Kevin Drum of Mother Jones describes here what he believes the main obstacle to filibuster reform is: Party unity for the Democrats. Under Majority Leader of the Senate Harry Reid, the Democrats have faced some problems with the filibustering power of the minority party in the Senate. As Colbert mentions, Reid has faced 386 filibusters in 6 years. That's approximately 8.21 filibusters per each Republican Senator, also known as a just a ton of filibusters in general. As Colbert explains, the very large number of filibusters has resulted from a change in rules where the filibuster can be launched by intent of "debate" rather than the actual getting on the floor and reading from cookbooks that we discussed in class. This new kind of filibustering can be referred to as the "silent" filibuster. It's easy to imagine why getting rid of the filibuster is attractive for Democrats, but how should they go about doing this? If the filibuster is entirely removed then Democrats will regret the whole thing if the Republicans ever return to majority. .
Reform probably will look like making the filibuster at least require actual debate. Article 1 Section 5 of the constitution means the Senate can make their own rules by a simple majority vote, a.k.a enough for the Democrats to pass reform without any Republican agreement. Democratic Senator Merkley says that the reform will likely prevent the Republicans from silently filibustering. This would require there at least to be conversation about legislation, potentially constructive and helpful to getting a good compromise passed. Does this mean that the old filibustering shenanigans where one senator reads a comic book on the floor for hours will return again? Hopefully the reform will have some provision against this.
This ties back all the way to the Federalist papers we studied at the beginning of the year and the debate over majorities and super-majorities. When is a more than a majority a good thing? Well, perhaps when doing things like amending the Constitution. However for the legislative process, requiring more than a majority puts a damper on progress (assuming that filibuster=requiring the 60%). James Madison warned against requiring more than majority to pass legislation in Federalist 58. (In this quote, "quorum" can sort of be translated to the number of members needed to enact a decision). Madison argues requiring more than a majority quorum would inhibit free government, instead putting too much power in the hands of the minority.
Remember all his warnings about factions? Well, in the case of the filibuster, it's original intent seemed to be to elevate the minority party to a position where they could have greater leverage in decision making. Not such a bad thing in theory, however, the problem is this power has been used irresponsibly. It has effectively made the Senate require a 60 vote majority to pass anything, and that is exactly the kind of quorum Madison warned about.
Madison writes of a more-than-majority quorum:
", an interested minority might take advantage of it to screen themselves from equitable sacrifices to the general weal"
How well do you think this quote describes the current political scene? Did Madison identify eerily well the pitfalls of party politics? Should the Democrats be wary in how they might affect the minority party of the Senate with their power to enact reforms of Senate rules? As far as I can tell, the filibuster reform seems like a good, moderate step in the right direction that will hopefully improve the functioning of the Senate for years to come.
(Mr.Smith Goes To Washington was 1939 movie about corruption in the Senate that included the filibustering. The film was considered offensive to the institution of the Senate, and it's amusing to imagine it provoked retaliation in the form of legislation that never got passed. It was also apparently simultaneously considered pro-communist in America and banned in the USSR, Germany, and Italy)
5 comments:
A legitimate delay in legislation, to revise or discuss the law as written, is always a good thing. But it was mention, the current form of filibustering seems to turn into Senators sticking their fingers in their ears while simultaneously saying "La la la la la I can't hear you!" The institution is an important one, and while it does give a lot of power to the minority, like Madison said, it prevents a tyranny of the majority. In a government based on compromises, filibustering makes sense.
That being said, a reform would be useful. Requiring a filibuster to stimulate actual discussion of a bill rather than procrastination would probably help both in bipartisan compromises and successful legislation. The problem is that then the issue would become how to would quantify productive discussion, something that would spark even more discussion.
The current political scene seems to be the exact opposite of what we saw during the documentary we saw in class. At the time, Democrats were a fragmented party that couldn't organize themselves, and Republicans had the party unity. In the wake of the election, though, it seems like Republicans are fraying and Democrats seem to be more united than at any point in history. If they can use that unity to pass a filibuster reform, they would be doing future legislators a favor.
Politics will always have the flaw in trying to balance the "tyranny of the majority." If there is a solid amount of people who disagree with a law, they should have to be forced into the law. However, if the law is too favorable to the minority party we have a "tyranny of the minority." To me it seems there is always a flaw in voting.
And as James said, current filibusters are just a way to disregard what someone is saying. It's not a real discussion of whether the law is correct, but more you're not with my party I can't agree with you. I'll call it a filibuster just to make it seem like I'm doing something when I really am not.
I don't know if getting rid of filibusters will help anything. Personally I don't care too much and our government has been functioning with them, so why not just keep them?
I have a slightly different view on the filibuster reform that has been influenced by this PBS discussion where David Brooks and Mark Shields brought up that when the Republicans were in the majority they wanted to reform the filibuster as well. Which demonstrates how this issue is really about who is in power, the majority party, vs. who is out of power, the minority party. I do agree that the increased use of the filibuster has become a more like a faction hijack than anything else as everyone has seemed to be saying. But I am still concerned about whether passing this filibuster reform will really remedy the problem of gridlock as Bruce mentioned. If these rules were established, as Mr. Stilton mentioned in 5th period today, the Republicans are threatening to withhold the consent needed for unanimous consent in the Senate proceedings. I don't know if it's just being realistic or being cynical, but one way or another I don't see how we can fix this polarization with the reform of some rules or electing people who promise to "reach across the aisle."
It seems to me that the main argument against this filibuster reform is that if we integrate it, people will just find new ways to delay congress with the filibuster, such as "reading from a comic book." However, I feel like this argument is somewhat invalid.
1) Comic books are awesome.
2) The reform might do something occasionally. To actually make a long-term filibuster work, senators will have to put forth effort. Because of this, the reform may actually work in some cases. If senators do decide to put forth the effort; however, then the situation is exactly the same as before where the filibuster delays everything. Ultimately, since there is nothing to lose, what's the problem with the reform? Some things may not change, but some things will, so might as well pass it.
I agree with James that reform is needed, and pretty much anything is better than "la la la." Especially comic books.
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