Fili-Busted

Steve Benen has declared war on the Senate filibuster.

Calls for reform are becoming more common. Kevin Drum noted yesterday that there's a problem when "a party can win the presidency, the House, and the Senate by landslide majorities but still can't pass big parts of its program because it needs 60 votes in the Senate." The filibuster, he reminded us, was "never intended to become a routine requirement that all legislation needs 60% of the vote in the Senate to pass."

Matt Yglesias, highlighting this chart, explains the history of the tactic, and notes how this is something of an accident. He concluded, "None of this has ever been a good idea. But when it was genuinely reserved as an extraordinary measure, it was a bad idea whose badness could be overlooked. But as it's become a routine matter, it's become a bigger and bigger problem. It needs to be reformed."

Of course it does. Look at that chart again -- does anyone think last year was a fluke? Or is it more likely the Senate minority will meet or exceed the same number of filibusters in this Congress? And the next?

There are competing ideas. Maybe the number can be lowered from 60. Perhaps there can be some kind of limit on the number of filibusters (kind of like NFL coaches having a limit on how many times they can challenge a referee's call on the field). Maybe senators can be forced to actually filibuster bills, the way they used to before it became easy. Of course, the chamber can also scrap the filibuster altogether.

I don't doubt senators from both parties are reluctant to even consider reform. They should do it anyway.

I agree that the Democrats should hold the Republicans to actually filibustering bills. But it's important to note that some bills really do need sixty votes to pass...and the stimulus bill was one of them. It was in fact the waiver of the existing budget, and that requires three-fifths of the Senate to do.

Still, the GOP will in fact filibuster everything else they can unless the Dems make doing so exceedingly annoying.