Oregon Senator Seeks To Block COICA

jfruhlinger writes "The COICA copyright bill may have sailed through committee, but that doesn't mean it's a done deal. Senator Ron Wyden of Oregon, calling it the 'wrong medicine' to block copyright violations, is threatening to put a hold on the bill, which would block its adoption through at least the end of the year."

Comments

Oregon voters...

[Stregano]

Thank you for a wise decision

Re:Oregon voters...

[adversus]

Welcome ;) In reality this also has to do with our large IT industry here in Oregon, which is expanding as we speak. He doesn't want something as stupid as this draconian law to impede that.

Re:Oregon voters...

[Shining Celebi]

Thank you for a wise decision

I'm glad he's doing this, but this exemplifies how insane Senate rules and traditions are - all it takes is one Senator to stop anything. It was bad enough when Senators had more discretion, but nowadays you have Senators putting holds on everything and filibustering every single bill that comes through the Senate. It's ridiculous.

Re:Oregon voters...

[Amouth]

it takes 41 of 100 senators to make it work.

if 3/5 th's bring it to an end via Cloture
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cloture

so one senator can threaten it.. he needs 40 others behind him to ensure it.

Re:Oregon voters...

[phantomcircuit]

Or they could just wait out the filibuster. I heard a lot about Republicans threatening to filibuster, but they never actually had too because the Democrats apparently don't believe in their own policies enough to spend a night on the senate floor.

Re:Oregon voters...

[Shining Celebi]

it takes 41 of 100 senators to make it work.

It takes one Senator to make a hold work. It takes 41 Senators (in theory) to make a filibuster work. In practice, a single Senator merely has to declare he intends to filibuster a bill in the Senate and the bill is filibustered. The Senate does not actually carry out actual filibusters anymore, where people get up and talk for hours, and the Republican party has voted in virtual lockstep in the past decade or so, ensuring they always have the votes if it comes down to it (Democrats tend to be in constant disarray, cf. Joe Lieberman.)

Graph out the number of filibusters per Congress. They remain low for centuries, and then they suddenly skyrocket in the past decade, with pretty much every year shattering the previous record. The 111th Congress broke the record not even a year in. We've even seen the filibustering of bills everyone agrees on just to delay the introduction of other bills- for example, Republicans filibustered a defense spending bill just to delay debate on the health reform bill. The tactic of minority parties in the modern Senate is simply to delay and stop everything.

That's what I mean by the rules are insane.

Re:Oregon voters...

[Achra]

The Senate does not actually carry out actual filibusters anymore, where people get up and talk for hours,

This is something that I've often remarked on, and I simply don't understand. That is to say, I understand the concept that because any senator is allowed to hold the floor and talk about whatever subject that they want for as long as they want, then there is a concept called a "filibuster". What I _don't_ understand is that Senators are simply allowed to say "I am filibustering", and that's all it takes. It's like an epic rambling useless lecture that can last for eternity, yet is only imaginary? WTF? I think that the Senators should have to actually stand on the floor and give their famous lecture on the intricacies of film photography.. or whatever other useless subject he can come up with. Seems like it would make the Senate floor a lot more interesting place. Perhaps the Senators were so tired of listening to "Senator Professor Johnson's epic physics lecture from hell" that they all voted that he could just shut up and sit down? I'm genuinely curious how we got to this state of affairs and I can't help but think that it is fundamentally flawed.

Re:Oregon voters...

[ffreeloader]

Wyden is a good guy

How long have you lived in Oregon?

I lived in the Portland area when Wyden first ran for the Senate ( I still live in the PNW) and he was a complete idiot as far as I was concerned. He couldn't find countries on a map of the world that were in the national news on a daily basis, and on which he was expressing public opinions as to what the US needed to do there. I mean, how can you form an intelligent opinion of what our national policy should be when you know so little about an area that you don't even know where it is, let alone what the historical conflicts were between the different cultures in that area? To me, he was in so far over his head on the issues that he made himself look completely incompetent, and I've never seen anything from him since that has changed my opinion.

I don't know why he took this stand, but I'd bet his understanding of the issue is very thin, and his stand on IT issues as a whole is self-contradictory. IMO, he most likely got this one right by throwing darts blindfolded at a board or from a coin flip.

BTW, I was a Democrat when I lived in the Portland area.

Re:Oregon voters...

[bmo]

No, the rules for filibustering have changed. The start of the rule changes began in the 60s. Then with more rule changes in the 70s the number of filibusters skyrocketed.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Filibuster_in_the_U.S._Senate

In an effort to make things "easier" they broke the system.

--
BMO

Re:Oregon voters...

[Dhalka226]

Are the rules the same as they've always been, or have they changed?

A little bit of both. Fillibusters have always existed in this country; they're something we brought over from England with us, along with things like sovereign immunity. However, as others have said, they used to be actual filibusters: You stopped the work of the Senate by exploting the rule that you held the floor as long as you held the floor (kept speaking, kept standing, etc), Mr. Smith Goes to Washington-style. Somewhere along the way--and I really don't know where--it became you simply saying "I'd like this bill to require 60 votes instead of 50 please!" and going back home to see how it turns out. It's both the same and different.

But I think the real change is the invention of career politicians and the cementing of political parties. Political parties have pretty much always existed, but more and more they have become enshrined by law. Third parties have difficulty getting into debates or onto ballots and are decried as a "wasted vote," which wasn't always the case. The party in power is in charge of drawing district lines, leading to things like gerrymandering. Most states in the union perpetuate closed primaries, encouraging the polarization of their candidates to appeal to the extreme fringes of their own party and not the moderate climate of the nation as a whole. The nation's political makeup is essentially determined, year after year, by a handful of in-play districts across the nation; almost everybody else is safe, as evidenced by a re-election rate historically of about 90% (true even in the Democrats' "sweeping win" in 2008; I haven't looked at the 2010 Republican results that closely yet. I suspect it will be close be slightly under.) Each party determines its own leadership, right down to the committee assignments -- meaning that even if by some miracle an independent did win, or he turned independent during a term, which is what we see far more often, he still needs to choose which party he wants to caucus with and whether he is one of the most powerful men in the Senate or one of the most impotent depends on one of the two big parties anyway, which you can be sure leads to quite a bit of deal-making behind closed doors.

"Politician" is now a job description rather than a public service. These people are no longer ordinary citizens, still working their fields or selling their wares. Their entire job is politics, the vast majority of their working time spent trying to get re-elected, a little with their staff and with their party scheming on how best to screw the other side, and a handful of time actually voting or conferencing or debating--you know, getting things done.

In that sense, things have changed. But the problem is not that it has become unworkable--the problem is actually that it has become too workable. Republicans consistently walk in lock-step. Democrats usually walk in lock-step. The outcome of bills are usually known well before the votes are taken, and most of it is known before the whip even goes around asking people how they intend to vote. Congress--the Senate in particular--was never meant to work quickly, but with a two-party system and a divided nation we can typically count on any disputed bill already having somewhere around 40-45% votes for and 40-45% votes against, leaving the outcome pending not only a small number of people, but in reality whether or not that small number of people are going to continue walking in lock-step with their party. Nobody has to spend time convincing others to vote for them (unless by that we mean coercing others to vote for them either by threats or by promises to vote their way on something else or include some money for such-and-such), nobody has to spend time convincing others that he's right, and bills succeed more by the combination of which party is in power and which party supports it than actual merit.

I

Re:Oregon voters...

[jwhitener]

Last night's Jon Stewart was talking about this very thing.

The author he was interviewing was basically making the case that our system is broke, but not because of the overreach of government (a case against tea party/conservative anti-regulation).

At one point, Stewart said, (paraphrasing) "So basically you are saying that politics has been so perfected that governance is impossible"....

The spirit of the rules themselves aren't necessarily broken, but they have been around so long, that every single way to abuse them is well documented, and now in use each election cycle. And a party pushes the rule boundaries each year, the other party responds the next year with another stretch of the limits of those rules.

The rules need to change. Historically the senate was supposed to be a place where proposals went to die. A moderating effect on the house, whereby only the most sensible bills would pass. But now we see every single bill dying in a political game, and it is pretty obvious that those rules need to change.

I would rather see the senate rules changed to allow passing bills by a simple majority (thereby letting the electorate truly get whatever populist fad is raging that year) than see all progress stopped. I'm sure we would see horrible sessions, with horrible consequences, but maybe....just maybe, that would wake the average citizen up and we'd start taking voting a little bit more seriously.

Of course, this is all tied in with the average citizen's ability to get to the truth. And I don't have high hopes for that given the amount of money flooding political campaigns (Citizen's United scotus ruling, for example).

In an ideal world, major campaign finance reform would take place first.

Once he gets what he wants

[Anonymous Coward]

from whoever he wants it from, the hold will be gone.

Go extortion!

Re:Once he gets what he wants

[Elbart]

You misspelled democracy.

Re:Once he gets what he wants

[Frosty Piss]

from whoever he wants it from, the hold will be gone.

You're not familiar with Ron Wyden, I think.

Re:He's a Democrat

[noidentity]

"Deploying this statute to combat online copyright infringement seems almost like using a bunker-busting cluster bomb, when what you need is a precision-guided missile."

...targeted at the disgusting perversions made to copyright and patent law since they were created. But such an event is purely imaginary, just like the property the laws supposedly create.

Re:He's a Democrat

[hguorbray]

Why do they hate our Freedom?

Oh yeah -they're the government

-I'm just sayin'

It's awesome

[geekoid]

when the the person you sent emails to about an issue does what you want.

Re:He's a Democrat

[rsborg]

Why do they hate our Freedom?

Oh yeah -they're the government

-I'm just sayin'

You know, it's the rich and corporate elite who hate our freedoms. It's they who are pouring billions into campaign coffers to buy and bribe our so-called-democratically-elected government representatives.

Government will always exist, the question is, who does your congresscritter work for? I always reward good behavior despite party.

Awww.

[peacefinder]

Now, Ron. Don't go making me wish I'd voted for you.

Oh, wait... Actually yes, please do!

The one great thing about the Senate

[Compaqt]

is that any Senator can block any bill anytime for no reason at all.

The Senate depends on unanimous consent to get much of its work done, and a single senator can throw a monkey wrench into the works by withdrawing consent.

There's definitely one senator out there who'll be man enough to block the bill, either a leftie or a hardcore righty.

Thank you

[Amorymeltzer]

Write him to say thank you:

http://wyden.senate.gov/

I'm embarrassed to say that one of my senators is on the passing committee, and I've already written him about that, but let's keep Wyden supported.

Re:He's a Democrat

[ScrewMaster]

It's they who are pouring billions into campaign coffers

Hardly, and that's the crux of the problem: congresspeople work too cheap. It doesn't take billions of dollars to get the laws you want, only a few million, in many cases only a few hundred thousand, or even just a nice house. Maybe, if we raised the price of our elected officials into the billions, bribing them wouldn't be seen as so cost-effective. It would also be much harder for corporations to hide their "contributions" from their stockholders and campaign-finance regulators.

Re:I held my nose and voted for Wyden...

[Earthquake Retrofit]

..even though he fought against health care and, coincidentally, counts health insurance companies among his biggest campaign contributors...

Well, if you mean he fought against the watered down pablum the senate passed, but he was on the record in favor of a single-payer system.