Democrats At A Disadvantage Because Republicans Don't Care if Government Works

Democrats are at a disadvantage when dealing with conservative Republicans. The disadvantage stems from the fact that most Democrats believe in government and want to make it work. Many conservative Republicans, however, don't believe in government and really don't care if it works, unless, of course, its working benefits them.

One way this leads to problems for Democrats is seen in the recent vote regarding members to the Federal Elections Commission. The Republicans have nominated a Republican hack who has specialized in trying to deprive minorities of their right to vote in American elections. His name is Hans von Spakovsky and he is a real piece of work. Here is a run down on his infamous career to date.

So when his name and three other names came to the Senate Committee that had to vote to send the nominations to the Senate floor, Committee Chair Diane Feinstein was going to demand individual votes on each nominee so that she could block Hans's nomination. Only it didn't happen that way. Why? Because a Democratic Senator, Ben Nelson of Nebraska informed Feinstein that he would vote to confirm Hans and send his name to the Senate.

So the compromise that was reached was that three of the names were sent to the Senate floor with recommendations for confirmation while Hans name was sent to the Senate floor with no recommendation. Immediately after that happened the GOP Minority Leader told the media that the Republicans would resist a separate vote on each nominee by the full Senate. Instead he is demanding that all four nominations be considered in one vote.

Now here is where Democrats' tendencies work against them. Republicans don't care if the FEC doesn't have a full commission or can't do anything. Democrats do, and so, our guess is that they will cave in to the GOP pressure. What Washington Democrats have to learn is that the government doing nothing is preferable to it doing what Republicans want.