Senate Math: The 60-Seat Mirage

As an observer of politics and the media, I have noticed that one of the dominant storylines in the media over the course of this election cycle is the possibility of the Democrats making it to 60 seats in the Senate. The media have correctly reported that it takes 60 votes to stop a filibuster, thus allowing the Senate to function more like the House in that legislation can pass more easily. The media are reporting that this would be a boon to President-elect Obama, whom Democrats and liberals would love to be given a Senate supermajority because it would mean he could get his agenda passed much more easily.

However, there are several flaws with the media's reporting on the importance of 60 Democrats in the Senate as they relate to Obama's presidency. And a 60-seat supermajority may actually be worse than coming up just short. Given the bipartisan overtures he has expressed since the election (e.g., nominating Robert Gates and Jim Jones to his cabinet), it appears that Obama may be too smart to be distracted with the 60-seat mirage.

To start, even if there were 60 Senate Democrats, they would first be Democrats in name only because the past two elections have seen the Democratic Party become the home of liberals as well as moderates. There are broad ideological differences within the party, so not all 60 of these Democrats would vote with their party on all issues. A gay rights bill supported by Barbara Boxer of California would probably not be supported by Mary Landrieu of Louisiana. Ben Nelson of Nebraska, a conservative Democrat, will likely not vote the same way on cultural issues as Charles Schumer of New York. Virginia's Jim Webb will be more likely to oppose bills restricting firearms than Washington's Patty Murray.

So in order for the Democrats to be able to block a Republican filibuster, they will need to attract enough moderate Republicans to offset the likely defections of members of their own party. Republican moderates like Susan Collins and Olympia Snowe of Maine and Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania will wield a lot of influence in the upcoming congress. These moderate Republicans may be more likely to vote with the Democrats because the Republican Party has become much more conservative over the past two election cycles as a result of the defeats of fellow moderates and the confinement of the party to the culturally conservative South, Plains, and Mountain West. For these moderates to consistently block Democratic legislation would erode their own bipartisan credentials.

Secondly, Obama ran on post-partisanship, unity, and consensus. Relying on bills that sail through Congress with minimal Republican support would seem antithetical to his campaign platform. Obama wisely noted that even though he had won a mandate for change, he stressed the importance of "humility" because about 47% of the voters supported John McCain. This realization would seem to keep Obama in check in terms of how far to the left he should govern. By attracting significant Republican support on key bills, Obama could deliver on his campaign promise and allow both parties to take credit for legislative victories while getting important work done at the same time.

So in this context, Obama is thinking more about 60 votes instead of 60 Democrats. Running too far to the left may play right into the Republicans' hands and cause the Democrats to lose seats in the critical 2010 midterm elections. 2010 matters because congressional districts will be redrawn based on the latest census, so if the Democrats govern intelligently, they could cement their grip on power for years to come.

But just as 60 seats may be a trap for Democrats, 41 seats may also be a trap for Republicans. Georgia Republican Saxby Chambliss won his reelection bid yesterday. One of the central arguments of his campaign was that he wanted to stop Obama's liberal agenda and use the filibuster to do so. This may have played well in conservative Georgia during a runoff election against a weak Democratic opponent, but it is a dangerous trap for Republicans to adopt this strategy in the next congress.

Republicans lost in 2006 because of their scandals, but they lost in 2008 because they did not offer voters much of an idea of what they stood for. In 2008, the central Republican argument boiled down to the idea that they were "real Americans" and that Obama and his liberal allies were "socialists" who had to be stopped. It was difficult to identify any specific new Republican idea or policy from the 2008 campaign. It was the same script of warning voters that liberals wanted to raise their taxes and take away their guns.

Even though he was pushed to a runoff election, Saxby Chambliss holds a relatively safe seat in a relatively conservative state. Simply opposing Obama and trying to block all of the legislation he supports will not do much to grow the party. Obama's bipartisan overtures so far seem mature. If Republicans want to complain at every turn, they will seem petty. And they will not win seats in future elections. The Democrats learned in 2004 that you can never beat something with nothing. John Kerry ran as "not Bush" and lost. In 2008, Republicans ran as "not liberal" and lost. If Republicans adopt Chambliss' rhetoric of "not Obama" in the next congress and are blamed as obstructionists, they will lose again in 2010.

So 41 seats for Republicans would seem to be a useful tool in that it allows them to filibuster, but they must be careful with how they use it. And they have to consider the fact that the more moderate Republicans might not join some of these filibusters from time to time. So in short, while 60 Democrats may be as politically important as 41 Republicans, it is an oversimplification on behalf of the media because in the end, votes matter a lot more than party and sometimes a little bit of power can be a dangerous thing.