Reid has his 60, but probably not a legislative lock

By Lisa Mascaro (contact)

Sunday, July 5, 2009 | 2 a.m.

Harry Reid

Washington — With Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, swagger is a varied art.

Sometimes it comes clumsily, as in his proclamation two years ago that the Iraq war was “lost.”

Other moments it emerges stealthily. The slight smirk when he knows he has his opponent beat.

And every once in a while, it comes out Searchlight style, right there in the middle of nowhere, when you least expect it — as happened in the epilogue of his autobiography. He wrote that the Senate majority after the 2008 election had swelled to 59.

Really?

Last check of the Senate rolls when the book came out in May showed 58 Democratic senators. This was before the Minnesota recount between Al Franken and Norm Coleman was decided, before Pennsylvania Sen. Arlen Specter switched parties to join the Democrats.

For a leader who spent years as the party whip, proud of his ability to count votes, that was not an oversight.

That was confidence, planted as firmly as gold in the desert.

Now it turns out, that assuredness was an understatement.

With Franken declared the winner in the Minnesota race, Reid returns to work Monday with 60 senators in his Democratic caucus, a filibuster-proof majority unseen since the Carter administration.

Sixty holds magic powers under Senate rules, because it takes 60 votes to end debate and move forward on a bill. When proponents lack 60 votes, opponents can indefinitely stall legislation.

In these days of hyper-partisanship, it can take 60 votes on even the most routine items.

But swagger and optimism are two decidedly different beasts.

Reid is tamping down expectations. His 60 votes, he reasoned, are on paper only. His caucus is diverse. Two senators, Edward Kennedy of Massachusetts and Robert Byrd of West Virginia, have illnesses that often keep them away from floor votes.

This is the summer of health care reform, a Supreme Court confirmation, a landmark climate change bill. Big items are unfolding in a history-making dash. This is what the country voted for in President Barack Obama. This is what sent seven (now eight) new Democratic senators to Washington — 14 total in the past two elections, since Reid became party leader.

As the founder of the progressive Web site Daily Kos put it last week, “We’re a little cynical hearing Harry Reid use that 60-vote crutch as an excuse for not getting things done.”

Conditions for legislative success are better now than the last time Democrats had a filibuster-proof margin, in 1978. Then they were a party splintered by Southern Democrats and facing a mounting Republican opposition.

But Julian Zelizer, a professor of history and public affairs at Princeton, reminds, “The conditions are better, not perfect.”

Republican opposition to the Obama agenda has been as disciplined as ever. No Republicans voted for the economic recovery bill in the House; eight voted for the climate change bill.

Drawing three Republican senators across party lines to support the economic recovery package is not bipartisanship. (Especially given that the trip included Specter, now a Democrat.)

Unless Reid holds Democrats as rigidly unified, he needs Republican support. “The fact is, a few votes on the Democratic side can cause problems,” Zelizer said.

Reid foreshadowed a day like this.

“We cannot and must not govern in a way that merely demonstrates to the world that we can behave just as arrogantly as the Republicans did when they held the majority in Congress,” he wrote in the epilogue to his book.

Then came the swagger.

“I think I am an expert on getting things passed,” Reid told the Sun. “And before anyone gets too high and mighty about principles, they should understand that principles are in the eye of the beholder.”

That will infuriate some. But it may be what’s needed to get the Obama agenda passed in the Senate.