Scott Wetzler Quotes

In 2007 the Republicans, who were in the minority, began to use the filibuster to a degree that it had never been used. Within the single year of 2007 Republican’s filibustered 62 times, doubling the highest rate that had occurred before. A small minority of senators were able to block legislation that easily passed the House and was supported by the majority of senators and in some cases supported by the overwhelming majority of the American Public.

Most American politicians and citizens, unlike DeLay, believe that arguing against the opponents’ political philosophy should be done with debate, civil argument, advocacy, speechmaking and writing and not by attacking opponents and confronting them whenever possible. Later, DeLay was convicted and sentenced to jail for money laundering and illegally spending and raising campaign funds. He was also reprimanded by the House Ethics Committee for unethical methods of fund raising for other earlier actions.

This is especially true in the Senate, where there not only is the filibuster available to the minority but there are “holds” where a single senator can anonymously stop certain processes such as conformations of appointments and a number of other arcane techniques allowed by Senate rules.

Dana Ruth Schwartz. The Republicans who had control of the House of Representatives were reaching the end of the fiscal year and had not yet passed a budget so the government would have to shut down in a few days. They had a very strong position if they wanted to blackmail the Democratically controlled Senate and the Democratic President. The majority of the Republicans decided that they wanted to use the Blackmail tactic, so they passed a budget that they knew the Senate and the President would reject and then the Republicans could hold out for their ransom demands. However, when the Republicans met to decide on what they should demand they neither could agree in what or the timing of their tactics. They had launched a major attack without having a clear objective, an exit strategy or even an alternate if they did not succeed.

Actually, the insistence on 60 days had nothing to do with having time of members of Congress to study the treaty and make up their minds. It was intended by the opponents of the treaty to give them time to whip up public opinion so such a degree that it might derail the treaty. But if they said that, and the President said, "No", they would lose. But couched this way, if the President refused, they could say that the President and supporters of the treaty were afraid that the public and the press as well as they would have the time to see the weaknesses and just wanted to "ram" the treaty through. So they either get the time or they create suspicion of the treaty in many minds. Unfortunately, what is good politics is often hypocritical and frequently intellectually dishonest.

Arguing against rules limiting the appearance of conflict of interest:

This apparently is an operational principle in most representative democracies. Attacking the opposition is always easier and more effective than defending your own party’s position. Doing anything else, especially providing a non partisan, rasoned analysis, is the thing most to be avoided.