{"id":2970,"date":"2013-01-10T12:20:46","date_gmt":"2013-01-10T17:20:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/therationalprogressive.com\/cms\/?p=2970"},"modified":"2013-01-10T12:20:46","modified_gmt":"2013-01-10T17:20:46","slug":"lobbyists-who-profit-from-senate-dysfunction-fight-filibuster-reform","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/therationalprogressive.com\/cms\/2013\/01\/lobbyists-who-profit-from-senate-dysfunction-fight-filibuster-reform\/","title":{"rendered":"Lobbyists Who Profit From Senate Dysfunction Fight Filibuster Reform"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u00a0\"United_States_Capitol_-_west_front\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Two years ago, I took a screen shot and saved a tidbit from Duffield\u2019s now-deleted consulting website. Duffield\u2019s firm, still lobbying and called Endgame Strategies, was quite candid in it\u2019s pitch to potential corporate clients to use \u201cbackbench Senate Republicans\u201d to block legislation (emphasis added):<\/p>\n

Managing Holds and Filibusters. Your organization has an interest in a bill that has proven controversial and you require advocacy before those legislators\u2014often backbench Senate Republicans\u2014who may exercise their prerogatives to delay or obstruct. Endgame Strategies will give you new ways to manage your interests in a legislative environment that gives great power to individual senators.<\/p>\n

Duffield, a former Senate aide to Arizona Republican Jon Kyl, literally sold filibusters, anonymous holds and the other forms of obstruction. In 2011, he reported at least $230,000 in lobbying fees. Current rules allow a senator to secretly block any legislation or nominee and then, without actually performing a talking filibuster, require a three-fifths majority vote\u2014twice\u2014to proceed eventually with a regular majority vote, a process ripe for abuse by well-connected political operators of both parties.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve detailed before how lobbyists, even agents for foreign governments, have secured Republican filibusters at a shocking rate. The cottage industry around monetizing filibusters has grown rapidly since Obama\u2019s first election. From 2009 to 2010, there were more filibusters filed than during the 1950s through 1960s combined, as The Nation\u2019s Katrina vanden Heuvel observed.<\/p>\n

The interesting dynamic for me is, how money in politics has incentivized this contraction of democratic governance. Here are just a few examples of how powerful industries have usurped the normal gears of government, and used Senate obstruction to push policies that punish ordinary Americans and the environment:<\/p>\n

MORE:<\/strong>\u00a0 Lobbyists Who Profit From Senate Dysfunction Fight Filibuster Reform | The Nation<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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\u00a0 Two years ago, I took a screen shot and saved a tidbit from Duffield\u2019s now-deleted consulting website. Duffield\u2019s firm, still lobbying and called Endgame Strategies, was quite candid in it\u2019s pitch to potential corporate clients to use \u201cbackbench Senate Republicans\u201d to block legislation (emphasis added): Managing Holds and Filibusters. Your organization has an interest…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[19,22],"tags":[1023,789,196],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/therationalprogressive.com\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2970"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/therationalprogressive.com\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/therationalprogressive.com\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/therationalprogressive.com\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/therationalprogressive.com\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2970"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/therationalprogressive.com\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2970\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2972,"href":"http:\/\/therationalprogressive.com\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2970\/revisions\/2972"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/therationalprogressive.com\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2970"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/therationalprogressive.com\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2970"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/therationalprogressive.com\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2970"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}