More Red State fail:
President Obama and Senate Democrats have recently floated the idea that it’s time to get rid of the filibuster. So the argument goes, the filibuster is an anti-democratic obstacle that prevents good government and rule by the will of the people.
It’s a valid point.
Come to think of it, the Senate is chock-full of anti-democratic anachronisms. First off, two senators represent each state, regardless of population. What happened to one person, one vote?
And six-year, staggered terms: what’s up with that? It’s another feature that seems designed to make the Senate independent of the will of the people.
So, what do you have if you take the Senate and strip away its anachronistic anti-democratic features? The filibuster, staggered six-year terms, and disproportionate representation?
You have the House of Representatives.
The voters have spoken. Republicans will control the next House by 242-193.
If that proportion translated to the Senate, Republicans would have an advantage of 56-44.
Democrats owe their current majority in the Senate to those anachronistic features that put some difference between the body and the will of the people.
The bottom line is this: the Senate was never intended to be a democratic body, a reflection of one man, one vote. It is a deliberative body, and a consensus-building body. The filibuster has an important role to play in making that possible.
Shorter Red State- “We don’t know the difference between things spelled out in the Constitution and Amendments and rules the Senate makes to run their body.”
This isn’t rocket surgery- Article 1, Section III (modified with the 17th amendment), lays out that there will be two Senators from each state, broken into different classes to stagger the terms. Article 1, Section V, discusses the ability for each chamber to create and maintain Rules of Proceedings. It gets trickier from there (I’m still shocked how few people read Congress Matters, which really is one DKOS’s greatest contributions, IMHO), with extant Senate rules determining how rules change from term to term, but the basics are clear. The Constitution specifically states who is to make up the Senate and how their terms are supposed to run, and it also specifically states that the Senate gets to make up their own rules, which could include the filibuster, or, you know, if they choose, not include the filibuster.
Jeebus.
ruemara
Back away from the c o m p u t e r, Cole. Go win WG or work on some Therazane rep. No more posts for you.
dr. bloor
The font size of the copies of the Constitution they perpetually claim to be carrying in their wallets is far to small to actually read, silly blogger.
Redshift
The operative reference when they talk about the Constitution is always A Fish Called Wanda:
Linda Featheringill
Actually, relatively few people have read the consittution.
Maude
wtf are they talking about?
What’s gone wrong is the abuse of the filibuster as the rules stand now.
Snotty creeps.
Carnacki
CA Berkeley WV, a woman I convinced to blog after meeting her at a West Virginia Serenade in Martinsburg, was a front pager at Congress Matters with my longtime nemesis Kagro X. I’m just sayin’ is all.
Calouste
@Redshift:
I was going to make a very similar remark. Knowledge isn’t the same as understanding.
rob!
Did none of these teabaggers grow up watching Saturday Morning cartoons and they all missed those Reading Is Fundamental PSAs?
(Although I guess to a teabagger a PSA is socialism, so…)
SiubhanDuinne
O/T but John, we can haz picture of Suzanne’s bebeh plz, thxbai!
Chyron HR
And if Republicans had brains, they’d be Democrats. Your point?
Jay in Oregon
This is where I go scrounge the Red State archives for the full-throated condemnations of the “nuclear option” when it came to filibustering judicial nominees during the Bush Administration, right?
JimF
Congratulations John, you made it 3 hours.
General Stuck
Dems can over rule the parliamentarian and change a standing rule of the senate. It is what the wingers planned to do on judges. As it is true there is not a specific type of vote, or supermajority vote found in the constitution. But it just isn’t that simple to wave a wand and call for a simple majority vote to abolish the cloture rule. That provided dems can come up with 50 votes in the first place. And the Kos link leaves out the fact that the senate runs on unanimous consent and there are many other ways for the minority to block the majorities agenda. But it is rich that Red State is crying foul when they were ready to do it for executive session and judges, but now suddenly elections matter after the wingnuts blocking about everything that moved and abusing the filibuster rules the past two years. Fuck them treasonous bastards.
Anyways, I’m past the point in caring what happens in the senate, as it is a big dead fish that cannot be revived imo. The wingnuts killed it dead as a hammer, and have made it quite clear they will not accept minority rule in this country, or even being the minority themselves, and visa vi accept liberaltardism as masters of their domains. And I see no way of stopping this tumble toward rebellion in one form or another, at some point, that will in all likelyhood need to be settled by the bullet, rather than the ballot.
General Stuck
think of the senate as the canary in the coal mine, or the alarm bell sounding that part of the country has quit participating. RS is right that the senate was built for consensus building. And when one side wants no part of that, then politics by other means is looming in the distance. Far or near, who knows? Same sort of thing happened in the decade or so leading up to the civil war.
earlofscriggs
like a stopped clock, Red State is technically right on this one. cf. Nate Silver, if more Senate seats had been in play this term, the Democrats would have lost the Senate too. And it is an antidemocratic insitution.
Malron
I think racism-for-brains is onto something here. I mean, is it really Democratic that Wyoming has as many votes in the senate as California? Shit, there are more people in Compton than there are in Wyoming. (NOTE TO ALL TROLLS: that last line about the population of Compton vs Wyoming was pure hyperbole, not deliberative thought based on researched statistics or any of those other things than betray my affinity for them schools that teach fancy learning and other stuff that make the short and curlies on your TruckNutz burst into flame. I AM DELIBERATELY TRYING TO RILE YOU UP and send you off to compile and endless number of links to “refudiate” what I said, even though most sane citizens will pick on whatIdidbackthere instantly.)
MTiffany
The Senate was never intended to represent the interests of the people of the United States, it was originally intended to represent the interests of the States. Unless of course anyone cares to argue that the US Senate got their own history wrong…
Jason
I never stop being amazed by the idea that all this media criticism focuses on the output of, what, maybe 2,352 people – pundits, think tankers, cronies, even politicians themselves via media statements – in all? The gross domestic stupid produced by this tiny island nation is staggering.
Malraux
For me, as near as I can tell, that isn’t what the senate does, nor was that it’s original intention. Moreover, the question in my mind remains “is the senate a good idea or a bad idea?”. The original constitution was pretty experimental, I don’t see anything wrong with saying that it got some basic structural issues wrong.
zmullls
OK, I’m a BJ Obamabot and Red State hater as much as the rest of yez.
But…..I actually can detect their sarcasm here. I think they *do* know what the Constitution says, and they are being sarcastic — saying, oh sure, get rid of the filibuster and then get rid of all the other things the Consitution says that makes the Senate different from the house! The Senate (they are saying) is all about slow deliberation, unlike the House which is more responsive to the people year to year.
That voice they are using — ‘Hey, why not get rid of two Senators from each state?’ — is the voice (they think) of the idiots (they think) who want to get rid of the filibuster.
The thing they are getting wrong is that the filibuster is created and changed at the whim of the Senate, and all those other things are actually in the Constitution. So it makes perfect sense (we say to them) that we can change the filibuster without violating the meaning of the Senate.
But I *don’t* read that and think they were so stupid they didn’t know what the Constitution said (mostly) about the Senate.
Ruckus
It would be even better if they had any sense of logical thought in making arguments about things they don’t read and probably couldn’t comprehend if they had read them.
Quaker in a Basement
Oh, don’t worry. The boys at RedState will come around and see reason on filibuster rules–when the GOP holds a majority again.
tomvox1
@ John Cole:
Aren’t you supposed to be on vacation? Your posting output is double the norm. Not that I’m complaining but… LOL.
Merry, merry,
T.
bloodstar
At the risk of having my head explode from the cognitive dissonance, I think the Red State poster was simply being a smart ass, and his point he was trying to make was in the last two paragraphs.
We’re not a Democracy, and thank FSM for that, after all, if 40% of the US population believes in strict Creationism, and I can bet you that they’re going to be older and more likely to vote, what sort of damage could they do as a voting bloc.
I’m going to wash my brain out with bleach now ;)
Caz
The “one person, one vote” idea is called the House of Representatives. For progressives, the Constitution is merely an impediment to progress. “And we would’ve gotten away with it too if it weren’t for that meddling Constitution!” They’ve so tortured the Constitution over the last hundred years that it’s been rendered virtually meaningless. It was designed to significantly limit federal power, but progressives have chipped away at it for so long, that federal power is virtually unlimited at this point. If the personal mandate of Obamacare is upheld by the Supreme Court, that will basically mark the end of limits on federal power.
General Stuck
@Caz:
That’s precious coming from no doubt a former Bush supporter and his unitary executive theory and practice. IE torture, indefinite detention and a long list of autocratic bullshit basically wiping away the concept of divided government via three co equal branches. Which is the real constitutional construct for keeping the federal government in check. Not from providing SS, Medicare and now universal health care. If the SCOTUS strikes down the use of the Commerce Clause with HCR, then you will likely get your powerless government and dog eat dog America. You fuckers think that will put you a leg up on controlling this little empire. I wouldn’t count on that.
Sly
The House isn’t much of a democratic body either, chief. Congressional districts range in size from 500k to 900k people because of the 435 cap, which was set up by the 1929 Reapportionment Act solely to protect incumbents from the electoral perils created by migration.
But if we got rid of the 435 cap and instituted a more equitable apportionment system, most of the new seats would have to be created in urban areas of not-real-America. So fat chance of that ever happening.
Nylund
Lord, people…Red State is saying, “oh, you want to shred this part of the constitution (the filibuster), then why not shred these other parts too (number of reps, staggered terms, etc.)?” The latter being said facetiously as a way of mocking the idea of shredding the first. But, as Cole is pointing out, that first part (the filibuster) ISN’T in the constitution, so equating it with things that actually are is dumb.
Is everyone drunk or something? Why did this go over the heads of so many commenters here tonight? Usually its a pretty bright bunch.
TooManyJens
Shorter RedState: The Senate already has all these antidemocratic features, so what’s one more?
Of course, since the Founders were willing to put in all those other features but weren’t willing to go so far as to require 60 votes to get anything done in the Senate, that’s not such a strong argument.
burnspbesq
Isn’t “RedState fail” redundant?
Andy K
@Caz:
What, not “the last hundred and fifty years”? I wonder why you chose to settle on a hundred. Couldn’t be because the most significant change to the Constitution- the 14th Amendment, which, amongst other things, incorporated the Bill of Rights to the states- was passed by those ultra-liberal, ultra-federalist Republicans of the 1860s, could it?
Triassic Sands
I’m going to go waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay out on a limb here and suggest that RedState will discover this should they take control of the Senate in 2012. Should that happen, and the Dems threaten a filibuster, stand back…
MobiusKlein
@Malron: Compton – pop 93,962. Your comment is better if you use Fresno pop 505,479 vs Wyoming 544,270.
Probably the largest city most in the US haven’t heard of.
MobiusKlein
@Caz: Talk to me about States Rights when Alabama gets the Bomb.
Things have changed in the world.
Here’s a thought- during the Cold War, the US had a policy of not ruling out a nuclear first strike against Russia, or whoever else we wanted. Without actually having Congress declare war.
On the orders of one man.
But how many strict constitutionalists raised a ruckus about that at the time?
Zero.
Joey Maloney
@General Stuck: visa vi accept liberaltardism as masters of their domains
Sorry, could you translate this into English for me? Ta very much.
Peter J
Considering that the House used to have a right to filibuster up until 1842, do the constitutionally challenged people over at RedState want to bring that back?
It also seems that they don’t seem to grasp that the Senate filibuster didn’t actually become a possibility until 1806. Why would they go against the will of the founders?
Peter J
@MobiusKlein:
I blame my knowledge of the existence of Fresno on the TV series.
Nick
He is right that the Senate was never meant to be a Democratic institution.
It also was never meant to be as powerful as it is.
louc
@Malron: I’ll go one further. District of Columbia has more residents than Wyoming and the Republicans just stripped our delegate of the ability to vote on the floor. But they tell us DC is too small to have one Representative and two Senators.
RP
I never understood Silver’s point re the Senate. This is a classic example of “if my aunt had balls….” Who cares what the Senate would look like if ever seat had been in play? The terms are staggered in order to avoid this kind of quick turnover and allow the senate to float above the political passions of the moment. That’s the whole point. The House, OTOH, was designed to reflect the mood of the country at a particular point in time.
Exactly. I think John understands the original poster’s point. He’s just saying that comparing the overall structure of the Senate to the specific rules for the filibuster makes no sense.
John Cole
@Nylund: Thank you.
TR
That RedState comment thread is so full of failure.
My favorite is the guy posting as “ohiohistorian” who, I’m praying, is nothing of the sort because he has no grasp of history. He insists it was Democrats who led the charge in repealing Glass-Steagall, which came through the Gramm-Leach-Biley bill — guess what party those three sponsors were?
jfxgillis
John:
I almost opened a Red State account just to say what you said in the thread beneath that idiotic post, so thank God you wrote this so the temptation’s gone.
Evolved Deep Southerner
@Joey Maloney: I think he meant “vis a vis” there, Joey.