Democrats use the reconciliation process -- what should simply be called a majority vote, not foreign in this great representative democracy of ours -- it would constitute a major change in the way the U.S. Senate has long operated, that it would cripple the minority party and turn the Senate into a carbon copy of the House. According to multiple reporting sources, Graham is simply wrong. Major changes in health care have been accomplished via reconciliation. Welfare reform was also accomplished through that process even though most Republicans and Democrats voted for it. I still don't understand why anyone would say it is wrong to pass something on a majority rule vote. I get why the Founders made it so hard to change the Constitution. That's different. But the super-majority requirement has been abused and misused. That requirement in California is one of the reasons experts cite for that state's dismal fiscal reality. Pro-Confederate flag legislators in Columbia changed the rules to require a super-majority to remove the flag from Statehouse grounds because they know it will be next to impossible to build up that kind of support for the flag's removal, no matter what the majority wants.
Another of Graham's claims also doesn't hold water in this health care debate, though he and others repeat it constantly.
He said the American people have spoken loudly and clearly against health care reform because voters in a special election sent Scott Brown to the U.S. Senate from Massachusetts. He said Brown was sent there to be the 41st vote against reform. Graham is wrong again. According to exit polling data, a majority of Brown voters said they did not want Brown to stop reform but to work with the White House to incorporate more Republican ideas into the legislation, which already happened in the Senate version. Graham's claim make even less sense when we think about "the American people" in total. The American people gave Democrats 59 percent of the U.S. Senate and roughly 60 percent of the House as well as the White House because most of those Democrats -- particularly President Barack Obama -- promised to bring about health care reform. If Graham is to be believed, the voice of the voters in a special election in Massachusetts (Graham's distorted view of those voices, any way) matters more than the majority of Americans who put Democrats in charge. Besides that, I thought he represented us, in South Carolina? Am I now to believe Sen. Graham believes what folks in another state decide is more important than what we need here?
I agreed with Sen. Graham from the outset about the Wyden-Bennett bill. I think that would accomplish everything we need with health care reform. But that proposal went nowhere fast. Now we have a choice between doing nothing -- or much too little -- or moving forward with a flawed but potentially effective piece of legislation. If Sen. Graham was serious about being bipartisan, he would fight to keep in some of the better Republican ideas, try to incorporate more and help the Democrats pass much-needed reform. It's one thing to talk about being bipartisan. It's quite another to actually do it. Sen. Graham knows that better than most, given his impressive bipartisan track record. I wonder why he doesn't have the courage or foresight to step up to the plate this time.
