And if there were reasoned opposition from the Repubs, I’d agree with you. The thing is, there isn’t. Snowe, Collins, and Specter are the only ones willing to look at a Democratic proposal. Everyone else just votes against it reflexively.
It can all be simple political calculation on everyone’s part, too. The “Sane 3” are all in the Northeast, an already-Dem and increasingly-Dem region. They don’t dare follow party discipline if they want to keep their jobs. Most of the rest of the Rep Senators still remaining have more to fear from loss of the national party’s financial and organizational support than from irritating their electorates.
The ones who have already decided to retire and don’t need it, and the ones who have been more than loyal soldiers in the past, but *still *put party ahead of country in this matter, are the ones to be disappointed in. Voinovich especially has shown flashes of responsibility in the not-too-distant past. McCain isn’t leaving, not yet, but his “Country First” mantra of just a few months ago didn’t last too long, did it?
Oh, right, the OP … yes, the painless filibuster Reid agreed to (was that part of the “nuclear standdown” during the previous regime?) is pointless. It lets the minority control the agenda and decide the results, despite the electorate’s wishes, and makes the majority take the blame for lack of results. You’d think Reid would have learned that lesson from the last 2 years.
But the telegenic version does need to exist, to bring each party’s views into clearer public understanding. If O’Connell wishes to simply obstruct progress, let him stand and talk for 48 hours straight, without even a potty break. The cameras will be rolling and the footage will be in front of everyone’s eyes. The private conversations going “Fuck you, Harry” - “Oh, okay, next subject then” approach serves no one’s interests.
I’d like to step in and say that I agree with ElvisL1ves here and I feel he is correct on this point. We disagree so often, I feel it is appropriate to point out when I agree.
OK, I understand the point you’re making. In response, I’ll argue that once the intent to filibuster is established, actually requiring the minority to physically stand there and read the phone book into the Congressional Record doesn’t really add value to the process. It wastes money and resources…the energy to keep the lights on, printing costs, man hours, etc.
Well, thanks. BTW, yes, I know it’s McConnell, not O’Connell.
Off to watch “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington” to remind myself how they did filibustering old-skool …
Sure it does. As I already said, it makes it clear to even casual observers just who’s doing what. It reminds people watching it on TV just whose positions and actions are what. The painless version is too easily spinnable against the majority. Even when cloture finally prevails, the minority can spin it as a display of their principles and integrity. But the public knows what’s happening, no matter the result, and who is responsible.
Otherwise, too often, as Woodrow Wilson put it once, “a little group of willful men, representing no opinion but their own, have rendered the great government of the United States helpless and contemptible”.
Yes, it does. It means that the person filibustering actually has to filibuster, instead of just saying he will. There wouldn’t be anywhere near as many filibusters if the Pubbies actually had to stand there talking every damn time.
Answer to topic question
YES
make the side that filibusters pay the price for the tactic. Right now, there is not a price to pay— its like eating and never getting a bill at a good restaurant.
Damn Harry Reid… he need to grow a pair… and fast.
Even without the supermajority requirement, our system is biased toward inaction–because of our bicameral Congress and independent executive and judiciary. To add a permanent supermajority requirement in the Senate pushes the bias beyond the point of reason. It blocks bad ideas and good ideas alike. It only works if you think things are perfect today and never want anything to change.
The people elected a Democratic president and heavy Democratic majorities in both houses of Congress. I’m not thrilled with that outcome. I didn’t vote for any of those Democrats. But the electorate did, and they deserve to have their will respected. To say that they still can’t pass legislation, because 59 Senators aren’t enough, breeds apathy and cynicism and a feeling that elections don’t matter.
Either you didn’t understand it, or you’re moving the goalposts. Your original stance was to put the onus for filibuster procedure on voters, which is just silly. You’re now arguing against the wasteful nature of “Mr. Smith type” filibustering. I hope that much is now clear. Moving on…
Both ElvisL1ves and Captain Carrot have made the main points I would’ve. The only argument I’d add is weighing the costs you cite versus the benefit of old-skool style filibusters. Said costs, IMHO, are less than a mere pittance relative to promoting effective governance, and aren’t actually worth consideration.
No…I never intended to place the onus for procedure on voters. What I meant was that if voters didn’t approve of the use of filibustering, they should vote the bums out of office. Perhaps I failed to express what I meant clearly. The actual procedure involved seems to me to be a matter of form over substance.
While I agree with that, part of the issue is that procedural filibustering is so quiet. I doubt many “average” people (those who don’t live on political blogs and the like) are aware that the GOP easily broke the record in 2007 with 70+ filibusters and was on track to triple that record in 2008. I haven’t seen solid 2008 numbers yet but if it’s anywhere near 210, that’s just insane. That has to be close to one filibuster for every working day of the US Senate (~260 working days less vacation and holidays).
Do you think they could get away with that if they had to read the phonebook?
Perhaps. And I can only hope beyond hope that yes, voters will throw the bums out, as I think the Republican party has and is hurting the country.
But your argument is about filibustering in general, with which I believe no one takes issue. Your first response, back in post #2, demonstrates a conflating of voters’ wishes (external to Congress) and Congress’ internal operation/rules. The OP is explicitly about internal filibuster procedure, objecting to the fact that there’s little to no cost involved in gumming up the government’s works. If you’d care to continue the argument along those cost/benefit lines, have at it.
Again, IMHO, it’s a sad state of affairs that obstructionism is so easy that it’s become an issue that attracts voter attention. And the rules should be changed.
Filibusterers have never had to read the phone book. Strom Thurmond’s recitation of recipes and phone books was pure theater, tolerated only out of Senatorial courtesy: the majority had already secured the votes for a quorum.
To mount a filibuster, one Senator need only sit aside and simply say, “I suggest the absence of a quorum.” He can do that again and again and again. This was proven by Alan Simpson of Wyoming when he blocked campaign finance reform in 1988. The rest of his supporters can go home.
Cite: The Myth Of The Filibuster: Dems Can’t Make Republicans Talk All Night.
Thanks for that. Apparently it’s a widely held myth so I don’t feel too bad.
Even if we don’t get the theater from it, I agree with Ari Melber from another Huffington Post column:
Heh. I didn’t have a clue about any of this until about a week ago.
The filibuster has evolved into a requirement that a supermajority of 60 is needed to pass any sort of legislation. Defenders of the filibuster need to show how the status quo is superior to the Senate traditions that it replaced.
Defenders of the filibuster also need to point to an example of a filibuster successfully used to pass ill-advised legislation. There are a few examples, but it’s pretty thin.
I say that minorities should be able to question and delay, but not block. So any Senator should be able to block legislation for, say, 2 weeks; this would give them time to make public arguments, lobby the opposition or even arrange a compromise. What’s nice is that it would be self-limiting: any Senator constantly making public appeals of this sort would end up looking foolish. Those who used it sparingly would gain credibility.
(Procedurally, any block could be over-ruled if the majority votes to schedule a vote within a 2-3 week window in the future. If this falls during a period where Congress is not in session, tough. This way, blocks could not be daisy chained by several minority members. The catch would be that the scheduled vote would have to be on the actual bill in question, and not a modified version of it.)
For purposes of comparison, I’ve just been reading about one of the most epic filibusters in the Western world. It was in the Ontario legislature: the NDP and Liberal opposition filibustered the Conservative government’s unpopular bill to merge several municipalities into the City of Toronto for ten days straight around the clock by introducing more than eight thousand amendments.
The Votes and Proceedings of the legislature for that period are here; and of course the entire thing was transcribed verbatim into Hansard, hour after bloody hour for the entire ten days, available here in 31 volumes (2 April through 11 April).
In a separate incident, a senator filibustering a bill in the Senate read the entire contents of a book he had written, and was accused of taking advantage to get the whole thing translated into French for free.
In a very real sense, what should be a filibuster-proof majority of the voters has voted for Dem Senators.* The problem is that due to disparate state populations, it hasn’t had the effect of producing a filibuster-proof Senate majority.
*Methodology: Take the 2008 Census population estimates of the 50 states. Give the entire population of a state to one party if both Senators from that state are from that party. Split the population of the state between the two parties if they have one Senator from each party. (Assume Franken’s ultimate win in MN.) By this measure, the country has voted for a Senate that’s 62.2% Dem, and 37.8% GOP.
Changing the filibuster rules requires a 2/3 supermajority, so unless the Dems have as good a year in 2010 as they did in 2008, that’s a no-go for awhile. But the Dems may well enter 2011 with a filibuster-proof majority. Good times. 
You’re estimating voting based on a number six orders of magnitude smaller. “Inaccurate” is too weak a term for your conclusion.