Zack Space

D-Day has a wonderful post about the pathetic problem in our Senate today:

Harry Reid has no problem respecting the one hundred holds from Tom Coburn on all sorts of legislation, but will ignore Chris Dodd's. That's the bottom line, and given that, you have to conclude that Harry Reid is the one doing the holding.

Chris Dodd is heroically calling for a filibuster, but the real issue here is the issue of ignoring the rules of the Senate. Harry Reid is picking and choosing which Senators he will listen to. The fact that Chris Dodd came within one vote of defeating him for Minority Leader back in 2004 wouldn't have anything to do with this, would it?

Harry Reid has set up two rules for the United States Senate; one under the normal standards of conduct that have held for 200-plus years, and one for bills that he really really has to pass or the President will get mad at him. Earlier this year, Reid ignored a hold placed by Sen. Ron Wyden and confirmed an assistant Secretary of the Interior that Wyden had issues with. Sen. Wyden dropped an important amendment into the flawed Intelligence Committee bill on FISA that the President opposes, which would force the government to get a warrant to spy on Americans overseas. I guess we'll see if Reid strips that amendment out of the bill, and if he holds the same respect for amendments that he does for holds.

The point is that Harry Reid has made Tom Coburn the most important member of the United States Senate. He's made Chris Dodd, a member of his own party, irrelevant. And he's made himself into a joke. We cannot go into 2008 with this laughingstock of a leader in the Senate.

Harry Reid loves crazy-ass Tom Coburn and is a vindictive prick. Was that mean? His staffers are brainwashed into thinking he's a God who single-handedly put Nevada on the map. Oops, was that too true?

My colleague on this site, Abijah Adams has called for new Senate and House leaders. While I'd love that, here's my 2c.

Votes for leadership positions are paybacks for campaign donations. Pelosi got where she is because she is phenomenal at raising money and handing it out. Plus she is pretty tough on her caucus, all things considered. Her problems are Rahm/Hoyer (the corporatists) and the presence of so many Bush dogs in the caucus.

We need to hurt Rahm and Hoyer by sending a message that their people are more vulnerable than the protection his $2,000 checks to them afforts.

Pelosi is not going to be defeated in SF--she is Establishment there and Rahm and Hoyer can also raise phenomenal amounts of money, therefore it would be a waste of time and resources to try for any of those three.

What we can do is be consistent about giving through Act Blue and not through the DCCC or any of the leadership PACs in order to dilute these three people's influence simultaneously we should try to pick off a couple of Bush dogs as examples, the way The Club for Growth has done on the right.

We should start with Daniel Lipinski and Al Wynn and maybe Zack Space.

Congressman Zack Space from Dover Ohio is one of the worst.

He was already on notice from constituents when he voted to continue funding the Iraq escalation and for when he voted with Bush on the FISA rewrite - giving Bush the authority to keep spying on American citizens.

Then for no good reason, he became the exception that proves the rule. The rule was: unlike the GOP who hypocritically defend some of the most blatently corrupt members of their fraternity — no democrat defended Representative William Jefferson - you know, that goon who was caught with bribe money in his freezer.

Zack is feebly acting as an apologist for the Louisiana Congressman who had all that hard, COLD cash in his freezer.

Rep. Space changes position on Jefferson resignation
Per the Columbus Dispatch:

Rep. Zack Space (D-Ohio) has not joined several of his freshman colleagues calling on indicted Rep. William Jefferson (D-La.) to step down, even though he called for Jefferson’s resignation as a House candidate.

As a candidate in May 2006, Space said: “Bill Jefferson and Bob Ney are the poster children for Washington’s culture of corruption that is costing American families. I urge both to resign their seats in Congress so we can begin a new day and a new way of doing things.”

But yesterday, Space told the Dispatch that ”I do not believe that we have legal standing to force Mr. Jefferson to resign at this moment.”

Zack, Here’s your hint: The Constitution, Art.I Sec. 5: Each House shall be the Judge of the Elections, Returns and Qualifications of its own Members...

That’s why no Congressperson or Senator have been impeached — they’ve just been voted out by a simple majority of the house they sit in — not the supermajority of both houses required by impeachment.

Read up on it, Zack, and while you’re at it, get on the right side of this issue.

His own local blog lays into him in a post that belongs here on Lead or Get out of the Way.

The problem with Congress right now is that the Democrats aren’t acting like a majority party. In particular, they continually capitulate to the Bush administration over two issues, Iraq and the Patriot Act (FISA). These capitulations are in a large part due to a lack of party discipline. There is a large conservative Democratic voting block in the House which consistently votes like moderate Republicans and against party leadership.

The Iraq War is not popular in your district, Space. Spying on Americans is not popular in your district. Corruption, or grasping for apologies to corruption is not popular in your district.

If you think that voting the wrong way on these issues is going to to keep Republicans from running against you, you're a moron. If you think these votes are going to impress anyone into supporting you over a Republican, you're a moron. Who are you trying to impress?

Oppose Bush's agenda, you Democrat. It's your damn job.