Yes and no. I would agree that as practiced now the filibuster is too simple to invoke. The Dems should have forced the Reps to do a true filibuster and as soon as any Rep had to leave the Capitol, pounce on them and vote on an immediate cloture. I personally don’t mind a bill having to have at least 60% support (or rather less than 40% wanting to kill it) to pass. It prevents the lack of compromise we see in the House anytime a party has a simple majority.
But I don’t think the filibuster was the problem here. I’m still amazed how the Republicans are blamed for blocking health insurance reform despite the Democrats outnumbering them 60-40.
Not sure what you’re saying. The Democrats could have forced the Republicans to keep 60 people in the Senate? And that’s why the Democrats, not the Republicans are responsible for the current bottleneck? How?
The problem is, the Republicans don’t need to keep all their senators in the Senate to maintain a filibuster: the minority party technically only needs to keep one (the guy speaking). In reality the minority party probably needs 7 or 8 senators who can rotate to keep the filibuster going; but the majority party needs at least 51 senators to stay, so that they can vote as soon as debate ends.
So if a filibuster actually happened, a handful of Republicans could stay in the Senate to maintain the filibuster, while the rest fan out, blanket the media with interviews arguing for their position and picket their own states; while almost all the Democrats would be stuck in the chamber, unable to speak either to the media or to voters, or to conduct any work in their own states. (Not to mention the rest of their agenda gets frozen until the filibuster is resolved).
Nowadays, partly because the increased availability of air travel means senators are expected to shuttle between Washington and their states, the majority party has too much to lose from actually forcing the minority party to filibuster.
I don’t think so if it truly came down to that.
If there are 51 Dems and 8 Reps on the floor, what is to prevent a cloture motion from being made. The best the Reps could do would be to invoke a Call of the House which would compel their own party to be present. That is why the filibuster (in its original form) is not a bad idea. If a bill invokes 40% of the Senate to dig in their heels and do whatever it takes to stall it, maybe its a good idea to re-evaluate it.
The real problem is that the filibuster is handled in a very civil way now and it was never meant to be like that. We used to have Senators beating each other with canes and literally being carried in on their deathbed during impeachment trials. I think the Senate started getting sissyfied when they took the spitoons out and by 2020 it’ll be a bunch of slap and tickle going on.
No, the current cloture rules call for 60% of all Senators, not just those present and voting. You can have 59 Dems present and only a single Rep, and a cloture vote will fail.
And herein lies the main problem. Well, this plus a procedural filibuster.
I am amenable to the filibuster remaining ala Mr. Smith Goes to Washington.
Problem is the Senate has made it far too easy to achieve and maintain. They’ve gotten rid of all the pain-in-the-arse features which made it rare to be invoked and was only done when one side or the other felt something really egregious was about to happen if they didn’t.
Make the bums stand up there and read from the Washington phone book ad nauseum. Force a quorum call and make everyone else sit there and listen (well, they’d doubtless rotate in-and-out but still would suck for all of them). Stop the business of the Senate cold and let the person(s) maintaining the filibuster face the nation and get support for shutting down the Senate.
If your issue is REALLY important to you then go there. As a “we just want to be a pain in the ass” maneuver however I think the filibuster would largely disappear.
Whack, that’s all well and good, but how does that happen? Can the Dems do anything now that would require this bottled up health bill, for example, to be subject only to an actual all hands on deck fillibuster?
Nope…the Dems can do nothing in this regard*. The rules are what they are currently and require 2/3’s of the Senate to change. Republicans will in no way, shape or form dilute their ability to stymie health care reform by weakening the filibuster.
As soon as health care is totally out of the way I suspect the Senate will reform some of these rules. Clearly the status quo, essentially requiring a supermajority to pass anything, is fouling the Senate badly. Someday Republicans will be back in control and they will not like it then so it makes sense for all sides to come to an agreement on this and get it fixed (what the final result may be is anyone’s guess).
*There is the “nuclear option”. That may work but will utterly throw the Senate into disarray if the Dems invoke it (although to be fair it was Repubs who first dreamed it up). The “nuclear” part is well applied here and is a last, extreme resort.
What? The bill is already subject only to an “all hands on deck” filibuster. If the Democrats want they can make Republicans stand up there and read from the phone book on this healthcare bill. But because the majority party stands to lose so much from that happening, whenever the minority party warns, “we’re going to filibuster this bill if we have to”, the majority party says, “OK, well we’ll try it another way” or “OK, we’ll move on to something else then”.
The nuclear option is something completely different: it’s a move to rule the filibuster itself unconstitutional and override it.
I still don’t understand why a filibuster now only pertains to one specific piece of legislation. When and how did that happen? And how that could be changed to a situation in which a filibuster stops all business. It seems that, as mentioned above, the danger that a party could be seen by the entire country as being obstructionist would limit the number of times a party chose to exercise that tactic. And, if the issue were soooooo important, then maybe it would be worth it. But the public would certainly focus on congress at that time and the matter would surely get everyone’s attention. What would be required to re-modify the way filibusters affect Senate business?
This is Senate rules so the only way to change how they go about their business is for 2/3 of the Senate to agree to a rule change.
In the past a Senator had to hold the floor and talk non-stop to keep a filibuster going. Obviously it is difficult for one person (Jimmy Stewart notwithstanding) to do this for very long so there’d usually be several and they’d take turns.
Apparently Senators decided this sucked so why couldn’t they all just pretend they were standing reading from the phone book without actually doing it? So they changed the rule. Further, they decided that stopping ALL Senate business over one issue was silly (guy standing there yapping prevented any other business). Can’t stop the whole government because a couple of Senators got their boxer shorts in a twist.
To paraphrase another poster, it’s because Senators aren’t Star Trek (original) fans. Remember the episode where they went to the planets that were at war with each other, but they just simulated attacks and required citizens to report to disintegration booths, because actual combat, destruction, etc. was too much hassle? Same deal. Real filibusters suck for everyone, so they agreed they don’t have to actually perform them.
I’m not so certain about that. As a Democrat, I have no doubt that whenever Republicans take the Senate back, enough Dems will support their agenda that filibusters won’t be a problem; the moderates and Blue Dogs will see to it. I suspect that most people on my side would agree. Regardless of whether you agree with Repubs, you have to admit that they usually get their bills passed. Likewise, Dems, as much as I support them, roll over way too easily when they’re in the minority. (The Senate Dems are worse in this regard, but the House isn’t much better.)
I say this all not to veer things into GD, but to consider how each party acts and strategizes when in the majority/minority.
Blue Dogs are more obviously beholden to business interests than most and as such align with Republicans more often on a lot of issues. But many things remain that they can play obstructionist on. This happened in 2005 when Trent Lott suggested the “nuclear option” to stop Democrats from filibustering Bush judicial nominees.
Most Senators are smart enough to know these things can cut both ways. Great when it works in your favor and lousy when it doesn’t. Also, since what is happening is so undemocratic and the stage is set for each side to just play obstructionist to the hilt because it is easy I think they figure it has gone too far.
The change may not be soon but I think has to be there soon(ish). Else say goodbye to anything like a functional government.
You distinguished between the “procedural filibuster” and the full, all-hands-on-deck filibuster (ie forcing Republicans to read out the phone book for days at a time), and lamented that it’s too easy nowadays to implement procedural filibusters, which encourages them. CC asked whether, ‘the Dems [can] do anything now that would require this bottled up health bill … to be subject only to an actual all hands on deck fillibuster’ and you said no - not unless they change the Senate rules.
But in reality, not only can the Democrats force the Republicans to play out a full “reading the phone book” style filibuster, but the procedural filibuster doesn’t really exist: it’s just a convenient way of referring to the habit majority parties have of abandoning or changing legislation when the minority party makes it clear they will phone-book filibuster it, in its current form, if they have to.
So the answer to CC’s question is “yes”, the Democrats can indeed require this bottled-up health bill to be subject to an actual, all-hands-on-deck filibuster. They don’t need to change the rules, they don’t need to use the “nuclear option”, they already have the power, they just don’t use it because they decide it’s not worth it.
I just don’t think that’s correct. See my first post in this thread, and the posts I link. The cloture rule itself provides for a method of indefinitely delaying a vote on a bill (by indefinitely repeating the process) that (1) requires 60 votes to stop, and (2) that does not stop debate on other topics. If that isn’t a procedural filibuster, I don’t know what is. It certainly isn’t a “true” filibuster–as it doesn’t require continuous debate to sustain
That being said, it is true that there is a trend of not going through the formalities if they’ll be futile–but that doesn’t in any way disprove the fact that there is a procedural filibuster.
You’re making a vague argument about watering down the votes of senators and states. The Constitution, in sharp, clear letters, says that each house may determine the rules of its proceedings. As long as those rules do not violate any other clearly-stated textual rules, then the issue is not justiciable.
But if the senate majority leader so chooses he or she can force the minority party to conduct a “true” filibuster even in cases of “procedural filibusters”. So, if I’ve understood correctly, there is no type of filibuster that can’t ultimately be reduced to a “true” filibuster.