Can party leaders be ousted at any time with a vote of no confidence?

[RiverStone]

It's one thing to cave to Shrub; now Dems are blaming each other for the complicity. Normally I don't like to quote the WP, but in this story I'd agree with the characterization of our "team" on The Hill:

When Democrats took control of Congress in January, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) pledged to jointly push an ambitious agenda to counter 12 years of Republican control.

Now, as Congress struggles to adjourn for Christmas, relations between House Democrats and their colleagues in the Senate have devolved into finger-pointing.

House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Charles B. Rangel (D-N.Y.) accuses Senate Democratic leaders of developing "Stockholm syndrome," showing sympathy to their Republican captors by caving in on legislation to provide middle-class tax cuts paid for with tax increases on the super-rich, tying war funding to troop withdrawal timelines, and mandating renewable energy quotas. If Republicans want to filibuster a bill, Rangel said, Reid should keep the bill on the Senate floor and force the Republicans to talk it to death.

Reid, in turn, has taken to the Senate floor to criticize what he called the speaker's "iron hand" style of governance.

Democrats in each chamber are now blaming their colleagues in the other for the mess in which they find themselves. The predicament caused the majority party yesterday surrender to President Bush on domestic spending levels, drop a cherished renewable-energy mandate and move toward leaving a raft of high-profile legislation, from addressing the mortgage crisis to providing middle-class tax relief, undone or incomplete.

more:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/story/2007/12/12/ST2007121202865.html?hpid=topnews

QUESTION: Do we voters have any recourse or means to suggest that our Dem leaders get their shit together? This voter recommends a clean sweep - replace Nancy and Harry with much more effective counter-punchers. What would be the soonest this could happen?

[cali]

1. As voters we have our say in the voting booth

You can always advocate to various dem reps and senators that the leadership be replaced, but it's up to them. And it won't happen before the election. That you can count on.

[ORDagnabbit]

2. which sucks completely because in effect we dont have any say at all.

our system needs to change dramatically.

[Selatius]

3. It's a Republic. The people only have an indirect say in the affairs of Congress outside the ballot.

It is when you cast your ballot that you do have a direct hand in what happens inside Congress, but beyond that, you're an indirect participant at best. If you want the ability to recall legislators, challenge acts of congress, or even propose initiatives like they do in California, you would have to go to a different country. Switzerland is a good example of a democracy as opposed to a republic. People can directly weigh in on what happens in congress.