2007 Democrats more successful with legislation than 1995 Republicans

Speaker of the House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi’s “100 Hours” agenda moved speedily through the House but got bogged down in the Senate. In that chamber, a 51-vote majority was not enough to pass bills. A 60-vote margin to defeat a filibuster (a “cloture vote”) became the only way to pass legislation.

So far in just the first session of the 110th Congress, Republicans have required cloture votes against filibusters 62 times. The Republicans are on pace to force 134 cloture votes, more than double the recent historical average and more than double the previous Congress, when the Democrats were in the minority. As the figure below shows, Democrats in the last Congress imposed only 54 filibuster threats and cloture votes. The previous record was 61 cloture votes during the entire 107th Congress of 2001-02. The conservatives of 2007 matched that mark in
only the first session.

The Speaker's Grand Illusion

Nancy Pelosi and Congressional Democrats Need to Get Real About What They've Accomplished

By David S. Broder
Thursday, December 27, 2007; Page A17

After one year of Democratic majorities in the House and Senate, public approval ratings for Congress have sunk below their level when Republicans were still in control . . .
Pelosi claims that "the House has had a remarkable level of achievement over the first year, passing 130 key measures -- with nearly 70 percent passing with significant bipartisan support."

That figure is achieved by setting the bar conveniently low . . .

There is more sleight of hand in her figures. Among the "key measures" counted in the news release are voice votes to protect infants from unsafe cribs and high chairs, and votes to require drain covers in pools and spas. Such wins bulk up the statistics. Many other "victories" credited to the House were later undone by the Senate, including all the restrictions on the deployment of troops in Iraq . . .

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...122601484.html

The "dean" of the Washington Press Corp, the person who represents the D.C. liberal establishment,

David Broder himself, finds the achievements of his own party to be pathetic:

The House Democratic Caucus released this chart today, demonstrating that, in spite of right-wing obstructionism, they have been far more successful in achieving their legislative goals than the GOP was, one year into the "Republican Revolution":



This is all the more remarkable when one takes into account the recent report which indicates that Senate Republicans have broken the all-time obstructionism record:



This blatantly discredits the ridiculous argument that the Democrats in Congress aren't truly interested in ending the War in Iraq or passing meaningful climate change legislation.

Democrats' 2007 Report Card

As Congress flees Washington for the Christmas break, it is time to issue our end of year report card for the new Democratic leadership. We could be generous and give them an “Incomplete” but an “F” would be more accurate. But don’t take our word for it or the word of liberal columnists like E.J. Dionne who bemoan the Democrats’ performance. The facts speak for themselves.

MORE...

It's great that a notoriously right-wing site and a few scattered liberal columnists whose major issues didn't get addressed the way they'd like had opinions on the matter, but I don't see how this addresses the fact that the Democrats have, thus far, been markedly more-successful in getting their agenda passed than the post-Republican Revolution Congress was a year into their tenure.

So who do we believe , a notoriously right-wing site or the caucus of a notoriously left-wing and incompetent Democratic Congress?