To expand and paraphrase the statement made by the President, "In a democracy, all the people deserve a vote". How can any Party in a democratic government step away from that. That's the only way to implement democracy and that's why, in a democracy, the people and their representatives are allowed to vote. It's the people at the bottom that need to be heard and if they've spoken and its democratic, they do indeed deserve a vote. Democracy is "of the people", "by the people", and "for the people". How can any Party, in a democracy, not vote or intentionally block a vote that originates from the bottom? Thats totally undemocratic. Thats the problematic with Party politics. A Party takes a position on some issue, properly before them, and immediately take issue that,in no way, reflects the peoples wishes. Of course, in a democracy, Party-politicians are free to differ on positions of policy, but, in no case, should the position be un-democratic. Who or what gains from such a position? Of course, in the above cited reference, the beneficiaries are some corporation and/or lobbyist. Corporations, guns, money, lobbyists, all these roll-up into an un-democratic position. The position assumes misplaced values that usurp democratic values (corporations are legal fictions, they're not real; the Second Amendment does not refer to weapons capable of 'mass-destruction'; money is an economic-fiction, not a democratic value; and lobbyists get paid to 'sleep' with their 'fictions'(thats 'economic prostitution'.)How can any of that be democratic? We suffer from mis-placed values. Democratic values are being usurped by economic values. Freedom and equality are being replaced by an economic and a legal fiction, to wit; money and corporations. I said earlier that the democratic value of freedom and equality are the values that we should organize around. No one is saying its easy, but anyone can see and feel the difference between a human being and an economic or legal fiction. Its about the people stupid. If a Party stands for Plutocracy, why doesn't it just say-so? I'll tell you why, because that Party would cause an 'assembling' of all the peoples in a democracy. No one wants a Plutocracy -only the 1%. Thats why they do in-directly what they can't do directly. Democracy is protected by the very First amendment. Don't you get it?