Ok. The Dems have a 53-47 working majority in this Senate. No way will they get 60 to pass anything.
The GOP has hopes of reclaiming the majority in 2012. Maybe they will have a 52-48 majority. No way can they get 60 to do anything.
Is it time for BOTH parties to drive a stake through the heart of the filibuster?
No. As I’ve said in the other threads on this subject, the filibuster is an important safeguard. If you can’t get 60 votes in the Senate, it’s probably not that great an idea anyway.
I agree. I like the idea of a super-majority being required at the federal level. Let the states deal with things when we have a close division among the Senators.
Okay. But in times past, the filibuster was reserved for very, very bad things. Now that party lines votes, and the threat of a filibuster, are pro forma, won’t that make almost everything impossible?
Not impossible. Difficult. As it should be. Note that I would agree that the filibuster has been misused in recent times, but its value outweighs the negatives.
The thing that frustrates me about modern politics is everything is so partisan. It’s crazy to dismiss a good idea just because it came from your political opponents. If the most liberal liberal who ever liberaled on the left of Liberal Street comes up with a really good idea, we ought to get behind it and pass it. Same for the most conservative conservative that conserved on the right of Conservative Street. Ideas should stand or fall on their own merit.
The problem with this view is that sometimes governing means taking hard decisions. If we were to require virtually all votes to garner 3/5ths support, then we make it very difficult for the government to do anything unpleasant - raise taxes, cut spending, fix touchy problems, etc.
I agree that the filibuster is useful as a tool of last resort to support the rights of the minority. However, the filibuster ought to come at a price: if a determined legislator wants to hold up the business of government by making long, impassioned speeches explaining his reasons to the public, I can respect that.
But the practice of legislators saying, “I disagree and refuse to allow a democratic vote on the merits of an issue… and excuse me while I go catch a plane out of town!” is a total abuse of the tactic. Unfortunately, both parties have used the latter technique far too much, turning the shield of the filibuster into a sword.
That’s not right. The filibuster should be kept, but something has to change before the US government turns into the basket case of California where elected officials are basically forbidden from doing anything that someone, somewhere, may not prefer.
Couldn’t we just make it slightly more difficult to filibuster? Please? The US system of government is at a point where it seems broken.
…he’d be a conservative.
I respect that. But how do you stop the current trend? We can’t continue needing 60 votes to pass legislation. Surely some other mechanism can take the place of the “saucer” function of the Senate. Perhaps a one year delay in the passage of controversial legislation before an up or down vote?
I don’t see why it’s a necessary function at all. The UK gets by without any such thing, ever since the Lords were reduced to a largely ceremonial body. Remember, whatever makes it harder to enact legislation also makes it harder to amend or repeal legislation.
There are two problems with this argument.
First, the filibuster isn’t solely about legislation. It is also about appointments. And it isn’t used on appointments on the basis of merit. It is used to gain leverage over completely unrelated issues. Most filibustered appointees eventually get near-unanimous support. So your rationale just doesn’t apply to one of the biggest problems with the modern filibuster.
Second, while your notion of broad-based support is fine in principle, in practice, 50 votes in the Senate represents broad-based support, while 60 votes is not obtainable for any serious reform. With the modern filibuster, mostly what you get are half-assed compromised reforms, or efforts to pass policies through reconciliation. You get Medicare Part D that doesn’t pay for itself or negotiate for drug prices. You get education reform (NCLB) that doesn’t change any of the widely acknowledged structural problems. You get welfare reform, to save .01% of the budget and placate certain political interests. You don’t get even half-assed reform of social security, immigration, energy, and a hole host of other problems, much less serious change in federal policy. With the biggest Senate majority in decades, we got health reform that basically just has the federal government buying a bunch of people health insurance and made some moderate reforms to the health insurance market. At best, it will begin to address our access problem, and lay pretty feeble groundwork on cost control and efficiency.
From my perspective, I’d rather the parties actually had a shot at implementing their preferred policies, even if I don’t like them, than to just die a slow death of our problems piling up because we can’t try anything. Do I think Republican plans for tort reform would really cut medical costs? Not really. I think it would do more harm than good. But I’d rather give it a shot and have it fail than do nothing. Do I think that privatizing Social Security is a good idea? No, I think the first group of seniors to lose all their money in a market crash are just gonna have to be bailed out. But if it worked, that’d be peachy. Obviously, not every political disagreement takes the form of “policy x probably won’t work and will cause y bad thing to occur, but if it did that would be nice.” Some disagreements are more fundamental than that. But our biggest disagreements, over deficits, for example, pretty much do take that form. An endorsing the modern filibuster is tantamount to saying you only want piecemeal reforms, and then only when extraordinary efforts are made.
Well, I am of the “that which governs least also governs best” school of thought. That’s not the exact quote, but it’s close enough for my purposes. I prefer that the government not act at all rather than act badly. If an idea is really sound, then the proponent thereof oughta be able to persuade 59 of his peers to go along. Or come up with a negotiated deal that’s workable.
At the commencement of the new session, the rules of the Senate may be changed with simple majorities, I am told.
Well. The Democrats have a simple majority, I am told.
The problem with that philosophy is that the government which governs least is that which doesn’t govern at all, at which point you get anarchy. Now, I know that you don’t actually support anarchy, but it still illustrates the point that there is in fact some nonzero optimal level of government, and as it’s currently used, the filibuster stands a very significant risk of pushing us below that optimum.
That presumes that the other side cares more about keeping the country running than it does about winning, or at least keeping the side making the proposal from getting anything it wants.
The Republicans care nothing for good governance or the welfare of the nation, and are perfectly willing to run the country into the ground. They don’t oppose the proposals of the Democrats because they disagree with them; they oppose them because they want the Democrats and especially Obama to fail. And if that leads to the Great Depression II, they don’t care in the slightest, or are actively hoping for it.
It’s past time to end the filibuster. As the modern world moves faster and faster it becomes more and more imperative that America have efficient government that can respond to changes in a timely manner and remain competitive. But it’s not going to happen because neither party has any reason to move against it right now. Sure the Dems have less of a majority but they also lost the House so they are going to have to deal with the GOP anyways. Senate Republicans have no interest in removing the filibuster when they are in the minority.
The United States of America has no magical right to maintain its place in the world. Americans have no magical assurance of continuing the quality of life we have grown accustomed to. It is mystifying to me that any American would celebrate the ossification of our government. The world is shrinking and we face great challenges in changing weather patterns and global economics. Dumping the filibuster should be a no brainer move to help keep America relevant.
Political scientists note that the US already has an unusually large number of “Stopping points” in its legislative process. Most democracies have a single legislature. The US has 2 houses. Most democracies (not all) have a prime minister, who is supported by a majority coalition in Parliament. The US has a meaningful Presidential veto. We also have a strong judicial branch of course. Many US institutions are admired abroad: the Senate is not one of them. Personally, I would toss the whole Senate out along with the filibuster.
It’s not just the filibuster by the way: the Senate has these arcane unanimous consent rules that can be taken advantage of by a party bent on obstructionism.
Last session the number of cloture votes far exceeded those during the entire post war era through 1970. We’ve already changed the Senate rules in practice. It is high time to return to majority rule in the Senate, as intended by the founding fathers.
Ref: Filibuster in the United States Senate - Wikipedia
I think you need the VP’s ok as well, IIRC.
My predictions:
[ol]
[li]The Democrats are too chicken to do anything to end the filibuster while they have the majority, because the Republicans will attack them for subverting a tradition that is a sensible part of governance[/li]
[li]The Democrats will be too chicken to filibuster the Republicans when they get the majority, to the degree that Republicans are doing now, because the Republicans will attack them for using political tricks to stall the Senate from doing its job of serving the American people.[/li]
[li]As a result, Republicans see no need to end the filibuster, and Democrats are too chicken to end it when they can, so the filibuster will be with us for a long time.[/li][/ol]