No (or less) use of the filibuster means better Democracy

Politics & Elections
1

If I understand things correctly, the “nuclear option” recently invoked only applies to some appointees, and not legislation. But I think it’s likely this will quickly expand to general use, and the filibuster will go by the wayside for most or even all things soon.

I think this is a good thing. Basically, with reduced or eliminated use of the filibuster, the party in power will be able to pass a lot more legislation. This means Democrats, when in power, will get a lot more Democratic things done, and Republicans (if they ever get power again!) will get a lot more Republican things done. I think this is how it should be- the voters can hold the party in power responsible for what gets done, with less utility for blaming the opposition for obstruction.

In addition, I think the Republicans would do this anyway once in power. I don’t think giving them an excuse for doing what they would have done anyway actually matters much. Stopping the current obstruction is worth the risk, IMO, of Republicans doing in the future what I think they likely would have done anyway.

2

I agree. If there were a return to the genuine filibuster, maybe it’d be okay: sometimes it’s appropriate to have a way to take the stage to dramatize an issue, and people can decide whether you’re Mr. Smith or Kanye West in that case. But the procedural filibuster is really stupid and should go away.

3

I think the key is that there has to be a political price to pay for doing a filibuster. There should be some way for the minority to stand strongly on principal against the majority, but it should be something that is rare enough that it merits front page news so long as it continues. Something on the level of the attention garnered by the Wisconsin Democrats in fleeing the state in protest of Walkers union busting activities.

How about if there is a pending bill and a cloture vote that garners between 50 and 59 votes, then no further business is conducted until the bill is raised in the senate for an up of down vote.

4

Agreed. Without a blunt instrument available for easy use, the party that finds itself with less support from We the People will have to resort to more effective persuasion instead. And those members of *either *party that have qualms about their party’s position will be more amenable to discussions across the aisle, and less amenable to party-leadership coercion.

IOW, this is *good *for democracy.

5

Less use of filibuster is better for democracy, but no use is potentially worse. Democracy shouldn’t just be whoever has one more vote than even can do whatever they want for several reasons. First, and most importantly, it means that controversial bills could get passed without an appropriate amount of negotiation. Second, it could end up freezing the government as bad as unlimited filibuster if every time the party in power changes they end up spending a significant amount of time undoing what the last party did, and we end up never making any meaningful progress. At that point, passing nothing is better than potentially wildly changing legislation.

The biggest problem is, use of the filibuster is akin to the prisoners dilemma. It’s best for everyone if it’s almost never used, but in general it’s always best for the minority party to use it whenever they can’t beat a vote straight up. Worse, each time it’s used, it cheapens it. Maybe once it’s used to stop major tax reform, so next time it doesn’t seem as bad to use it on lesser legislation, and after a generation or so, it gets to where it is now where what had been routine legislation becomes a target for a filibuster. So it’s only really a useful tool as long as everyone treats it with respect and uses it sparingly.

But now the question is, whether it’s worse to let it be abused or to not have it at all. I don’t think it needs to be an all or nothing approach. Let’s use sports, particularly instant replay as an example. When it was first introduced, it was overdone, games were slowed down and all kinds of obnoxious stuff was reviewed. So it was done away with, and then there were blown calls and people complained about it. Now, there’s a bit of a middle ground, some things are automatically reviewed, some things are unreviewable, and for the rest, a team gets a limited number. It’s not perfect, but I think it’s a decent compromise. Maybe this idea can be generalized to filibusters too.

So, for instance, we already have some effective automatic filibuster on the types of votes that have additional restrictions. Maybe different types of votes can have different levels of filibuster, so perhaps a tax vote ought to need 60 votes to break filibuster, something really routine like raising the debt ceiling should only need 51 votes, and maybe judicial nominees could be somewhere in the middle like 55 votes or whatever to break filibuster. Or instead or in addition to, maybe also have a limit on the number of filibusters that can be used, so it doesn’t devolve into the case we have now, so there’s enough for the things that really need it but they can’t just be used willy-nilly for fear of not having one when really needed.

6

The problem with there being a fixed number is that this then encourages the majority to put forward a bunch of obviously over-reaching legislation to force the other side to use up its supply of filibusters.

7

I would think that the danger of that would be that it would imperil whatever moderate senators remain in the majority party (and, of course, the best way to make a majority is to flip the other sides moderate senators).

Although, also, while filibusters are associated with parties, it’s the individual senators that engage in them. I mean, who gets punished for an Angus King filibuster?

8

It’s good for political parties, but not good for the people in general. IOW, yes it is good for democracy.

9

If I were the minority party, and the majority were engaging in such tactics, I think I’d sit on my hands, let their overreach go into effect, figure that’ll doom them in the next election cycle. If it doesn’t–if the voters end up liking those “overreaching” laws–then it turns out the laws weren’t so over-reaching after all.

Perhaps it should properly be looked at as a game problem. A filibuster should be a strategy with potentially big rewards (thwarting the majority’s decision), but it should have commensurate risk. What should the risk be?

Publicity might be the best answer: make the fili-Buster go front and center and yammer for a long time. If Buster makes a good case, excellent for him; if not, boo for him.

10

Yes, I want to live in a society where 51 out of 100 people can make whatever they want into law or appoint whoever they wish to important positions in government.

I want tyranny of the majority, and so did our founders.

11

Tyranny of the majority isn’t so hot, but it beats out tyranny of the minority any day. If you create a political environment where one or the other is inevitable, don’t complain when you end up being tyrannized.

12

Is this the lamest attempt at sarcasm ever, or the most opaque attempt at sincerity ever? I can’t tell.

Because either way, it acts as if the only limit on the Senate’s absolute power in our government was the filibuster.

13

I don’t believe many senators want to expand the filibuster. Why would they? 3/5 cloture votes empower individual senators as 60 votes are necessary. They also provide political cover. (Translation: allow senators to hide unrepresentative beliefs from those they represent.) And Republicans in particular have little incentive. Their overriding legislative goal, tax cuts, can’t be filibustered. So only senators actually interested in getting things done will push to eliminate the filibuster. I figure there are far too few of those.

The way I see it this, while an important procedural change historically for the Senate, only restores the old understanding. The filibuster wasn’t abused in the past because it was understood that if they took it too far the Majority could always force majority votes.

14

Wow. This is a stunning misunderstanding of both the issue at hand and the basic structure of the government of the United States. Well done!

Why not? Is there something special about tax cut bills I haven’t heard about? Or are you just saying that politically they can’t be?

15

I overstated the case a bit I’m afraid. Ostensibly you can filibuster revenue bills in the Senate but this is complicated because of the reconciliation process. Which is really complicated. See here for an overview and here for an explanation that bears more directly upon our discussion. Basically you can pass a budget in the Senate with a mere 51 votes so long as you can first get the exact same budget passed in the House. And if the opposition controls the House of Representatives then the filibuster isn’t that important since they can influence or block legislation there.

16

I think anything to reduce the power of the Republicans is a good thing. I don’t know the specifics of the Senate rules, but if the GOP wins in 2014, I hope Reid can restore the filibuster on the last day and then obstruct the GOP from removing the filibuster once they’re in power. As we’ve seen in the past few decades, and especially in the past couple of years, the Republican party is utterly broken and doesn’t deserve to ever be in power again. Its run by crazy people that should rightly be shouting at passersby on the street corner. These are lunatics, not legislators, and whatever maneuvering that can be done to reduce and remove their power can only be a good thing

17

He can only keep the Republicans from removing the filibuster themselves if the Democrats maintain a majority in the Senate.

18

You know that the filibuster isn’t in the Constitution, right? If you remember, back when the Democrats were (over)using the filibuster, the Republicans were calling removing it from the Senate rules “the Constitutional option”.

And I know that this being eight days after Stringbean’s post, he isn’t likely to see it.

19

Indeed, the first filibuster in the US Senate didn’t happen until 1837, when all the Founders were dead (Charles Carroll having snuffed it in 1832.)

20

The real threat of Reid’s maneuver does not relate to filibusters, gridlock, or anything else. It’s that the Senate has now established the precedent that any rule it has can be re-written at any time by the majority with just 51 votes. This is about far more than the filibuster.

The Senate rules state that 60 votes are required for cloture. That rule continues to be written in black and white, right there for anyone to read. However, the Senate is no longer going to operate by its written rules on certain matters.

The Senate rules also state that it shall always be in order to swear in a new senator. Now, if the majority party feels it would be politically advantageous to delay swearing in a senator, they can just round up 51 votes and go ahead and ignore that bit of the rules, too.

The rules say that a quorum needs to be present to do official business. If the majority wished to change the definition of a quorum to mean just a majority of the party in power, they could do that with 51 votes, too.

I agree that something had to be done about the filibuster – actually, more needs to be done. But the real effect of the vote is to make the written rules of the Senate not worth the paper they are written on. That’s a process that doesn’t really embrace the rule of law, is it?