Republicans, and even some Democrats, like to say that America is a ‘center-right’ country, and I think they’re probably correct about that. But it’s not really the political beliefs of our citizenry that makes this country ‘center-right.’ Most polling done of Americans’ political beliefs shows them to be quite a bit to the left of where Congress typically lies. For example, the House of Representatives (aka, the People’s House) has an anti-choice majority but no poll shows that the majority of Americans are anti-choice. I think the explanation for this strange result is a combination of uneven distribution (there are lots of districts that are very, very pro-choice and a lot more that are modestly anti-choice) and disproportionate levels of passion (anti-choicers are much more committed to their cause). In any case, the biggest reason our government is far to the right of our people is the U.S. Senate.
This is easier to explain. When California has the same number of senators as Oklahoma, you know something is fucked up right away. Oklahoma has way too much say about what goes on in the Senate, and California has way too little. Far more small states lean Republican than Democratic, and that sways the politics of the country far to the right of where it really belongs.
So, the whole one-person, one-vote thing is badly skewed. Diane Feinstein won reelection in 2006 by winning over five million votes, while James Inhofe won reelection in 2008 with just over seven hundred and fifty thousand votes. Shouldn’t Diane Feinstein’s vote count for five or six times as much as James Inhofe’s?
The Senate is clearly an undemocratic institution. It was born of a compromise that was struck to ensure that we actually had united states backing our new federal government. If not for the two votes per state rule, Virginia and Massachusetts would have dominated our government so much that little Delaware and Rhode Island would never have agreed to join it. Okay, so I understand why this was done. But it skews things. And it’s made immeasurably worse by the filibuster rule, which actually makes it possible for 41% of an undemocratic Senate to block the will of the other fifty-nine percent.
Now, I recognize that this super-empowerment of the minority in our country leads to amazing stability, and that that stability is one of the things that has contributed to making America one of the most attractive places in the world to invest. We’re unique, even exceptional, in that we do not turn on a dime and change our financial or tax policies willy-nilly. If a simple majority could muscle through huge changes, our country would lose this attractive quality immediately. Forecasting the future would be a crapshoot and something essential about our country’s character would be lost. I am not arguing, necessarily, that we want to scrap the filibuster entirely.
But there is a difference between stability and gridlock. For one thing, I do not think that the filibuster is appropriate for presidential appointments. The executive office should be able to fill out its staff in a timely manner. I know this would mean that a filibuster would not be available to beat back controversial judicial appointments, but it’s a price we should pay to make sure that we have an effective government.
I also don’t think that the filibuster should be the final word on legislation. If a senator wants to exert his or her right to have more time to consider a piece of legislation, that’s fine. But a minority should not be able to delay legislation indefinitely. If something is so pressing as to justify using up huge chunks of the legislative calendar to see that it gets a vote, then it should eventually get that vote. Cloture votes should have a sliding scale. The first effort to cut off debate might require 67 votes, the next 60, the next 55, and the last fifty-one. A party determined to have a vote at the 51-vote threshold might have to devote two months of legislative time, but if they’re willing to do that, the issue must be of grave importance, and we can’t allow gridlock to paralyze the government’s ability to tackle pressing issues.
I don’t think most Americans would approve of the undemocratic character of the U.S. Senate if they fully understood it. There might be a strange kind of genius behind it that contributes to our success as a nation, but not if it prevents us from taking action. Not if it thwarts the will of the people to a crippling degree. Not if we can’t have a government that can keep its promises.
I’d go a little further and say that our nation’s stability has little to do with the existence of the filibuster. For evidence I’d point to the fact that the filibuster has rarely been used in the Senate’s history, and typically was reserved for major pieces of legislation (e.g., civil rights bills filibustered by Southern Democrats).
If anything, the routine use of the filibuster—precisely because it thwarts the will of the majority to act on any issue—seems to me to be a rising threat to our democracy and its stability.
Sorry, but I have to half-disagree with you here.
The problem is that the Senate is a system constructed on the idea that the members within it would trust and respect the institution itself. In the past, even in the most heated of times, a proceedural vote was still seen as a proceedural vote and not as a way to artifically inflate the vote requirement for a bill. Members of the GOP have moved beyond respecting the institution and the spirit of it’s rules. They look at it like a game to be managed, and like the big-wigs on Wall Street, they are more concerned with how to “win” than the overall state of the nation.
No, from what I’ve seen, the cloture vote was more designed as a way to give Senators from distant states time to get to Washington and still look over legislation before voting on it. It wasn’t meant to be used as a defacto filibuster (there’s an actual filibuster for that). But the cloture vote of this nature obviously does not serve a legitimate purpose in a day and age in which we can eat breakfast in Hawaii and dinner in DC.
A filibuster is fine. The ability of a Senator to stand up and talk for as long as they can to draw attention to the issue at hand is a great thing. But a cloture vote is NOT a filibuster. Given the advances in travel, once a cloture vote is made, it should simply hold off a vote for a set period of time and that’s it. If it passes, they vote for the final bill right after. If it fails, then two months later (time you chose) the bill comes again up for a final vote unless someone in the minority wants to stand and talk non-stop.
The unfair weighting of the smaller states combined with the true filibuster is enough to hold the stability of our system. In fact, those are actually the two things that have been doing it all these years, and not the minorities ability to indefinately filibuster legislation by way of cloture stalling. It couldn’t have been that, simply by the fact that it has never been done to this extent before. Ever.
There’s no need for the filibuster for stability. The staggered terms of Senators provides that.
The fundamental problem with the filibuster, or the right to unlimited debate, is that it presumes a desire for consensus. That desire has been present in varying degrees for most of existence of the Senate. But now it is gone, and it’s not coming back. It’s time to update the Senates rules to reflect the change.
Shorter Booman: our citizenry isn’t center-right, our political institutions are. Our electoral and legislative institutions still work from the blueprint that was set up in 1789, and while its been modified a bit since then, we’re still largely playing by the rules of the game set up by a group of progressives in the late 18th century.
The crisis of governance going on right now isn’t entirely due to these ancient and outdated institutions- its more due to the radicalization of the center-right party in the 2 party system created by our electoral institutions.
Institutional changes cannot correct the fact that the Republicans are ideologically committed to not governing and that they nonetheless seek power within the government. Until the voters change that situation, any tinkering with institutions will produce the same results. Republicans are not representing their constituents in good faith.
Hopefully, John Boehner and the Republicans laid their hand firmly on the third rail of American politics yesterday with his comments about Social Security.
What the November election has to change is the narrative about American politics and the Republican part in that. Right now, it likely won’t, and we will have two more years of gridlock.
TarheelDem, I agree that institutional changes (like eliminating or weakening the filibuster) won’t change Republicans’ ideology.
However, eliminating or weakening the filibuster would likely further expose Republicans as the “Party of No”, while at the same time allowing Democrats to enact more of their agenda, and enact it more powerfully.
If the Senate is going to continue to have the filibuster, they are going to have to require that time be actually spent in filibustering instead of horse-trading. The appalling situation now is that the Senate majority trades off provisions in legislation to avoid a filibuster, gets a commitment of support which is in bad faith, and has to face a filibuster of the weakened legislation.
The problem with Republican negotiators is not only that you can buy them but they don’t stay bought.
Agreed.
Here are some possible filibuster reforms. I’d be interested in what you (and everyone else) thinks about these (and other) options:
Thoughts?
Eliminate the filibuster except for judges I say. They can do it for judges to, but there are sensible arguments about that. All other appointees should not be subject to that.
Much as I hate the filibuster, I’ve been pushing for option 3 for a while now. It assures that minority views will be heard but takes away their power to thwart the will of the majority. It should also take away most of their power to bargain for votes, while giving a chance of inclusion to less-popular ideas that have actual merit.
The Harkin option, which is basically what Boo is suggesting (though I don’t know where he comes up with 67 votes for starters) would accomplish much of the same thing.
I think either of those proposals need to be regarded as the final compromise positions. If they can’t be agreed to, nuke the whole thing. No outcome could be worse than keeping things the same, and I don’t see that lowering the threshold would solve anything at all. The concept of the filibuster in its present form is the problem, not the numbers required. The real issue is to renounce the whole possibility of minority rule.
That said, I agree with keeping a majority requirement for confirming SC appointments — it’s the one area where consensus really is a virtue, and is possible.
DaveW, thanks for your response/thoughts.
A couple minor corrections (I think):
I don’t think the filibuster is the main issue.
I think the problem is the ability to dual track legislation; a relatively new tactic designed to deal with the rise of filibusters.
If the senate was only able to consider one thing at a time; then the consequences of a filibuser would be higher and therefore actually ALLOWING them to occur would be politically beneifical for the country. It would bring clarity to the issue.
Right now, the democrats are getting stuff done DESPITE the unimaginable obstacles in their path. And people IMO want more and get angry when stuff like unemployment runs out. They blame the party in power. Lack of stimulus hurts the economy; they blame the party in power.
Republicans want to bring the country so low democratic voters are demoralized and independents are outraged and want to throw their bum out.
It would be harder for them to work this strategy if Democrats actually stopped and slowed down and made them filibuster in the light of day.
JMHO
Rhoda, I’m somewhat sympathetic to your argument. However, all Republicans have to do to filibuster is defeat a cloture vote. During the “debate” Republicans can talk about anything they want (e.g., “why are Democrats trying to force through an unpopular energy bill that will make gasoline more expensive when what we Republicans want is to put Americans back to work?!”).
Second, there are literally hundreds of bills that have passed the House that Senate Republicans are prepared to filibuster.
In my opinion, the way to deal with the rise of filibusters is to make it harder (or impossible) to filibuster. I’m not convince that eliminating “dual-track” legislation accomplishes that end.
If Obama and real democrats want to accomplish anything in the next two years, they must push to rein in the filibuster. In my view this is the most important single thing that needs to be done. All we’ve heard about for the last 18 months is Nelson and Landrieu and Collins and Snowe and now Brown.
This is also a no-excuses type thing. Progressives find it infuriating that americans blame democrats for lack of progress when the legislative process is blocked by the filibuster, but in a way the blame is valid: Stop letting republicans play games and end the filibuster. The filibuster isn’t a beloved right granted by the constitution. Unfortunately the fact that the filibuster gives corporate dems cover, and that many senate democrats probably see the filibuster as part of their institutional prestige and prerogatives, makes me extremely pessimistic about it being phased out. I’m just not seeing any serious push for this, although its early.
The cloture rule, as other commenters have noted, is an anachronism when no legislator needs 24 hours to be present for a vote and copies of revised legislation can be read electronically from anywhere. Make a “no” vote a delay of 24 hours only, as others have suggested.
On the filibuster, what about a different tack? I’m loathe to abolish the filibuster – it served the country well when in 2002-06 Republicans wanted to ram through some truly dreadful legislation. Some day, they will again. (And they feel the same about Obama.) But why not limit the number of times it can be invoked in one session? Or limit the number of times it can exceed x hours? That would preserve the right to slow down or stop contentious legislation, while forcing the minority party to prioritize. It would make blanket obstructionism impossible while still preserving a safety net for stopping the tyranny of the majority.
This would also need some tinkering to prevent the majority from slapping the same contentious material on as an amendment to every bill that comes along until the minority literally runs out of time. But you get the general idea.
It occurs to me that the VA/MA cave to the small states presents a remarkable parallel to exactly the same kind of narrow politicking that’s driving us crazy today. The pols of the day were so obsessed with “holding the union together” that they compromised a principle — democratic rule for the sake of political “pragmatism”. What would RI and DE have done if the big states had stuck to their guns? Become nationettes on their own? I don’t think so. If they tried holding out they’d have quickly been reduced to kids looking in the candy store window, begging to come in. Their defiant but brief absence wouldn’t have made a particle of difference in the end. But the pointless “centrism” probably did create a model that continues to bedevil us right up to today.
I fully agree on executive appointments — in fact I think it was a stupidity to require executive branch appointment approval at all — with the possible exception of the attorney general. SC appointments, thought are a very different matter. I think they’re the one place where consensus really should play a major role — the one case where the outcome is too permanent and important to enable by a mere majority.
“that stability is one of the things that has contributed to making America one of the most attractive places in the world to invest”
I greatly doubt that. We get a lot of investment because we’re rich and big. It seems just as likely that the filibuster and related pomposities in fact give would-be investors pause regarding our collective sanity. We see the result of deadlocked government all around us in the financial realm: we’ve become a laughing stock in technologies we pioneered, including broadband, cable/phone, sustainable energy development, genetics, as well as basic and advanced education. In each case, the way is blocked because our system allows government to be bought so easily because so few “representatives” have such absurd power to thwart what’s best for the country.