Month 10, Day 1: Strategic Redundancies

I am cheating a bit here. Wife, daughter and I are all headed for Washington, DC, tomorrow for the 10-2-10 rally. I wrote this long letter to John Kerry because I didn’t have time to write a short one. And the letter for Saturday is going to be a loose paraphrase of this one, sent to Harry Reid. And the letter for Sunday will be for POTUS…and I’m going to be writing them all tonight, so I won’t have to do it on the bus.

Dear Senator Kerry,

I write to urge you not only to back filibuster reform when the next session of Congress opens, but to urge your colleagues to do so as well.

One of the most devastating casualties of the present situation in the Senate has to have been the climate bill you were instrumental in developing. While that bill was insufficient for the dimensions of the task, it at least represented a start on tackling the most profound existential threat humanity has ever faced. What an ignominy for it to be bluffed into irrelevance by a Republican threat of filibuster (aided, of course, by some of your Democratic colleagues who are seemingly determined to ensure that the nightmare represented by a Democratic majority in the Senate never occur again).

We need to pass a climate bill. Ultimately it needs to be a lot stronger even than the bill you co-authored with Senators Lieberman and Graham. But we need a place to start.

And we’re not going to get it unless we reform the filibuster.

Yours Sincerely,

Warren Senders