It was something of a surprise to find out Monday morning someone in the U.S. Senate attached a rider to a routine defense appropriations bill that if approved, would have repealed the half-baked Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell policy, which was forced on the military during President Clinton’s watch in 1993.
Suddenly a no-story Sunday was the story Monday.
Mainers, still feeling battered from the rancorous same-sex marriage debate last year, might be forgiven for thinking we have been at this for a while now. Good thing Lady Gaga came to Portland to buck us up.
We oppose the use of filibusters as a routine practice but in this case we applaud our Senators, Snowe and Collins, for voting with the majority in filibustering this thing to death.
This attempted end run around an open floor debate was a classic example of one side of the aisle doing exactly what they scream bloody murder about whenever the other side of the aisle does it: attaching unrelated and/or unpopular legislation to a vital piece of government business for the purpose of avoiding an up or down vote on the merits of the issue.
Senate Democrats started this one but Republicans shouldn’t feel too self-righteous. Both sides of the aisle make it a regular habit.
If we are going to change our culture, then we should do it through the front door, not through a back room parliamentary maneuver employed only because the current majority party belatedly realizes they have wasted two years of opportunity and now they need to cater to the support to which they pandered in the last election.
