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How Filibusters Are Strangling the Senate
The Senate filibuster has turned what some have called the "greatest deliberative body" into a place where passing the simplest bill takes days or weeks and a major bill like health reform ends up in a month-long slog of round the clock and weekend sessions and a final vote on Christmas Eve.
(CBS/iStockphoto) Far from a tool to insure that debate is not cut off before everyone has his say, it has become a routine method by which the Senate is bogged down to the point where it becomes almost impossible to get things done.
Republicans have used more than 100 filibusters this year, frequently on bills they fully support, such as funding the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. The idea isn't to keep debate going -- it is simply to slow things down and make it harder for Democrats to run the Senate. Though Republicans have been far more aggressive about it, Democrats did the same thing when they were in the minority.
The modern filibuster is not like the drama of "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington" where Jimmy Stewart played a principled senator standing up to corruption -- talking on the Senate floor until he lost his voice and collapsed.
Now the filibuster is simply automatic and assumed and the result is nothing can pass without 60 votes and those votes can be delayed for days on end. No one talks until they are hoarse and in fact during the lengthy multiple filibusters on the health reform bill, most of the time no one was talking at all as the staff presided over an empty Senate chamber.
The filibuster is not used to prevent debate from being stopped prematurely, it is used to replace majority rule with super-majority rule. It has been decades since a party has had the super-majority of 60 votes in the Senate Democrats now enjoy, but the result is not the ability to pass whatever they want. Instead it has resulted in any individual Democrat having a veto over whatever the majority wants and using it, as Nebraska Senator Ben Nelson (seen at left) did on health reform, to exercise outsized power.
There is nothing in the Constitution that allows filibusters and in fact the Senate started out with the same rule that works in the House and virtually every state legislature, city hall and high school student council -- allowing a simple majority vote to end debate. The Senate after an odd rule change in 1806 had no way to end debate, then required a two-thirds vote and now three-fifths. It can change the rule again at any time.
Republicans threatened to do away with the filibuster in 2005 when they were upset at Democrats blocking some of President George W. Bush's judicial nominees. They called it the "nuclear option" and it terrified members of both parties and was never carried out. If Democrats get rid of the filibuster now, they know they will have less power at some point in the future when Republicans win the majority back.
But the fact that a party with 60 votes still can't make the Senate operate in any reasonable way suggests it may be time to take another look.
24 Comments so far
Show Allthe last sentence:
"But the fact that a party with 60 votes still can't make the Senate operate in any reasonable way suggests it may be time to take another look."
Another look at what?
If you look at the Republican Senators and the states they're from, and if you divide the population of each state in half, with one senator representing fifty percent of the population,you'll find:
There are 10 senators who represent an average of 1 million population
There are 10 senators who represent an average of 2 million population
There are 10 senators who represent an average of 3 million population
There are 10 senators who represent an average of 4.5 million population
The bottom 20 represent only 10% of the US population
The bottom 30 represent only 20% of the US population
The 40 Republican Senators represent only about a third of the US population
So 1/3 of the population holds the remaining 2/3 hostage by voting no.
Solutions:
Merge some of the least populated states into larger ones, eliminating 2 senators.
Target a few of the low population Republican states that aren't dark red, and encourage Democrats to move there and take over.
That's interesting about Republicans, representing 1/3 of the voters, having so much power. It's the same in California - we have a 2/3 requirement for passing taxes. 1/3 of the state legislature + 2 or 3 votes is what the Republicans have. So CA can't tax the rich or pay its bills. Not to say the Dems are much better, but unlike at the Federal level, at the state level there seems to be at least some difference.
Are the Democrats filibustering themselves, or is it just John Kerry talking again?
Filibusterbation?
Fuss calls the senate the "greatest deliberative body."
Oh please, such drivel.
Smiling puppets gathered for performance art is more like it.
yes, a 'fancified' barber shop fronting for 'fancified' criminals...
Abolish the Senate entirely. It's a millionaires' club. The fact that states such as Montana and Wyoming, each of whose population is far less than that of the borough (county) of Queens, NY City where I live, have the same number of Senators as ALL of NY State (and an even more populous state, California) shows how anti-democratic the Senate is (and always has been).
A 21st Century Constitutional Convention is long overdue to remake this corporatist-militarist national security state into a true democracy. "Corporate personhood" must be the first legal absurdity abolished, followed by private media charging fees to broadcast election messages over OUR public airwaves. Corporate control of the state, even with the smiley face of "American Idol" and celebrity gossip distractions 24/7, is still fascism.
I hate people that reply just to agree, but...
Yes -- HELL YES!
I feel that this came about because back then most people generally stayed in the state they were born for a couple of important reasons. A state back then could almost be thought of as a tribe; a large group of people with like-minded ideas, religion etc. Add to that the difficulty of mobility back then. These days we go cross country for, perhaps, a better job opportunity - better weather, who knows.
I guess what I'm saying is that the state you live in used to say something about you - now it's just "where you happen to live". It really doesn't mean what it used to.
that's an interesting point you raise...we certainly do move about much more now than we used to...
small states didn't want big states dictating to them, but greater populations also felt justified in having greater say...therefore, the two houses of corruption...
the corrupt senate, with 2 corporate criminals for each state, and the corrupt house, with a corporate criminal for each 30,000 deceived victims back home...
JM, it's even harder than you think. Getting rid of equal state suffrage in the Senate doesn't just require a few of the smaller states to cooperate with constitutional amendment. It basically requires all of them. Article V, which sets out the amendment process, also declares that "no State, without its Consent, shall be deprived of its equal Suffrage in the Senate."
There are lots of mistakes in the Constitution. The framers, recognizing that time and changed circumstances would probably reveal such mistakes, and also recognizing that perpetual laws violate priciples of generational sovereignty, created the amendment process to allow for repairs. Article V's equal suffrage clause is the exception, and it's pretty much indefensible in terms of philosophy and political theory. Equal state suffrage may have made sense 230 years ago, but it makes no sense now, and any attempt by the framers to entrench such a rule in perpetuity is completely illegitimate. At some point, someone in the executive, legislative or judicial branch, is going to have to declare that the emperor has no clothes: this is a constitutional provision that cannot be accepted as binding. It probably won't happen until we have a constitutional convention or a revolution.
The filibuster has to go. It won't though, because it provides to much cover to the many Democrats who,like Obama, are eager to serve their corporate masters and receive the bribes that guaruntee their re-election. There will always be plenty of egotistical jerks willing to play the scapegoat in exchange for extra bribes and power. That way the others can vote how they want, safe in the knowledge that the desired result of their paymasters will win. If progressive Democrats vote third party in 2012, maybe it will send a message that we will no longer be taken for granted.
BWWAAAAHAAHAAHAAHAA.
the filibuster is a self-imposed limitation...that is all that we need to know...
it is artificial, and benefits both parties as they work together to appease corporations and criminals and disappoint the populace, while remaining able to face the populace and claim sincere, albeit frustrated, effort on their behalf...
it allows the roar of the lion to become the whine of the impotent without shame...I tried, but those bastards...
dubet;love it!More specifically the dems are already trying to hide from this thing.If you check huffpo and check Creamer and others you would think it is the best thing since sliced bread.My vote will NOT be any d or r.Tony
smiling puppets all
actors in a tragic play
Whether the filibuster is a good thing is in the eyes of the beholder. Yes, it can hold up a vote but it cannot stop it unless the other side gives up.
But we have not really seen any filibusters-only threats of filibusters.
In the old days, those who wanted to filibuster actually had to hold the Senate floor--meaning they had to talk and talk and talk. They did not do this very often and I really do not know whether they were ever able to actually stop a vote eventually.
The Democrats have not forced the Republicans to actually hold the floor, the Dems have just folded whenever there was not enough votes at the outset for cloture.
I truly doubt that the Republicans would in fact filibuster day in and day out--even by reading from the phone book to hold the floor. The public would get too angry and there would be a backlash if they actually did this for every long.
The Democrats should have just said fine, hold the floor, talk for 24/7 for as long as you can--and when you finally get tired, we will vote.
I have to wonder why the Democrats have been so quick to quake in front of this threat.
Yes, if the British got rid of the House of Lords, we should get rid of the Senate.
But since that won't happen, and since anyone who gets campaign money from multinational corporations needs to hide behind this excuse for no action, the least the the Dems could do is copy the Republicans.
Max Baucus single-handedly ruined health insurance reform. He's headed the Senate Finance Committee since 1978 (30 years!!) because while Republicans have term limits for committee chairs in Congress, the Democrats award chairmanships based on seniority.
Hence, Baucus gets most of his campaign finance from donors outside Montana, including $18,000 from Jack Abramoff (that he returned), and hence he has a 74% pro-business voting record
See his Wikipedia entry, where “Conflict of Interest” is the longest section:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Max_Baucus#Conflict_of_interest_charges
Some members of the Democratic caucus are discussing putting chairmanships to a secret ballot vote every two years - that is to say, every two years, all the Democrats of the Senate would get to vote on whether committee chairs get to keep their seats.
Let's see if the Dems can grow a spine. I became a Democrat for the sake of the Obama primary but may go back to being a Green, they understand that money runs the show.
As Utah Phillips said, "Politicians get money from the rich and votes from the poor so that they will protect each from the other."
It's time for a new Federal Constitutional Convention to change some of these archaic laws. Get rid of rules that allow minority rule, get rid of the corporate-corruption influence, get rid of the many millionaires so they're no longer are exclusive to it, and there's a host of other changes that are needed to bring this government into modern times. The Health Care Bill disaster has shown just how corrupt both Chambers really are.
If this does not happen, then nothing is going to change and I for one, say it's time to consider the unthinkable, and allow for this country to peacefully break-up and go our own ways. Sounds crazy I know, but what choices do we have left anymore? What do I for example, living in the Pacific NW, west of the Cascades, have in common anymore with the inner-West or the South? They're such hard-butt conservatives who hate and ridicule anything I believe in. We either need to get past that, or consider the alternative I mentioned. We're killing ourselves trying to keep this country together.
The right to self rule.
It was the basis of the founding of the u.s.
Is that what's strangling the Senate? Gee, and all along I thought it was the deep pockets of the corporations that run the country.