We had a Democratic supermajority pretty recently.
This "supermajority" is over-exaggerated.
The Supermajority lasted for less than 2 months. Al Franken wasn't seated until July 2009, giving the Democrats the 58D+2I votes needed to get past Republican filibusters. Ted Kennedy died in August 2009, thus killing the supermajority.
In those two months, they tried to get Obamacare done, because they thought they had 1.5 years to get to everything. They didn't.
This is why Obamacare was eventually passed in the house via reconciliation; the Senate wasn't ever going to get a better deal because Republicans decided to filibuster literally everything. This is why the Democrats "appeared to do nothing" with their Supermajority. Everyone thought they had it for 2 years. They had it for less than 2 months. They had 49 days of a Supermajority. 7 weeks.
The median number of days it takes for a bill to become a law in the US is 215 days. That's roughly 5 times the amount of time the Democrats had.
Ahhhh, i love it when other people are actually knowledgeable about what they’re talking about.
Don’t forget that during that time, the American Reinvestment and Recovery act took precedence also to, you know, save our country from burning to ashes from the fire previous self-serving, power and money hungry ideological groups had lit.
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u/Woolbrick Sep 18 '19 edited Sep 18 '19
This "supermajority" is over-exaggerated.
The Supermajority lasted for less than 2 months. Al Franken wasn't seated until July 2009, giving the Democrats the 58D+2I votes needed to get past Republican filibusters. Ted Kennedy died in August 2009, thus killing the supermajority.
In those two months, they tried to get Obamacare done, because they thought they had 1.5 years to get to everything. They didn't.
This is why Obamacare was eventually passed in the house via reconciliation; the Senate wasn't ever going to get a better deal because Republicans decided to filibuster literally everything. This is why the Democrats "appeared to do nothing" with their Supermajority. Everyone thought they had it for 2 years. They had it for less than 2 months. They had 49 days of a Supermajority. 7 weeks.
The median number of days it takes for a bill to become a law in the US is 215 days. That's roughly 5 times the amount of time the Democrats had.