In political gamble, Reid holds Senate votes he knows he'll lose - Washington Post

On Wednesday afternoon, the most powerful man in the U.S. Senate did something that sounds odd: He set himself up to lose an important vote.

Then he did it again, on another key issue.

And Thursday he'll do it two more times.

Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) planned votes where his favored bills were expected to fail. For Reid, failure is actually the point. He wants to put Republicans on record as blocking all four.

On Wednesday, he took up seniors' benefits and collective- bargaining rights for police and firefighters' unions, and on Thursday he will call votes on an immigration bill that would assist people who were brought to the United States illegally as children, and legislation that would provide health-care benefits for responders to the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

These "test votes" are a sign of the sclerotic state of Congress, clogged by filibuster threats. Usually, it is the people out of power who resort to grand, futile gestures.

Now - in a political gamble - it's the guys in charge.

"Just because the party of 'Just say no' has been blocking all these initiatives, it doesn't mean we're not going to try," said Jim Manley, a spokesman for Reid. "At some point, you've got to take a stand, and let the chips fall where they may."

Senate Democrats, who hold a majority in the chamber, held their last "test vote" on Saturday - two, actually. The first proposal called for an end to tax cuts, passed under President George W. Bush, on income greater than $250,000 for a family.

Democrats needed 60 senators to agree. They got just 53.

Then Democratic leaders staged a vote to let the tax cuts expire only for income of more than $1 million per year for a family. That failed, too.

In theory, these votes were supposed to demonstrate that Republicans were favoring the rich at the expense of the middle class.

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'World News' Political Insights: President Obama Faces Democratic Angst - ABC News

In a lame-duck session that will be anything but lame, the ties that bind the Democratic Party will be tested anew.

The week's big focus will be on the bipartisan summit to be held Tuesday at the White House -- a key indicator of how the president plans to govern under the new reality imposed by voters in the midterm elections.

But it's President Obama's relationship with his own party in its waning weeks of total control of Washington that still will determine a range of policy outcomes. Moves to the right in the coming weeks will be viewed with skepticism on the left, as Democrats still must guard against a revolt inside their ranks in their final weeks in control of the House.

Before a new House majority takes power, Congress convenes for a final burst of legislating with a crowded agenda that includes expiring tax cuts and unemployment benefits; a push to repeal the military's "don't ask, don't tell" policy; and attempted ratification of a key nuclear weapons treaty with Russia.

In the middle lands the report of the president's deficit commission, the recommendations of which appear likely to provide a stark choice for a president who's seeking new footing.

The co-chairmen's initial recommendations were denounced by those on both sides of the aisle. Particular vitriol emanated by leading Democrats, with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi pronouncing the draft proposal "simply unacceptable."

The president has stayed mostly mum so far on the commission report. While he'll come under pressure to embrace its broad principles, Democrats will balk if he's seen as backing cuts to favored programs such as Social Security.

"Simply unacceptable" is also an apt summation of many leading Democrats' stance toward the likeliest emerging compromises on the expiring Bush tax cuts.

Top House Democrats continue to insist that the tax cuts for upper-income earners be allowed to expire. Republicans and some moderate Democrats want all the tax cuts extended; Obama has vowed repeatedly to allow them to lapse for couples making more than $250,000 a year.

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Can a 'liberal gene' determine political stance? Researchers say it's so - Los Angeles Times

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Can a 'liberal gene' determine political stance? Researchers say it's so Share By Mary Forgione, For the Los Angeles Times October 28, 2010|1:51 p.m.

E-mail Print Text Size la-heb-liberal-gene-20101028 Now Fox political pundit Bill O’Reilly will have a new factor to consider in vetting his guests. Researchers say they have found a "liberal gene" that ties political ideology to something other than social factors.

The study published Thursday in the Journal of Politics comes from UC San Diego and Harvard University researchers who overlaid the presence of a dopamine receptor gene called DRD4 with the social networks of 2,000 people to examine the potential link.

Here's how a UC San Diego statement explains the study:

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"[Researchers] reported that 'it is the crucial interaction of two factors – the genetic predisposition and the environmental condition of having many friends in adolescence – that is associated with being more liberal.' The research team also showed that this held true independent of ethnicity, culture, sex or age." Click here to read the full story.

News media were quick to seize on the findings. "Don’t hold liberals responsible for their opinion – they can’t help themselves," a Fox news story begins. Hmmm, "fair and balanced" meets "truthiness."

So if political disposition can be part nurture and part nature, how does that account for red states and blue states? And are independents kind of genetics-lite?

Stay tuned. Lead researcher James H. Fowler, professor of political science and medical genetics at UC San Diego, says in the university's statement: "It is our hope that more scholars will begin to explore the potential interaction of biology and environment. ...The way forward is to look for replication in different populations and age groups." Copyright © 2010, Los Angeles Times

E-mail Print Digg Twitter Facebook Read This Later   Comments (1)Add / View comments | Discussion FAQ The Old Soul at 7:07 PM October 28, 2010

Sure...Liberalism can be determined by genetics...if that IS true. Then so can conservatism, and I'll happily be offensive here and say. Let's go with the side of the genetic coin that follows more than blind and stubborn values that are as obsolete as they are mindless. Saying there is a 'liberal gene' implies on some level that it's abnormal. What the hell? I don't know what they mean by 'liberal' that they've found a gene for it. Being pro choice and pro gay marriage and anti big business and for cheaper healthcare?

MAYBE just maybe, it's a gene for thinking for yourself. Nobody seems to question the conservative stance. As an example...what about the Teaparty?

I want to know what gene governs such an illogical and idiotic principal of electing officials who know absolutely nothing about politics and are divorced from reality. The inability to rationalize and face the reality of the world I feel is a far more scary genetic defect than 'liberalism'.

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