Leading Democrats are hinting at the possibility of changing the rules in light of the victory of Scott Brown in Massachusetts — possibly doing away with the long-protected right to filibuster. Rep. Barney Frank has called for the Senate to change its rules while Vice President Joe Biden has decried the use of the rule by Republicans.
Putting aside the value and history of the rule, the Democrats appear to be doing precisely what they accused the Republicans of doing when the GOP was in power: manipulating the rules in raw power plays in Congress. Many Democrats are seeking to push through legislation before Brown arrives despite that fact that he was elected primarily on the basis of his promise to oppose the health care bill. Sen. Jim Webb has cautioned against such a move, here. House dems have already indicated that they are not interested in the suggestion from some in the Administration that they simply adopt the Senate bill to avoid any vote with Brown, here.
By any measure, the GOP winning Ted Kennedy’s seat is a seismic event — particularly given the focus on opposing the national health care legislation. In light of the election, the use of interim Senator Paul Kirk to push through legislation would be unseemly when he was never elected and clearly does not represent the wishes of the people of Massachusetts.
Changing the rules when you cannot win elections (even the bluest seat in the bluest state) is equally unseemly. Yet, that is what Frank appears to be suggesting:
“It is time to shut it down. God didn’t create the filibuster, it’s part of the Senate rules. . . .We have a serious constitutional problem. There has been a de facto amendment of the U.S. Constitution in an anti-small-D democratic direction. . . . It is outrageous. It tends to be, in many cases, the senators from those smaller states that aggregate to get up to be the 40.” Less populous states, he argued, end up with a disproportionate amount of power.
Biden also seems to have such a change in mind when he said the following on Sunday:
“As long as I have served … I’ve never seen, as my uncle once said, the constitution stood on its head as they’ve done. This is the first time every single solitary decisions has required 60 senators,” Biden said. “No democracy has survived needing a supermajority.”
Biden did not seem bothered by the filibuster rules when he was in the Senate in the minority.
The use of the filibuster can be traced back as early as Roman senator Cato the Younger. Both the House and Senate once had the filibuster rule. The house got rid of it in 1842. In 1917, a rule allowing a vote of cloture was passed to limit filibuster, but it still required 60 votes. Its use increased in the 1960s as segregationists opposed civil rights legislation.
Celebrated in the movie “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington,” the filibuster has often been heralded as forcing the Senate to reach compromises with large minority interests. If there are 41 members opposed to something like the national health care legislation, advocates insist that it is a good thing to force the majority to reach a reconciliation. The rule prevents a series of muscle votes by a slim majority.
Ironically, the health care bill may be an example of the value of the rule. Unlike the opposition to the civil rights legislation, there are credible concerns over the health care bill from both the left and the right. One could argue that such an important and historic bill should pass with at least 60 Senators or be rewritten to achieve greater consensus.
I have always shared some misgivings about the filibuster rule and Frank certainly has some good points to make. However, I do not like changing rules when it suits an election-challenged majority. This is simply not the time for such a debate – which will appear pathetically opportunistic and cynical. I think it would be a mistake to try to force through the legislation by slowing down the addition of Brown to the Senate or changing the rules to suit the majority. The insistence of the Democrats to pass something (or anything) labeled health care reform has led to a series of compromises and contradictions in the legislation. From the outset, the White House made so many compromises with the drug companies and other lobbies that it undermined its own credibility. Now, many liberals do not like it. Many conservatives hate it. Yet, the Democrats politically feel that they have to pass something at any cost.
I have to agree with Webb, who is being attacked by some commentators. If the Democrats can pass legislation with the new make-up of Congress, so be it. However, they should not tarnish their credibility or that of the final bill, by changing the rules or circumventing Brown.
I worked for Ted Kennedy in his 1980 presidential run and I am saddened that his seat was lost on this basis to the GOP. This was Kennedy’s legacy and the driving force of his final years in the Senate. However, the people of Massachusetts have a right to be heard on the question. Regardless of all of the effort to spin this loss, it was not simply a bad campaign (though Coakley was pretty weak in the campaign). This was a campaign that focused on national health care and the status quo in Washington.
I have long been a critic of this Administration and the Democrats in their utter abandonment of principle on issues like torture and civil liberties. While there are many good Democratic members who want to see a return to core values of the party, the party leadership has adopted, in my view, a pretty cynical approach to such issues. Instead, they have tried to be everything to everyone and have pleased no one but themselves. For that reason, many disillusioned liberals (including those who stayed home in the election) believe that they deserve this loss. Instead of changing the rules, how about looking at changing the Democratic position on the host of abandoned issues and values?
Maybe . . . just maybe . . . a few Democrats will now feel that they might as well give principle a chance since hypocrisy has not worked out for them. The Administration adopted many of the same positions as the Bush Administration on issues like privacy and failed to deliver on issues from gay rights to ending corruption in Congress. Democrats caved to lobbyists and engaged in openly corrupt practices that range from tax-funded vacations to obscene pork barrel politics. They has spent money with utter abandon and little concern for waste. After allowing lobbyists to cut up the current bill, there is no serious insurance reform, prescription drug reforms, or other needed elements.
Yet, the Democrats now just can’t understand why people are so unhappy with the Democrats. They have now lost Ted Kennedy’s seat and can only think of clever parliamentary tricks to avoid the result. The problem is much more fundamental and, if they do not understand that, they will not be in the majority for long.
Byron, the Founders weren’t totalitarians. The Constitution’s lyric has been conveniently set aside to argue for a more virulent strain of politics. If equality, freedom, and justice for all means totalitarianism, then we are truly in a hole dug 234 years ago.
This Liberal never left home; the mindset of the Founders is still very clear. One day, we awakened overthrown by those that did.
http://www.light-to-dark.com/unanticipated.html
Byron,
Where have you suggested any action be taken in regards to the corporations for their part in corrupting the system?
Spendell: counter-majoritarian features are hardly an inpingment on “freedom.” That’s a goofy statement.
The Bill of Rights is counter-majoritarian and it is not an “impingment of freedom.” Its the exact opposite.
The super majority rule in a similar vein a restraint of a majority being able to do whatever it wants to do. Under our system, the majority does not get to run roughshod over the minority. We need more of this, not less. There is no way a slim majority should ever be able to (for example) send our country to war. Declaration of war should be ALWAYS subject to a super majority.
But all of this neglects the reality that the democrats HAD a supermajority for a whole year. There is a reason why they were unable to pass healthcare: their constituents didn’t want it. It remains extremely unpopular.
In other words, the people are actually getting what they want. It is democracy in action.
My apologies to those adding relevant commentary after I had begun writing. I should have checked again before posting. The opinion flood has begun.
Byron–
“The election of Scott Brown is a response to a government that has gone to far. It is not about any love for republicans our hatred for democrats. It is about peoples fear of a government that has grown to large and which does not consider us to be part of the equation.”
************
I think a lot of people are disappointed in the Democrats not because they have taken over control or gone too far…but because THEY HAVEN’T DONE ANYTHING! The Obama administartion decided not to prosecute war criminals who worked for the Bush administration. It didn’t do anything to curb Wall Street practices that got our country into this financial mess. The fat cats on Wall Street are still raking in huge bonuses. It’s trying to be bipartisan with a bunch of elephants who are acting like stubborn mules who refuse to work collaboratively on creating a healthcare bill that could really help reduce medical costs in this country.
I haven’t seen any of the change I had hoped for!
The Senate itself is a ridiculous impingement of freedom. The idea that a Senator from North Dakota has the same weight as one from Texas is absurd. It was put into the Constitution by Southern States that feared the Norths growing population and industrial success. The fillibuster rule, Mr. Smith goes to Washington to the contrary, has been used to the detriment of the country for the most part and is an anachonism in and anachronistic body. The current iteration that allows a fillibuster, without actually holding the floor made the whole thing ridiculous. Perhaps, if the need to actually hold the floor was brought back this would solve the problem as the nation could watch the antics on C Span.
Gyges:
how do I not want to punish the pusher?
Gyges:
out of control government presupposes a lose of control by the people, otherwise it would not be out of control.
But you are right and “out of the peoples control” would have been a more correct turn of phrase.
seems to me with have fascism on the right and social welfare on the left. Both different sides of the same coin – totalitarianism.
It is about big government in bed with big business and we pay to feed both the poor and the rich.
Business needs to extract itself from government and vis versa.
The election of Scott Brown is a response to a government that has gone to far. It is not about any love for republicans our hatred for democrats. It is about peoples fear of a government that has grown to large and which does not consider us to be part of the equation.
FF LEO–
The awful thing about elections for me: I often find myself voting AGAINST a certain candidate than FOR a particular candidate.
Ms. EM’,
No Ma’am, I am not and that is quite troubling for someone who champions democratic principles regardless of Party affiliations.
Byron,
I think the turn of phrase that’s more accurate would be “The Government’s out of the People’s control.” Somebody’s (or rather some legal fictions) is (are) in control, but it’s not the voters.
The problem with you is that you only want to punish the drug addict, and not the pusher. Then you act surprised when the addict’s son gets a hold of drugs too.
On the filibuster, my (unoriginal)suggestion is this: Make them actually filibuster. I have a feeling that when the gentleman’s agreement to just pretend that a filibuster happened went away, it might help the filibuster once again become a last alternative.
O.K., I see. No one wants to risk an opinion, other than the Professor.
Some history:
http://thehill.com/opinion/columnists/dick-morris/4735-the-filibuster-fight-will-be-disastrous-for-the-gop
Even so, I ask: Has our nation ever come this close to totalitarian rule by the right wing? I think not. The Bush junta brought us very close to the edge. Once over that edge there’s no turning back to democracy. Corporatism is forever.
I wouldn’t agree with Biden if we hadn’t been warned by retired Supreme Court Justice Day O’Connor, who made it clear that we had come very close to dictatorship (during Bush’s rule). Those same people poised to overthrow the Union haven’t gone anywhere and are fully engaged in an effort to go full bore totalitarian in the form of corporatism at first opportunity.
Napolitano made it very clear. We have a serious right wing problem in this nation. That, my good lawyer friends, should be a red flag that signals the need for drastic change.
The obstructionists have forced our hand by continuing their ideological obsession. This is our opportunity to get every major piece of legislation signed into law-including single payer with all the bells and whistles and save the Republic from corporatism once and for all. Our country will slide directly back into a corporatist state should the administration continue to be held static. Obama is not a bold president. He is a compliant mollifier. It’s time to take control.
Did Roosevelt have to fight the filibuster rule? Yes, but America wasn’t on the verge of surrender to an alien ideology.
This isn’t about tit for tat. It’s about fascism v. democracy. At any other time, I’d agree with the Professor, but this is war and our nation stands at the precipice.
http://www.light-to-dark.com/senate_republicans_visit_iraq.html
Pardon me now, as I raise my flack shield.
FF LEO–
“…I am most likely through voting for liars, hypocrites, and crooks.”
Not leaving yourself a big field of candidates to pick from in either party, are you?
Elaine: You have an amazing sense of humor.
Cheers.
Wayne–
It wasn’t a euphemism. I was using my words in a literal manner. Don’t translate my words for me. I see that you may prefer to use sexual innuendo.
I think one of the Trolls, nom de plumes is coming out.
“If Obama moves to the right and continues to follow the path of Rahm Emanuel and the DLC, he’s sunk.”
Worked for WJC and it will work for BHO.
rcampell: I completely disagree that Obama was elected to ram healthcare down our throat, but you are almost on to something. It’s funny that you failed to mention the elephant in the room. Hint: it rhymes with “tie-rack.”
THAT is why Obama was elected. In fact he probably wouldn’t have even beat Hilary but for his hardline position on finally getting us out of Iraq. Remember all of the moderates and even conservatives that voted for Obama because of his position on Iraq? They are all pretty damned pissed now.
The ONE THING he was elected to do, he ignored. Instead we get stuck with the Great Stimulus Swindle, federal takeover of health care, cap and trade, etc.
What about Iraq, String! What about Iraq?
If Obama moves to the right and continues to follow the path of Rahm Emanuel and the DLC, he’s sunk. He MUST move left and get the Progressive agenda through Congress by every means possible. Arms must be twisted, reelection funds for wayward Blue Dogs withheld and any other strong arm tactics should be used when necessary to get things done. Screw bipartisanship.