Critics on the Left: Can We Make the Senate More Democratic?
Yesterday, I posted on advocates of health care reform who are angry about changes in the legislation as it has moved through the U.S. Senate. Today, I suggest that these critics should take aim at the real culprit: an undemocratic rule that the Senate should change.
Why did it take 60 votes to pass health care legislation in the United States Senate, when a majority is 51? How could a single Senator, Joe Lieberman, kill both the public option and the Medicare buy-in, though it’s likely that more than 51 Senators would have supported either one or the other? Why was Senator Ben Nelson able to dictate an abortion provision to a Democratic majority in the Senate?
Because of the filibuster: a profoundly undemocratic procedure that allows a minority of Senators – 41 out of 100 – to block up or down votes on legislation that the minority opposes.
For several decades the filibuster was used for one reason: to block civil rights legislation. The late Senator Strom Thurmond (pictured) holds the record for the longest filibuster in Senate history (according to the Strom Thurmond Institute for Public Affairs); he stood in the Senate chamber and spoke for 24 hours and 18 minutes against the 1957 civil rights bill.
Things have changed since that era. In the 1950s the filibuster was invoked an average of once a year and in the 1960s no more than 7 filibusters were staged during any two-year Senate term. But over time, especially with the realignment of our political parties – Democrats representing the center-left and Republicans the right – the number of filibusters continued to rise. Mark Schmitt suggests, “In terms of culture and custom, the turning point was almost certainly the previous health-reform debate, in 1993 and 1994. That’s when Bob Dole, then the majority leader, made the phrase ‘You need 60 votes to do anything around here’ his mantra, and when — thanks to Bill Kristol’s famous memo — the idea of blocking major legislation for political reasons, rather than trying to get it revised to reflect your own policy preferences, took hold.”
During the 110th Congress – 2007-08 – the Republican minority forced a record 112 cloture votes to end debate (nearly double the previous high).
What had been extraordinary has become routine. Now 60 votes are required for virtually all significant legislation that moves through the Senate. Senator Jeff Merkley of Oregon has suggested, “There’s no question that the Senate has become dysfunctional, and it’s not good for democracy.”
Senator Tom Harkin, who says the filibuster originally served as a way for Senators to delay votes until their colleagues had returned to the chamber (so votes couldn’t be held until all Senators were present), has proposed a change to this rule: essentially, cloture would require 60 votes initially, but the second call for cloture would require only 57 votes, the third vote would require 54, and finally the fourth, 51. The filibuster would slow things down – but prevent a minority of 41 Senators to bring everything to a dead stop.
Representative Alan Grayson, like many members of the House of Represenatives, is unhappy with the way things get stuck in the Senate. “Why should launching wars and cutting taxes for the rich require only 50 votes while saving lives requires 60?” He has setup a website, Stop Senate Stalling, where he has gathered more than 11,500 signatures on a letter to Senator Harry Reid, calling for a rule change in the Senate to require only 55 votes to invoke cloture.
Can we bring a bit more democracy to the United States Senate? Where does Barbara Boxer stand? Dianne Feinstein? Where do progressive Democrats from other states stand on the issue of making the Senate more accountable?
Are you mad about the mangling of health care reform legislation in the Senate? Don’t blame Senator Joe Lieberman. Or Senators Ben Nelson or Harry Reid. Don’t blame President Obama or Rahm Emanuel or the insurance industry. Blame your Senator – who has voted to approve a Senate rule that allows an obstructionist minority to wield disproportionate power.
(Photo of Senator Strom Thurmond, circa 1961, from Wikimedia Commons.)
Sources:
Robert Schlesinger, “The Staggering Rise and Fall of the Filibuster,” (on his blog at U.S. News and World Report) who cites the research of UCLA political scientist Barbara Sinclair.
Matt Yglesias, “The Silenced Majority,” The Atlantic, December 24, 2008. He has also posted on his blog at Think Progress.
Mark Schmitt, at the American Prospect’s TAPPED blog – including “When Did the Senate Get So Bad?” (quoted above) – and at his previous blog the Decembrist, has been writing about filibusters for four or five years. Note: he has been generally supportive of the filibuster.
David Dayen at Firedoglake.
My DD’s desmoinesdem linked to the Burlington, IA Hawk Eye, which quoted Senator Harkin.
James Fallows recently called for discussion of the filibuster on his blog at the Atlantic (which features a nifty chart on the rise of the filibuster).
Ezra Klein, at his Washington Post blog, had references to the filibuster in nine posts during the last week of November.
Paul Krugman, “A Dangerous Dysfunction,” in his December 20 New York Times column.
