Killing The Filibuster

Harold Meyerson's WaPo column today explores the "minority rule" phenomenon in the Senate and why the Democrats should end the filibuster.

When future historians look back at this passage in our nation's history, I suspect they'll conclude that this Obama-isn't-American nuttiness refracted the insecurities and, in some cases, the hatred that a portion of conservative white America felt about having a black president and about the transformation of what many thought of as their white nation into a genuinely multiracial republic. But whatever the reasons, a mobilized minority is making a very plausible play to thwart a demobilized majority.

Meanwhile, that's exactly what's happening in Congress. Indeed, the very rules of the Senate empower mobilized minorities over majorities even when those majorities are mobilized, too. When the filibuster is employed, it takes 60 percent of the Senate, not 50 percent plus one, to enact legislation.

The rise of the filibuster should give constitutional originalists some pause. When the Senate first convened in 1789, just months after the Constitution was ratified, its rules allowed for calling the question (ending debate) by a simple majority vote. The Constitution had taken care to specify five kinds of issues that did require a two-thirds supermajority: treaty ratifications, expulsions of members, impeachments, the override of presidential vetoes and constitutional amendments. The Senate adhered to its simple majority rule for question-calling until 1806, when the rule lapsed because it seemed unnecessary: Scarcely any votes to call a question had been taken in the 17 years of the Senate's existence.

With that, the possibility of the filibuster was born, but filibusters didn't really come into use until Southern senators began using the maneuver to attempt to block civil rights legislation of the 1950s and '60s. They only became routine in the past few years, as the minority party in the Senate -- the Democrats until 2006, and the Republicans since -- sought to block legislation that had majority support but not the backing of a supermajority. In the 2007-08 session of Congress, Republicans forced 112 cloture votes, nearly doubling the Democrats' record when they were in the minority.

Simply put, that number means that the Senate now runs by minority rule. A more corrosive attack on the first principle of democracy, that of majority rule, is hard to conceive. The increasingly routine use of the filibuster stymies the efficacy of government (in itself a conservative objective) and negates the consequences of elections.

But minority rule is what today's Republicans are all about. Hence we see disruption in the districts and stagnation in the Senate. When and whether the majority will bestir itself to reestablish democracy's first principle is anybody's guess. Abolishing the filibuster would be a good start -- and perhaps a necessary step to enact to big changes like health reform.

Meyerson is right.

But it will never happen, thanks to the Democrats playing cover your ass. Sixty votes means they have full responsibility for not being able to pass the President's agenda. Eliminating the filibuster would only make that pressure worse...significantly worse. The Senate would have to do things like vote for real reform for their insurance company and health care owners, who wouldn't like that one bit. They would have to take responsibility for failing to pass things like cramdown and for not keeping promises.

Democrats, in other words, would have to Change Things. They're not prepared to do actual work in the Senate, you know...despite having sixty Democrats. They have no intention of instituting real reform that will hurt their corporate master's profit margins. it's sad, but it's true.

There should be no need to get rid of the filibuster. The Democrats have 60 votes. Right now, it should be functionally irrelevant. But it's not. Whose fault is that?