Word: democratator
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...Senators who rarely vote the same way on anything were doing things the old-fashioned way: putting their silver heads--and their combined 72 years of Senate experience--together in an effort to pull their less seasoned colleagues back from the brink. Virginia Republican John Warner and West Virginia Democrat Robert Byrd had each brought a copy of the Constitution and were poring over Alexander Hamilton's "Federalist No. 66" to see if they could discern precisely what the Founding Fathers meant when they gave the Senate the power to advise the President on whom he appoints. The talks...
...envisioned for it, a place where a minority can have its say and even have a shot at winning a battle here and there? "The whole idea of the Senate is that it's different from the House. The passions of the moment can cool here," says North Dakota Democrat Kent Conrad, one of the Senators who was trying to come up with a deal to avert the vote on the nuclear option. If Republicans can manage to end the filibuster of judicial nominees, Democrats warn, it is only a matter of time before they end the filibuster on other...
...idealized Mr. Smith Goes to Washington imagery that the filibuster invokes, its uses have often been much darker. It was, for instance, one of the major means by which white segregationists blocked civil rights legislation in the 1960s. Republicans note that Democrats had a different view of delaying tactics when they were running the Senate. Democrat Tom Harkin of Iowa has lately been one of the most outspoken defenders of the minority's right to filibuster, but in early 1995, he argued, "There is no reform more important to this country and to this body than slaying the dinosaur called...
...things look now, the bill has a good shot. By the end of last week, 200 members of the House--nearly half--had signed on as co-sponsors to the legislation authored by Delaware Republican Mike Castle and Colorado Democrat Diana DeGette. And the number of supporters is expected to grow when it is put to a vote. Predictions are that as many as 50 Republicans could join Democrats in favor of it. While the legislation presents Republican moderates a rare opportunity for victory on Capitol Hill, it has also attracted the interest and support of some conservatives...
...sufferers of various diseases. Fellow Republican lawmaker Charles Bass of New Hampshire gave her a chapter from Hatch's 2002 memoir Square Peg, in which the Senator explained his own conversion on the stem-cell issue. But the most compelling appeal, Wilson says, has come from a House Democrat--James Langevin of Rhode Island, an abortion foe who is also a quadriplegic as a result of an accidental gunshot wound suffered when he was a teenager. "When Jim Langevin talks to you about this," says Wilson, "he speaks with a certain understanding that the rest of us don't have...