Guest Post

Here's another guest posting from Lee T., the PolySci professor.  I will be forever indebted to some of my professors in college that really opened my eyes to history, science, and the world around me.   It's too easy to live in the bubble of ignorance.

Democracy in the House
by Lee T.

I do not often read the editorials for the N.Y. Times as I tend to be a pretty independent thinker. However, I found this interesting as I know most Americans, even those so-called highly educated Americans, simply do not know nor they understand the workings of Congress "within" Congress.


The Congress means the House and the Senate. Each chamber sets it own operational rules in accordance with Constitutional Authority. In other words, they can do whatever they dam please, as long as the majority votes for it. In the House, not as much in the Senate, the Majority runs the show. Mr. Boehner, the Speaker, has chosen to take the approach that unless a majority of his caucus (Republican Members) vote to support a specific bill, he will not bring it up for a vote. in other words, if 99 Republicans oppose a bill and 98 support it and and all 150 Democrats support it, he will not bring it up for a vote because his caucus did not support it although over 70% of the House would support the bill. That's why we were not able to reach a deal in July, 2011 when Mr. Boehner and Mr. Obama reached a hand shake deal but the Majority within the Majority vetoed the deal Mr. Boehner had reached with the President. Therefore, it was never voted on by the House. The result was that the Republicans got a much worse deal two weeks ago, had they voted on the original deal. But Boehner was trying to protect his Speakership from his Tea Party Wing.

While the Senate also has its strange rules, the minority (Republicans) are protected by the filibuster rule, which has been in effect since 1806 in one form or another. The Senate also has one rule which is totally stupid, listen up, any ONE member of the 100 members in the Senate can hold up "ANY" nomination for any presidential appointment for any reason he/she deems appropriate. So one Senator can kill one person's career elected by a state with no people like Montana, North Dakota, Wyoming, Idaho, S. Dakota, etc. but he can kill a nomination became he wants to. Can you believe that? It true.

So we're into the new term for Mr. Obama and he already forced the issue on the House with the Fiscal Cliff and as I expected, he won. Mr. Boehner has lost a lot of political power by giving in to the Tea Party in the Previous term. Now the Senate is going at it with all kinds of new nominations for high Secretarial positions, let's he how Mr. McConnell handles it.

After the 2008 election, Sen. Minority Leader Mitch McConnell proclaimed that his number one job in the Senate was to make Mr. Obama a one term President. Well, not only did he not do his Number One job, but he also lost two Senators in his caucus. But he's a lot smarter than Speaker Boehner, Mr. McConnell knows when to say yes, and he says it fast before he becomes a public embarrassment.

Read the linked article here and see what you think.
Here is a simple question in Poli-Sci 101. What do you call the above which I just described?

Plutocracy, Oligarchy or both?