Please read what I wrote above. Until recently the filibuster was a rare and risky tactic. Now it’s standard operating procedure. What’s changed is NOT the Obama is some kind of out-of-the-mainstream radical – the results of the 2008 election prove that interpretation is wrong. What’s changed is that the current rules of the Senate make it much easier for the minority party to obstruct legislation. This was something of an issue during the last Bush administration (remember all the talk by the Republicans about using the “nuclear option” to get rid of the filibuster?) and it’s even more of an issue now.
Just read the Wikipedia entry on filibustersand you’ll get an idea of how much the goalposts have shifted over the last 30 years.
:rolleyes: You’re right, I shouldn’t have picked a current issue as the example, precisely because it gets answers like this. Just thought it might help elucidate what I was asking.
I guess this answers the question: it just strikes me as curious that if the minority party has just 41% of the senate, the procedures seem to grant them the leverage to kill any legislative bill whatsoever. It seems to me like the minority party would effectively wield comprehensive veto power over anything the majority put forward.
The Senate prides itself on being “the world’s greatest deliberative body.” Institutionally, it places a higher value on deliberativeness than efficiency; many argue that the Framers didn’t intend the Senate to be merely a brief way-station for legislation. Washington himself likened the House to a teacup, and the Senate to a saucer into which legislation might be poured until it “cooled.”
Grover Cleveland had very good relations with the House but fought often with the Senate. The joke went that his wife woke him up one night whispering, “Wake up, Grover! I think there’s a burglar in the house.” Cleveland sleepily replied, “In the Senate, perhaps, m’dear… but not in the House.”
Harry Truman said of his successor, Dwight D. Eisenhower, “He’ll sit there all day, pounding his desk, saying ‘Do this, do that,’ and nothing will happen. Poor Ike – it won’t be a bit like the Army. He’ll find it very frustrating.” Truman also said something to the effect of, “Ninety percent of the President’s job is persuading people to do what they ought to be doing anyway.”
I’m surprised no one posted that earlier. The song’s stuck in my head now, of course…
There’s also the parody The Simpsons did. No video, but a transcript!
Best part:
Then I’ll destroy all opposition to me
. . . . And I’ll make Ted Kennedy pay
. . . . If he fights back
. . . . I’ll say that he’s gay
[moderating]
And I had so hoped that this political thread would be able to make it in GQ. But it looks more like another political Great Debate to me, so that’s where it’s going.
[/moderating]
Our system is biased against change by design. There are numerous veto points, far more than in a parliamentary system. You also can’t pass things with 50%+1.
Personally, I think that it’s good that major legislation usually ends up requiring 60% of the votes in the Senate. We shouldn’t be passing major bills with such tepid support as 50%. That’s why the Constitution doesn’t let you pass treaties by simple majorities. Treaties are very important commitments. So a treaty requires a 2/3rds vote to ratify. If the Founders had envisioned our Congress passing the kind of legislation they have since the New Deal, they would have required 2/3rds for that too. It was a flaw in their thinking that they actually expected Congress to self-regulate and stay within constitutional limits.
Clinton had to deal with exactly the same thing. Not only was his health-care reform plan scuttled, but his judicial appointments were kept bottled up in committee, and federal benches left vacant, for incredibly long periods.
