"But-but...they can take his chairmanship at any time!" "We own him now"

[Elidor]

WRONG.

But former Democratic Senate staffer Martin Paone suggested Bayh is under-educated on this matter. Paone, who became as the "secretary to the majority" in the Senate starting in 2001, notes that Republicans harbored similar desires in the past, but never executed them due to the threat of a filibuster.

"It takes a Senate resolution to change a chairmanship, and that resolution could be subject to a filibuster," Paone told the Huffington Post. Put simply, under Bayh's proposed scenario, Republicans would have every reason to filibuster a new Senate resolution taking Lieberman's chairmanship away if he was proving an effective antagonist of President Obama.

Paone noted that a similar game of political chess played out in the Senate's recent history. "We had a similar situation in the past with a Republican moderate senator, Mark Hatfield from Oregon, who voted the wrong way in the eyes of Santorum and others on the constitutional amendment on a balanced budget," Paone said. "There were rumblings they wanted to take his chairmanship away. But the ranking member on the committee was Sen. Robert Byrd, who wrote Hatfield a nice note saying, 'if they ever try to take your chairmanship away, I'll make sure we will filibuster such a resolution."

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/11/14/bayhs-defense-of-lieberma_n_143863.html

He got off scott-fucking-free, and there's not a damned thing anyone will be able to do about it. He can suddenly decide to start investigating the Obama administration, and the GOP will protect him from reprisals.

[Elidor]

1. I keep seeing people say we can take it away from him at any time

So I'm kicking this.

We cannot take it away from him.

[Hawkowl]

2. Lieberman still has his backstabbing knife

And he gets to hold it right behind Obama's back? He can investigate the new president at anytime and there is no way for the spineless dems to revoke his chairmanship.

Everyone still think this is a good decision? Crap.

[Alter Ego]

3. He won't. Joe's in this for himself.

And he knows damn right well that if he wants another term he better shut the fuck up and keep his head down.

[KittyWampus]

4. there's boatloads of money he can make lobbying or speaking after the Senate

[Alter Ego]

5. So?

The key phrase is "after the Senate."

When he no longer has a vote in the chamber and is hopefully replaced by someone a bit more progressive, why will it matter?

[WeDidIt]

6. They'll "regret it" when he starts the hearings against Obama

by then it'll be too late.

[Bake]

7. Isn't this vote simply a non-binding "sense of the caucus" thing?

I was under the impression, perhaps wrong, that the new Senate will not formally and officially be organized until January, and that there will be an organizational resolution passed. Could we not, up until that time, pressure our Senators to reverse position on this?

Bake

[ladjf]

8. If a large Party majority in the Senate is unable to decide committee

chairmanships because of filibuster threats then they also could pass no legislation, ever. Government would be out of business. I don't think that the Republicans would be willing or able to bring the entire Government to a standstill over this one vote issue.