« Innocence Lost | Main | Small Samples for Edwards » Love That Filibuster13 Dec 2007 03:46 pm An amendment by Senators Byron Dorgan (D-ND) and Charles Grassley (R-Iowa) to make our crazy farm subsidy policies somewhat less crazy got 56 votes in the Senate. There are, of course, 100. So, naturally, the amendment failed. Similarly, one good low-cost way to start moving toward addressing global warming would be to take back some tax subsidies for oil companies. Fortunately, the Senate had a bill like that. Equally fortunately, the bill got 59 votes. So, naturally, it went down to defeat. Comments (32)
As a kid listening to Radio Moscow on shortwave 30-40 years ago, I used to laugh at the Soviet Union referring to the "undemocratic" political system of the United States. I stopped laughing a long time ago -- definitively in December 2000. 
My question is why Reid is bringing this crap to the table when he's got at least THREE votes debating in Iowa right now?
Yes, that's it. Change a rule that is older than the Senate (English Parliment had it before) because you didn't win a vote. I can't see how that could end badly. Instead, let's all commit to, come election season, putting in a little time at Democratic campaign offices instead of ruminating on the internet?
Its the new math...remember in base GOP 41 will always be more than 59 unless the GOP is running the Senate.
A major part of this problem is not requiring the people who say they're going to filibuster to actually filibuster. Let the public get an eyeful of who is obstructing the process and why they're doing it. If the Democrats can't move forward on this, they're not going anywhere.
I wouldn't mind so much if this meant Republicans actually had to filibuster. Give me old dudes reading the phone book at 3:00 in the morning. Thats a filibuster. But this 60 vote BS needs to go.
What Spike and Serial Catowner say - they get away with this shit because they are allowed to get away with making 60 votes into the minimum for passage. A well chosen issue to just let them filibuster would surely help, wouldn't it?
If you want a preview of the years 2009-20012 in federal government, consider the political history of California over the last decade: a broadly Democratic majority tied in knots by a disciplined minority of wingnutters who could care less what colateral damage they do to society as long as their handful of core positions are defended 100%.
Y'all assume that the Democrats actually want to pass these bills. Not obvious, could be just a kabuki dance; that 59-41 vote, for example, sounds like it might be a push to extort more bribes and campaign contributions from the oil companies.
If the Dems are in the minority, the Republicans win. If the Dems are in the majority, the Republicans win. But at least they get to go to good parties!
Yes, please, please get rid of the filibuster. And to those making BS arguments about ancient traditions, keep in mind that cloture requirements have been changed repeatedly throughout American history. IIRC, the number of votes need for cloture was reduced from 66 to 60 as recently as the mid-70s.
And to the extent abb1 is right that the Dem leadership didn't really want to pass some of these bills, that's all the more reason to get rid of the filibuster. A straightforward majority vote makes it much easier to hold legislators accountable.
I don't mind the filibuster. It has a role. What I do mind is that, pre-2007, whenever a group of Dems. looked like they might filibuster, you had all the media folk clutching at their pearls, decrying the partisanship of it all. Yet now, they barely mention the filibuster.
DAS- But that's the whole point. The more complex and anti-democratic the rules are, the more they're subject to manipulation by a small elite. The bandwidth between Congress and the public is very limited. When a simple majority vote is all it takes to pass something, it only takes modest resources to convey to people the relevant information -- how their representative voted. but as the rules involved in passage become more complex, we become more dependent on a narrower set of mediators in the political press, who --- we should know by now -- have interests of their own. (Of course the filibuster is hardly the only departure from simple majority voting in Congress, but it's one of the worst and you have to start somewhere.)
The US didn't HAVE a filibuster, at all, until 1804 -- when the Senate was flattered into allowing totally unlimited debate by that noble figure Aaron Burr, in his last act as Veep. (After all, as he told them, they were all Gentlemen and would surely never abuse the privilege.) After they'd passed it, of course, it was too late -- any attempt to limit the filibuster at all was filibustered. Until 1917, that is, when three Senators announced that they would use it to single-handedly keep the US out of WW I. Woodrow Wilson then made a political tour denouncing them as traitors, and whipped up enough public furor that the Senate voted to allow a cutoff of debate by a 2/3 vote. And there it stayed -- quite enough to block all civil rights legislation. After its usefulness for that purpose finally disappeared in 1964, enough Southern Senators switched to allow the cutoff vote to be reduced again to 3/5 in 1975. I have, I think, made my case that the time has come for annihilating this grotesque, undemocratic -- and accidental -- monstrosity once and for all. I don't give a damn which party it benefits at the moment; it's always been an outrage against small-"d" democracy. And now the GOP has officially decided to use it to block any, repeat any, significant political reforms that any future Democratic President tries to carry out -- until the filibuster is destroyed.
I'm always amazed at how deeply ingrained is the notion that the only "democratic" (small d) rule is "simple majority wins" and that any departure therefom is undemocratic. But why? You might just as easily say that consensus is the only truly "democratic" process; that to impose upon the minority the will of the majority is deeply undemocratic. Certainly most of us feel that way where certain fundamental questions are concerned. Yet, MY and others in this thread just state that a 60-vote requirement is -- apparently self-evidently -- undemocratic. Odd. In any case, to complain about the undemocratic nature of a 60-vote requirement in the Senate, of all places, is really rearranging the deck chairs, isn't it? (Sorry, I'm sure there's a better metaphor.) After all, the Senate is not supposed to be a "democratic" institution. I don't particularly like its design, but boy, to complain about the filibuster as imbuing the Senate with an undemocratic quality is really missing the forest for the trees. (Better metaphor, perhaps?) Anyway, the Dems could find ways to overcome the Republicans if they were willing. You make them actually filibuster, as many have been saying. You tie up the bills the GOP wants with the stuff they don't want, and make them choose. Lots of ways to play this game better than Reid has so far if the Dems want to. As also commented above, though, that's the real question, isn't it
Actually, its not odd at all Glenn. Democracy means that the numerical majority of an organized group can make decisions binding on the whole group. You could easily say that consensus is the only truly "democratic" process; that to impose upon the minority the will of the majority is deeply undemocratic. But you would, of course, be wrong. Unless we're just making up what words mean now.
Doesn't the fact that these were both failures to undo previous bad legislation that actually passed make it kind of weird to use this as an example of why it should be easier to pass legislation in the Senate?
Geoff, if you're replying to Moomaw's (absolutely on-target) comment, no, they aren't weird examples at all. The filibuster delayed civil and political rights for Southern blacks for 20-odd years. That may be no biggie to you, but it sure is to me. And "but the Senate wasn't supposed to be democratic" isn't an argument. It wasn't supposed to be elected by popular vote either. In general, we are much less comfortable with rule by an elite of "gentlemen" than people in the 18th century were. And that's progress. I'd just like a bit more of it.
Nobody said the filibuster has taken the same form throught time; but the protection of legislative minority rights is more ancient than American government. Getting rid of the filibuster would open up more ills, although you see it is difficult to prove that since the minority has always had a voice. I find it telling, though, that people who were in the minority a few years ago forget so quickly that the filibuster is what protects the nation against a contemptible cadre of crooks (Delay, Frist, Foley, Hastert, Cunningham, Santorum, Pombo, and the Executive Branch) until the people rise to their senses and put the Democrats back in power. Now- the Democrats may have been reluctant to USE their power, and may be reluctant now to FORCE the GOP to filibuster. That is is different matter altogether, and I believe the Democrats made mistakes on both of those scores (although they may also be saving it for election year.) Still, the filibuster prevents a lot of crappy things getting passed at the expense of delays in the "good" things getting passed. I'm willing to make the trade every day of the week. Again; let's spend time in Senate campaign offices beating the GOP in '08. 59 votes for a bill means we need a net gain of 1 "yay" vote. 56 means we need a gain of 4. These are reasonable goals; let's make it happen. But for future's sake, keep the rules that have served us, in some form or another, since before there was a U.S. (Don't give me that 1806 bull. Senate debates completely closed off to the public in 1806, and legislatures elected Senators, and land-wning white men had the franchise in most places. The "majority" was nowhere in sight of governing.)
You could easily say that consensus is the only truly "democratic" process; that to impose upon the minority the will of the majority is deeply undemocratic. But you would, of course, be wrong. Unless we're just making up what words mean now. Right. And this is why Democracy can be a terrible thing. So the filibuster isn't a bad rule per se. But it is a bad rule when the Democrats never make the Republicans actually, you know, filibuster.
OMG! Good thing I was sitting down, because the Washington Post reported the story accurately! The headline was an informative description of what actually happened! Praise them! "Senate Republicans Block Energy Bill By Steven Mufson By a narrow margin, the Senate today failed again to block a Republican-led filibuster on an energy bill as GOP leaders made a stand against a $21.8 billion, 10-year tax package that would have extended incentives for wind and solar energy and reduced some tax breaks for oil companies..."
Well, gee! If both votes were taken today, that means Reid can put up the votes on the bills again when the Democratic Senators in Iowa are back in Washington, & the bills will pass. Oh - wait . . . What's the point, since the President will only veto them anyway? A smart politician, like a smart General, chooses his battles carefully. One does not go to war if you know you will lose. The bottom line is, as long as the minority party holds the White House, the majority will always lose on a contested issue. Gimme a freakin' break, fellow libs & Dems! All of you bemoaning the filibuster today would have been screaming bloody murder w/o it a year ago when the Republicans held clear majorities in both Houses of Congress. It was a Democratic filibuster that saved Social Security, as I recall. We will again see a time when we will be in the minority. When that time comes, we will be grateful for the filibuster to prevent same of the more extreme right wing legislation. I also suggest you accept that we live in the real world. In that world, there will be no federal law passed before January 20, 2009 that does not have the support of 2/3 of both Houses, which is necessary to override a Bush veto. It also means we will still be in Iraq without a withdrawal timetable until then. Reality sucks, but it's still reality. So suck it up, live with it, & work to insure a real majority in Congress & the White House in 2009. Or just remain seated behind these keyboards, bitching, if you prefer.
It was a Democratic filibuster that saved Social Security, as I recall. You recall incorrectly. There was no filibuster -- Bush's Social Security proposal never even got majority support, thanks to really excellent grassroots work in the districts of vulnerable Republicans. And this brings out the larger point. Filibusters have almost never been used against bad legislation. The number one use of the filibuster historically has been against civil rights bills, and today it's far more likely to be used against our sdie than against the Right. And there's a reason for that. Good policies are supported by the majority. On labor issues, on the war, on the environemnt, on health care, majority opinion is far to the left of the elite consensus in DC. So anything that gets us closer to majority rule gets us closer to good policy outcomes too.
The only thing worse than the tyranny of the majority is the tyranny of the minority.
To be completely accurate, the amendment to the farm bill was not killed by a filibuster. The Dem leadership, fearing a filibuster that would be supported by (mostly Southern) Dems agreed to rules that amendments to the Farm Bill needed 60 votes. (Blanche Lincoln, D-AR, threatened to block the bill over the subsidy issue; yet another reason she sucks.) So the filibuster was involved, but it was not a filibuster. (The oil company provision was filibustered.) Personally, I am ambivalent about the 60-vote requirement in the Senate. With the Dems in the majority, it certainly sucks, but it was only two years ago that Boxer and Kerry led a filibuster that stopped the Republicans from drilling in the ANWR. And that's just the first example that occurs to me. So the filibuster has definitely helped in stopping some really bad legislation. I even wish the Dems had worn the "obstructionist" label with a bit more pride in the last congress. I think, all things considered, making it hard for Congress to do things is not a terrible idea, even if it does sometimes make it hard to do good things.
You're absolutely right, Matt. However, I would wager that several of these votes were made because the senators new the filibuster would succeed and it wouldn't cost them anything. If those 56 votes actually made a majority in the Senate that majority would probably vanish into the ether.
Democracy means that the numerical majority of an organized group can make decisions binding on the whole group. I realize this is flailing at a dead horse now. But Liz is simply incorrect, and it is she that is making up what words mean. The definition of "democracy" is rule by the people -- really, look it up in any reputable dictionary. ("Demos" meaning people in Greek.) There is nothing inherent in the concept about majority rule. And I believe that's true of the popular conception as well -- people think of a democracy as one in which the people rule, as opposed to the military, or oligarchs, or a monarch, or what have you. It's only when you get into discussions about filibuster that people suddenly discovery that 50%+1 = democracy.
Matt had a post on why Filibsuters are bad for liberals. Basically, filibusters do much more to frustrate progressive social change than they protect it. Also, regarding the relationship between democracy & consensus: yes, a healthy democracy requires more than "50%+1". However, the fact is that, even without the filubuster, our government is already set up to make it difficult to pass legislation. You need to get a majority of the House of Represenatives, a majority of the Senate (which, by giving two votes to each state regardless of size, is itself an extremely undemocratic institution), the approval of the President, plus the consent of the Surpeme Court. With all those checks & balances in place, why the need for yet another obstacle to majority rule?
The Democrats could have made the Republicans filibuster. They chose to let them get away with a stupid cloture vote. This is not the fault of the filibuster. This is the fault of the Senate.
http://www.websters-online-dictionary.org/definition/democracy Democracy 1. The political orientation of those who favor government by the people or by their elected representatives. 2. A political system in which the supreme power lies in a body of citizens who can elect people to represent them. 3. The doctrine that the numerical majority of an organized group can make decisions binding on the whole group.
Comments closed December 27, 2007. |
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Heads in the Sand
Damn, Matt--if only, as you suggested, let the GOPers destroy the 60-vote rule! F--- the fiibuster! It gives even the most unpopular president all functional power.
Posted by elle loco | December 13, 2007 4:04 PM