New Senate Leadership, a Lot Like the Old

New Senate Leadership, a Lot Like the Old; The Caucus; The New York Times

New Congress! Same leaders. More or less, anyway.


The Senate elected its leadership slate for the 112th Congress on Tuesday morning, and it is remarkably like the old one, with a few tweaks and treats.

For the Democrats, Harry Reid of Nevada will continue as majority leader, with Dick Durbin of Illinois remaining as the whip, or No. 2 position. Daniel Inouye of Hawaii continues as president pro tempore, and Charles E. Schumer of New York stays as vice chairman of the conference and will now add the title of chairman of the Democratic Policy Committee.


Patty Murray of Washington remains secretary of the conference, but Debbie Stabenow of Michigan becomes vice chairwoman of the Democratic Policy Committee and Mark Begich of Alaska, one of the newer voices in the Senate, takes over for her as head of the steering and outreach committee. ...


A few moments later, the Senate minority leader, Mitch McConnell, Republican of Kentucky, announced that he had been re-elected, as had Jon Kyl, the whip from Arizona. The rest of the Republican conference remains the same: Lamar Alexander of Tennessee is chairman; John Thune of South Dakota is chairman of the Senate Republican Policy Committee; John Cornyn of Texas leads the National Republican Senatorial Committee;and John Barrasso of Wyoming is conference vice chairman. ...


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Comment: I'm not as pessimistic about the US Senate as I was a year ago. I'm hopeful that those who have been elected through the Tea Party and liberty movements will shed a new light on the cockroaches that hide in the capitol.  But we need to remember nothing will change in our government, especially in the Senate, until the structure is restored. People come and go but it's the structure that protects the citizenry. That's what founder knew and unfortunately succeeding generations either ignored this or never took the time to learn and understand.

Now it's up to us, the 17thers, to keep up the fight. It's up to us to keep poking and prodding because people will become complacent. This goes for many in the liberty movement who understandably will return to their normal life.

We have know that the growth off the federal and national government will not stop until the states have their place restored in the federal government. It's going to be the states who will stop this growth and stop the exponential spending. Limits have to be restored and unless the 17th Amendment is repealed our country is in dire straights.