We saw a hawk perched on the limb of a small tree the other day, and it was obvious to us given his uneasiness that he was far more comfortable doing his preying from a sturdier base than the one he had chosen.
But there he was, doing the best he could, making the best of a bad situation, but thinking he should be elsewhere.
It seems to us that House Democrats might be feeling a lot like that hawk. Their trying to serve constituents from a motel in Urbana, Ill., isn’t easy, and a better locale for them would be Indianapolis. But there they are, in Urbana, doing the best they can, making the best of a bad situation, but thinking they should be elsewhere.
It’s been more than a month since House Democrats broke camp and relocated their caucus some 125 miles west of the capital in protest of what they say was the heavy-handedness of majority Republicans.
Democrats point to the inordinately high number of strictly party-line votes as proof that Republicans weren’t interested in listening to their views on pending legislation. They argue that their amendments to bills weren’t being considered no matter how much of a ruckus they raised inside (and outside) the House chamber.
So they left.
State Sen. Lindel Hume, D-Princeton, compares the walkout by his colleagues in the House to the use of the filibuster by Republicans in the U.S. Senate. Both House Democrats and Senate Republicans, he says, have used the only weapon available to them to combat what they believe to be the tyrannical actions of the opposite majority party.
It’s a good analogy.
A filibuster can be ended by the majority leadership convincing enough members of the minority to switch sides. That requires real negotiating skills, and such skills are in short supply all around these days, and especially in Indianapolis and Washington, D.C.
Speaker of the House Brian Bosma has yet to show any evidence he possesses such skills, so we don’t foresee any likelihood of his being able to convince eight or nine Democrats to come back for a quorum vote to get the House back in session.
Of course, Minority Leader Pat Bauer is hardly a paragon of reasonableness himself when it comes to negotiating with the opposite party.
It’s harder -- almost impossible now -- for Democrats and Republicans to find common ground, especially given the kind of campaigns each practices, with their scorched-earth policies that aim to obliterate the opposition, that intends no quarter for the other side.
By the time the subsequent legislative session starts, the script has been written, and it’s just a matter of playing it out.
It’s not pretty, but that’s the way it is.
Democrats need to return to Indianapolis, and if they aren’t successful in influencing the final outcome of legislation, once the session ends they need to campaign like crazy right on through the 2012 election and let voters decide whether they were right.
We think Democrats have made their point, have drawn attention to the particular issues that caused them to leave, and now it’s time they return to a sturdier branch from which they can work.
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