Senator Tom Coburn (R-Okla.), has demanded that the clerk read a proposed 767-page amendment to the Health Care Reform bill now being considered by the Senate. The reading of bills and amendments is virtually always waived as a waste of time. No one listens, of course, despite Sen. Coburn's disingenuous claim that the marathon reading will bring "a dose of transparency" to the debate.
Coburn's demand is just one more tactic in the Republican effort ("No, no, a thousand times NO -- whatever you propose, we'll say NO!!") to stall any health care reform bill into oblivion. The Republicans estimate it will take until midnight tonight before the amendment has been completely read.
"If we need to lay [sic] down in traffic to stop the bill we would," according to Republican sources.
The Republicans say that polls show that the Senate bill is not popular, and they are thus justified in filibustering the measure to death.
It wasn't long ago that right-wing bumper strips reminded us that "America is a republic, not a democracy," meaning that the public elects legislative and executive branches, and expects them to use their sound judgment in legislating -- as opposed to enacting legislation directly by some form of polling. But that was then, apparently, and this is now.
President Obama and the Democratic majority in Congress were elected barely a year ago on a platform that strongly endorsed health care reform. The issue was discussed repeatedly in the presidential debates. I would think that the only poll that counts was the one taken of the voters in November 2008. Congress and the administration are now attempting to do precisely what they were elected to do.
My advice to the good senator from Oklahoma would be -- were I not such a gentleman -- the same as that once delivered famously to a Democratic senator on the floor of the Senate by Vice President Dick Cheney.
My advice to the Democratic leadership is to keep the Senate in session through Christmas, if necessary, to keep the bill moving. Let Sen. Coburn explain to his family back in Oklahoma that he can't celebrate Christmas with him this year, because he needs to read the phone book into the record on the floor of the Senate.
------------------------------1:45 p.m. -- The senator offering the amendment withdrew it after 139 pages had been read, denouncing the Republican maneuver: "People can have honest disagreements, but in this moment of crisis it is wrong to bring the United States government to a halt."
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