I’m not sure what I think of this, but this proposal to end the filibuster as interesting (and I actually like his use of the word “Rawlsian” here because he uses it to illustrate his point, not to obscure it):
The passage of time, however, creates an opportunity to drape a veil over politicians’ eyes. There is no way Republican senators would agree to the immediate abolition of the filibuster. But what if the proposal on the table was to get rid of the filibuster in 2017? By then, even a potential second Obama term would have ended. Every sitting senator would have faced re-election at least once. And, most importantly, there is no way to know which party would be in the majority and which would be in the minority.
The things I wonder are:
- Would “mend it don’t end it” be better? The 60 vote requirement seems too high, but maybe something like 55 would be good. I also think that the ability to filibuster some nominees (with some number of votes less than 50, if not as few as 40) may be valuable, in any case.
- Since the filibuster can be abolished on a non-filibusterable vote, how much does it matter what Republicans think here? They were ready to abolish it when they had only 55 Senators in 2005. And they extracted concessions from Democrats in return for not abolishing it. Couldn’t the Democrats do the same by threatening to abolish the filibuster starting now?
Stooleo
The problem with the filibuster now is that it is too easy to do. We need to get back to a “Mr Smith Goes to Washington” era filibuster, where if you want to implement it, you have to get up and talk. It works cause it forces you to put skin in the game.
jeffreyw
No spines.
Keith G
No matter what the cut off vote is, I just want the filibustering senators to need to pull a Strom Thurmond and have to stand and speak for as long as it takes.
They need to have some real skin in the game and the public deserves to see the face of obstruction in action.
Legalize
IOKIYAR
CalD
It would be better to mend it. The Senate was designed to try and protect the minority from the tyranny of the majority and to slow down actions taken in the heat of passion long enough to hopefully let cooler heads to prevail. The filibuster has always been one of the institutions that made that work (when it works). The problem with it right now as I see it, is that the bar is set too low. It’s too easy to do and there’s no penalty for using it frivolously. But the majority party pretty much always wants to do away with it. That’s nothing new.
Keith G
@Stooleo: Great minds….
brent
@Stooleo:
I believe that this has been pointed out many times in these comment section but the reason this will not work is because it is a made up version of how the filibuster works. In reality, this sort of filibuster is much harder on the majority then it is on the minority. It only takes one person to filibuster but it takes 51 to establish a quorum. So the filibustering side only needs to provide one person at a time whereas the non-filibustering side will need to provide at least 51 people at all times. That is not a winning advantage.
Napoleon
In a democracy there should be no way that a group of elected legislators that is less then 50% of the voting members can on their own block action. It is completely unconscionable and a recipe for disaster. Who ever runs the country at the end of the day has every right to enact their agenda and if you don’t like it you should vote and work to make a change in their representatives.
Zifnab
You say that right up until you’re one Senator shy of whatever margin you decide on. I’m sure there are a few Republicans grumbling that they miss the 70 Senator filibuster rule from way back in the day.
I liked Harkin’s scale down proposal, where you can filibuster once to extend debate with 60 votes which extends the time for discussion and then every cloture vote afterwards has diminishing Senate requirements until you end at 51.
While the vote on the filibuster itself is filibuster-proof, the procedure for getting to the filibuster vote can, in fact, be filibustered (if I remember correctly from the days of the nuclear option). There’s some procedural motion to change the calendar or begin debate where you can lock up the Senate indefinitely.
Keith G
@brent: If its worth fighting for….
So what is they miss a fund raiser or two?
Noonan
I think we really need to find out what Lieberman thinks of all this. He is The Decider after all.
SGEW
Oh, so Rawls is ok, but Niebuhr isn’t? So, for instance, describing Obama’s health care speech as being partly built upon Rawls’ Theory of Justice is kosher, but calling his Nobel Prize speech “Niebuhrian” is not?
[This is mostly snark, Doug; I acknowledge your (eventual) point about name-dropping political philosophers in order to obfuscate the issues rather than illuminating them (see, e.g., David Brook’s misuse of Hume, of all people), but still – where’s the dividing line? In your estimation, when may one touch upon a specific philosopher in order to explicate a policy issue, and when may one not? Is it just about whether or not you are personally familiar with the philosopher being mentioned?]
DougJ
Oh, so Rawls is ok, but Niebuhr isn’t? So, for instance, describing Obama’s health care speech as being partly built upon Rawls’ Theory of Justice is kosher, but calling his Nobel Prize speech “Niebuhrian” is not?
It’s not the philosopher, it’s how dropping the name advances the argument. I don’t doubt that there’s some way Brooks could Niebuhr into his arguments in a way that makes the arguments stronger, clearer, and more accessible. But read what he wrote today and tell me that you don’t agree that the name dropping makes a poor argument even worse (if what he’s writing can be called an argument).
EDIT: Honestly, tell me how saying “Niebuhr posits a just war theory, therefore this war is just” helps anything in an argument. Whereas saying “Rawls had an idea of veiling things so that personal interest could not be ascertained, here is an example of how to use that principle” does help explain the context for the idea (of having the filibuster sunset in 2017). I don’t know where the line is, but somewhere between those two.
geg6
@brent:
You know what? I’ve been hearing this argument for going on 20 years now. And you know what again? It doesn’t fly with me. It’s not supposed to be easy. It’s supposed to be a burden. When was the last time these privileged pieces of shit were discommoded by anything at all at any time? So they have to make sure they have all hands on deck? So what? Why is that so hard? If it is an important legislative issue, one that is so important that the opposition feels the need to filibuster, then the majority is nothing but a bunch of pussies who don’t really think the issue is all that important after all and should give up the legislation and go back to the drawing board.
This argument is the biggest goddam copout crap ever.
Oooooo, a burden! Can’t have that!
SpaceSquid
I gotta say I like this idea. Sure, it would be nicer to have rid of the filibuster now. It would be nicer to fix it. It would also be nice if every filibuster created a rainbow that led to a pot of candy.
The advantage to this plan (in theory) is that it would force the GOP to argue for the fiilibuster, and not against Democratic gamesmanship. Of course, since the implication here is that the Democrats think they’ll still be in power in 2017 (and by “implication” I mean “easiest possible conclusion to draw without thinking”), it might not really work out that way…
August J. Pollak
Anything that establishes a gradiating sunset is beyond moronic. The problem with the filibuster is that the GOP is using it by default for everything, thus delaying and extending debate time. Codifying that in the rules is poison. If you make it the official rule that the vote limit will slowly decrease, it essentially obligates the opposition to whine as long as they can.
Ending the filibuster isn’t just about making votes go through; it’s about stopping every vote from taking eight weeks.
If dragging it on is so important (and believe me, it is to them) then the rule should be changed so that votes only need a simple majority, but all votes require a mandatory time period for debate, that can be bypassed with a 60-vote majority. That way the minority reserves their right to “debate” a bill while not having the ability to stop the actual vote from happening.
Face
President Snowe and Directors of Operation Limbaugh and Beck would be very upset.
kid bitzer
@5–
“The Senate was designed to try and protect the minority from the tyranny of the majority and to slow down actions taken in the heat of passion long enough to hopefully let cooler heads to prevail. The filibuster has always been one of the institutions that made that work (when it works).”
we can agree that the senate as an institution is designed to be another choke-point on legislation, slowing down the decisions of the lower house.
but is that last part factually accurate? i mean, has the filibuster “always” worked to protect the minority from the tyranny of the majority?
certainly not during the civil rights era. not during the reagan years, or any of the bush years.
so does this refer to some pre-wwii past? and if so, what were the occasions? when did the filibuster really protect the minority from the tyranny of the majority? how often was the filibuster even used before the civil rights era?
i just want to see the numbers: when you look at filibusters through the ages, how many protected the minority, and how many did not? we know that it was used repeatedly in the civil rights era and later to screw minorities. so what’s on the other side of the balance?
Zifnab
@Napoleon:
You say that now. But the House produced some crazy legislation during the DeLay / Hastert heyday that never saw the light of day because of obstructionist rules in the Senate.
The national legislative process is supposed to be slow and deliberate and easy to obstruct. The current problem we have hinges on a handful of Senators at the margins of victory. We’re sitting at exactly 60 Democrats, and we’re facing a completely lockstep Republican Party. In truth, you’re looking at something very close to 50% of the Senatorial body in opposition to health care reform. And I think the root of that problem lays in the composition of the Senate – Alaska and Wyoming for instance having two Senators but only one Congressman – than in the procedures. Small states with easily corruptible officials hold far more sway than their populations would normally dictate. And the “winner-take-all” electoral system means that you don’t even have to cater to the entire state, just 51% of eligible voters. So, suddenly, the city of Cheyenne (pop, 53k) has as much voting muscle as half the state of California. :-p
somethingblue
I don’t see how the senate of 2009 could bind the senate of 2017 like this.
Bob In Pacifica
With the invocation of “Rawlsian” I thought we were going to go down memory lane, maybe with Lou Rawls rapping about “The Hawk”.
SGEW
@DougJ: Actually, is it ok if I don’t read what Brooks writes, ever?
Is that why you objected so strenuously to the Niebuhr association? Did Brooks (or someone similar) name-drop him? If so, yes, for the love of all that’s good in the world, there should be a moratorium on certain major columnists (i.e., Brooks, Friedman, Douthat, Will, et. al.) referencing philosophers when discussing politics.
But I still hold that Fallows’ (and others’) noting Niebuhr’s (and Rawls’) influence on Obama’s publicly stated policy justifications is spot on.
[And I’m feeling touchy, lately. Sorry.]
ETA: The “argument” you mention (“Niebuhr helped explicate ‘Just War’ theory, and Obama discussed ‘Just War’ theory, so therefore the occupation of Afghanistan is ‘Just'”) is pretty tendentious, all right, and misses the point like crazy. In that sense, yes, it is much, much more about the misuse/misunderstanding of certain philosophers, rather than the certain philosophers themselves.
August J. Pollak
On a completely unrelated note, For god’s sakes John, can you please make your logo image clickable to the home page? It’s infuriating that it’s not. The giant “BALLOON JUICE” graphic not being a link is incredibly counter-intuitive.
jibeaux
It’s an interesting idea, but highly academic and totally impossible. I mean, could you really say there’s actually a Senator today whose goal is to craft legislation untainted by self-interest, based on “ethical rules as if they didn’t know how wealthy they would be, what talents they might have, or what gender, race, or religion they would belong to”? They are ostensibly there to represent their constituents’ interests, and even the best of them come down on the wrong side of policy issues sometimes because of those pesky constituents. They’re not concerned with crafting anything behind a veil of ignorance and they’re not concerned with what 2017 might bring. They’re just politicians, they don’t have the votes right now to abolish the filibuster right now, but they might be able to tweak some of the rules, if they had the interest.
brent
@Keith G:
If its worth fighting for….
That goes both ways Keith. That is, the filibustering side also believes its worth fighting for and in this fight they have a huge advantage over the other side. Its an easy fight for them to win. Thats the point. If on my side, each member of my coalition only has to show up occasionally but essentially every member of your coalition has to be there in perpetuity, I don’t care how much you care about the issue, your side will wear down long, long before mine does. Its simply not realistic to think otherwise.
jenniebee
The things I wonder are: why do we have a bicameral legislature? Why, for that matter, don’t we have a parliamentary system with a single house and snap elections? Because that would clear up a whole bunch of the problems we have today (and give us a whole bunch of new ones, but jeebus, I’m willing to take the new ones for a spin).
DougJ
Is that why you objected so strenuously to the Niebuhr association? Did Brooks (or someone similar) name-drop him? If so, yes, for the love of all that’s good in the world, there should be a moratorium on certain major columnists (i.e., Brooks, Friedman, Douthat, Will, et. al.) referencing philosophers when discussing politics.
Perhaps. But it’s the way they do it that bothers me. It’s setting up a simplistic straw philosopher for them to intimidate readers with. All right, I can’t talk about this anymore — I thought people would get what I was trying to say to begin with (I thought the snark was obvious) and I was woefully wrong, probably my fault.
Cruel Jest
The whole thing gives me a headache.
The GOP: This is why we can’t have nice things.
r€nato
It doesn’t. What matters is that reforming cloture would make it a lot less likely for just one preening prick like Lieberputz to gum up the works.
It’s the Democrats that matter. They won’t change the rules because cloture grants a lot of power to assholes like Holy Joe where a 60 seat ‘supermajority’ can be held hostage by one defector.
r€nato
@jenniebee:
I would welcome a parliamentary system. It is much more responsive to the people. It would permit third parties to play a role in governing without having to displace one of the two major parties.
All of which means, of course, it will never, ever happen.
(not to mention it would take a radical revision of the Constitution, which would be hijacked by the anti-choice crowd, the 2nd Amendment crowd, and anyone else with a single-issue ax to grind.)
Nate W.
@Stooleo: I agree. My way of implementing “mend it, don’t end it,” would be to a) allow the rules committee to set a limit on debate that could be extended in 2-hour increments by requiring the aye vote of 40 senators; b) allowing the chair to ignore quorum calls under certain circumstances; or c) preserving the filibuster only on votes for lifetime appointments.
DougJ:
The parliamentary maneuver was to table an appeal from the decision of the chair, which only requires a majority vote. You can read about it here. Remember that at the time, the Republicans were proposing getting rid the filibuster only for nominees, not for general legislation. Hence the Democrats could threaten to close down the Senate by filibustering every piece of legislation. There is no constitutional argument for crafting a rule that would “mend” the filibuster that could be enacted by majority vote–they can only strike it down in its entirety. Besides, I doubt that you could find 50 senators that would be willing to give up their power to hijack legislation in order to extract concessions. That would be far too responsible.
DougJ
The parliamentary maneuver was to table an appeal from the decision of the chair, which only requires a majority vote. You can read about it here. Remember that at the time, the Republicans were proposing getting rid the filibuster only for nominees, not for general legislation.
Thanks.
SGEW
@DougJ: Sorry for getting a bug up my ass about it, Doug. I get what you’re saying now, I think. And, as far as your essential point about misusing sophomoric wiki-summary philosophical points in order to intimidate readers, you’re right! (Again, Brooks’ Hume and Bentham nonsense irked me to no end).
But I guess snark and Niebuhr don’t mix well, or something. Carry on!
Keith G
@DougJ: Right you are.
In rhetorical logic, this is known as ‘appealing to authority’, formal fallacy – as opposed to Sen. Lieberman who is know as a formal phallus.
Brien Jackson
Grrrrr.
For the 1,223,443,445 time: it has never worked that way in the real world.
Nate W.
@geg6: You still don’t understand how a filibuster works. There is no requirement to speak–just to have one person repeatedly ask for the absence of a quorum every half an hour or so. If a quorum is not found, the majority on the floor can vote to adjourn. This ain’t Mr. Smith Goes to Washington–not by a long shot.
PeakVT
Would “mend it don’t end it” be better?
1) It’s moot: the whole concept is unconstitutional.
2) The Constitution has enough check points as it is.
3) If a filibuster is such a great idea, why doesn’t the House have one? Arguably it would be more appropriate there since the entire body is re-elected every 2 years.
DougJ
Sorry for getting a bug up my ass about it, Doug. I get what you’re saying now, I think. And, as far as your essential point about misusing sophomoric wiki-summary philosophical points in order to intimidate readers, you’re right! (Again, Brooks’ Hume and Bentham nonsense irked me to no end).
No problem. Obviously, I didn’t explain myself very well, so the fault is probably mine.
2th&nayle
@August J. Pollak: Uhh, maybe I misunderstand your complaint about clicking the logo to go home, but if you click, “Consistently wrong since 2002” I think it will take you where you want to go.
Cruel Jest
@August J. Pollak: Mention that to Roy (alicublog) sometime, too. He has no link home at all.
brent
@geg6:
So they have to make sure they have all hands on deck? So what? Why is that so hard?
Is that meant to be a serious question? Well I have already responded to Keith G along the same lines – @brent – but the simple truth is that however blithely you dismiss the difficulty of holding a continuous congressional session, the fact is that however easy you believe it is for the majority, it is far easier for the minority which contradicts the fundamental reasoning that people are putting forth for constructing the filibuster this way.
rachel
@2th&nayle: I have to admit that it took me a while to figure that out because the phrase is so tiny compared to the logo.
Shygetz
Really? I thought the Senate was designed as an anti-democratic federalism carrot to bring the small states into the union, as well as to better protect the interests of the aristocracy. The filibuster in the Senate was not possible until 1806 and not used until 1837; on the other hand, the House used it through 1842. So, history does not back your interpretation of the filibuster.
SGEW
@DougJ: Yeesh, your fault? When I, as a regular reader, failed to detect snark in posts written by DougJ?! Hardly.
Salt grains, taking them, I need. Shit’s just been too srs, recently!
Face
That’s a very interesting way to spell “California”
Brien Jackson
@Nate W.:
That isn’t really true either. The baseline for te filibuster is the requirement to get cloture on everything. That hasn’t changed in a long fucking time, although the bar for cloture has been moved down. What used to be different was that the Senate could only have one piece of business on the floor at a time, so denying cloture on a vote meant shutting the entire Senate down until some sort of agreement could be reached. What changed is that Robert Byrd passed a rual called “dual-track,” which basically gives the Majority Leader the perogative to have more than one piece of business on the floor at a time, so that if cloture hasn’t been achieved on one item of business, the Senate can move on to something else without having to resolve the impasse first.
The “talkathons” are a grandstanding effort a minority member would employ when the votes for cloture exist, and they rarely ever happened. But there was never any sort of requirement for a group of Senators to talk in the abscence of cloture. Never. Ever.
Shygetz
@Nate W.: If a quorum IS present, though, then there IS a requirement to speak in order to hold the floor for a filibuster; otherwise, the majority party can move to vote. Which is why “break out the cots” was the phrase used for the traditional-style filibuster–the majority party would camp out in the chamber to ensure a quorum was present at all times, and just wait for the minority to run out of gas. And, personally, I think this bit of political theater would be a very good thing for the Democratic Party right now. Break out the cots for health care reform, and make the Republicans stand there and read the phone book.
geg6
@Nate W.:
Umm, yes, I do understand how a filibuster works. I am not some naive numb nut who thinks the Senate is like it is in the movies. I won’t bother to fall back on ridiculous shit like my qualifications in matters political, but I have no illusions about how filibusters work. And again, I ask: what is the problem? I do not see one other than the majority having to take a stand en masse for what they think is important enough to pass legislation and that the minority vociferously opposes. It’s not supposed to be easy. I have no trouble with that. Apparently, you and the Senate do.
geg6
@brent:
And again, I say: so what? So it’s easier for the minority. That is how it’s constructed. It’s supposed to be hard for the majority. And fuck you and your condescension. I understand why it’s hard, the reasoning for it, and why senators don’t like it just fine. And I am deadly serious in again saying, so what?
Keith G
@brent: Aye, that it does.
As geg6 aptly points out, this is not a bug but a feature. With TV coverage now in the chamber, a side supporting a filibuster better have a damn good reason in holding up the people’s business.
Imagine Liebershit and Snowjob having to stand and hold the floor with a Defense Appr bill purposely scheduled to be the next vote, or a Social Security COLA fix. I’m thinking a short filibuster.
liberal
@CalD:
I don’t see why “white rural conservatives” are a minority worthy of protection, in terms of public policy or democratic theory.
Stooleo
So over at GOS there is a poll asking if the filibuster should be ditched. Interestingly over 50% of Kossacks say yes. Don’t these folks remember when Bush had control of the House and the Senate?
liberal
@Zifnab:
This is true, but given the amendment process to the Constitution, I don’t see how we’ll ever be rid of it.
cleek
if “the Democrats” refers to some non-specific group of politicians who call themselves “Democrats”, then yes. but if “the Democrats” refers to the group of people who currently make up the Senate Democrats, then i gotta say … you crazy!.
geg6
@Stooleo:
Well, I’d certainly vote to abolish the filibuster as it is understood today. Which essentially means there is no real need to filibuster but to simply threaten to do it. I want it required that you actually have to go through with it the old fashioned way. With the C-SPAN cameras filming the whole thing. I want the sausage making as public as possible and I want everyone to see who stands where and who is committed to what and how much.
CalD
@liberal:
Funny, they used to say the same thing about us liberals.
Hunter Gathers
Not. Gonna. Happen.
Mitch McConnell would shut down the Senate ASAP. He runs procedural circles around Reid constantly. And the MSM would deem him a hero, for sticking it to the DFH’s and that uppity President who won’t play dumb for them.
mcd410x
The problem doesn’t seem to be 60 votes — the GOP has little problem with this when they only have 52! — but party discipline.
(As an aside, Is “we’re going to change the rules because we’re can’t get all 60 people caucusing with us vote for historic legislation” going to make the Democrats look stronger?)
I like that we as a party don’t have to march in lockstep, but sometimes you have to grab the reins, make things happen. As a leader.
brent
@geg6:
And fuck you and your condescension.
Sorry. I wasn’t actually intending to be condescending but I honestly don’t understand your reasoning. It simply makes no sense. The point of this sort of reconstructed filibuster is to make it more difficult for the minority to shut down a bill. But you aren’t really. The added burden on the minority is quite minor. All you will have done is added a significant burden on the majority and one which they really have no chance of winning. Reiterating that “so what, its supposed to be hard” is not an adequate response to the unequal war of attrition you will have created. Unless you are relying on the “theater” aspect of this sort of filibuster eventually creating problems for the minority, and most of the evidence is that that aspect actually favors the minority on this issue, then you will have achieved nothing at all. Because aside from that, the minority has no reason to ever give up their fight. You aren’t really asking them to do anything difficult to keep it going. You are only asking this of the majority.
mcd410x
Why won’t Joe Lieberman let us have an up or down vote on health care?
Why, Joe, why?
Wash. Rinse. Repeat. Always repeat.
Napoleon
@Zifnab:
No I would say the same thing if Delay was still there. Additionally the filibuster is not and never was part of the constitutional structure. It is an unconstitutional add on, that has no basis in law or the text surrounding the adoption of the Constitution.
It is and has long been an illegal tradition that was imposed on the constitutional order.
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
@Zifnab:
This.
The problem we have right now is with the Senators, not the Senate (surely there must be some highfalutin’ sounding phrase in Latin spoken by somebody like Cicero that says the same thing).
And because of their 6 year terms and the power of incumbency to swing close elections, and because Senators tend to be older than House members, the Senators are relics of a bygone era in politics whenever there is a rapid shift in the political climate which sweeps out the old and brings in the new in the House and in the White House. The Senate we have now is a piece of the 1990s, trapped like a prehistoric bug in amber. This will change over time, but it takes at least a decade to get the Senate in tune with the changing times. This is a test of patience and endurance for progressives, and one which they aren’t doing a very impressive job of dealing with thus far.
joeyess
I submit that this shouldn’t happen. The way things are going, the Dems are looking to lose both houses of congress in 2010 and if they’ve given over to the procedural temptation of getting rid of the current filibuster rules just to pass a shitty HCR bill, they’ll regret it when the cretins are back in charge.
And with the way the media/village/GOP complex has stacked the deck against them it’s very likely we’ll be looking at Obama spending the remainder of his first (and possibly last) term doing nothing but vetoing bills.
This is a disaster unfolding before our eyes, people. The thought of McConnell, Cornyn, and DeMint having the power of forcing Obama to “thwart the will of the people’s elected officials” is a chilling and sickening thought.
Not to mention the other facet of this: Obama won’t get a single federal judge named.
I’m sick to my stomach.
And then there’s the obligatory “what Digby said:”
Shygetz
@brent:
What additional burden is this? The minority can still invoke cloture if it has the votes, so that’s no burden. No, the burden is on the minority; they must hold the floor continuously. All the majority has to do is be there and have at least one person awake to act as chair. The only possible added burden is that the Senate grinds to a halt, which fits right in with the “Republican obstructionism” meme that the Dems have been pushing. And history does not support your assertion, either–Strom Thurmond’s famous filibuster of the Civil Rights legislation was not defeated through cloture, but rather through waiting them out. Since each Senator may only speak once per legislative day on a topic, and the legislative day only ends when the Senate adjourns (not recesses), the majority can outlast the minority simply by letting each filibustering Senator speak as long as he/she can hold the floor, and then voting.
I’m sorry, brent, but you’re wrong on the history and the rules of the filibuster. You can wait it out, you just have to be willing to make the minority work.
Brien Jackson
@Shygetz:
I don’t even know how to respond to this. It’s just totally and completely wrong.
NobodySpecial
You could make the filibuster require 60 votes instead of 41 right now, and if they found out it would piss off liberals or deny progressives a legislative victory, you could find 25 or so Democrats to hold hands with the Republicans.
arguingwithsignposts
OT, but:
And … It’s gone!
Wired: GOP removes url shortener
ETA: A shout out to BJ:
dadanarchist
Isn’t this Rawlsian “veil of ignorance” just a more sophisticated term for what we unserious people call “kicking the can down the road?”
In the filibuster case, it sounds eminently practicable, but in almost every other example Stephanapoulous cited, it sounded less like principled Rawlsian democracy at work and much more like legislators making an unpopular if necessary decision but pushing the effects of that decision on to their successors.
Ella in New Mexico
I have no opinion on whether to change the rules for the filibuster, but to say this:
Every time the Democratic Party turns to over cooked spaghetti and allows some trauma to be committed on it by Republicans through the abuse of some procedural or legal rule (when it can choose to fight or do otherwise), it gets the idea to abolish that particular rule. Shortly afterwards, we find that that rule would have come in handy.
Case in point, the “Independent Special Prosecutor” law. Wouldn’t that have come in handy over the past eight years, folks?
I really don’t know who I hate more–Democrats or Republicans.
arguingwithsignposts
FYWP
OT, but:
And … It’s gone!
Wired: GOP removes url shortener
Including a shoutout to BJ which apparently caught this comment in teh spam filter.
arguingwithsignposts
First comment on Wired article:
i don’t think that word “medium” means what you think it means. Hijacking another site in a branded frame isn’t a medium.
RC
The filibuster is a senate rule. Eliminating it requires that the rules be changed. But the effort to change the rules can itself be filibustered. In fact, the rules say that it takes 60 votes to break a filibuster, UNLESS THE ISSUE UNDER CONSIDERATION IS A RULE CHANGE, in which case it takes 67 votes. So changing the rules is just about the hardest thing there is to do in the senate, and there is no way it’s going to happen re the filibuster.
Rick Taylor
__
One of the biggest mistakes Democrats ever made was negotiating instead of saying, please, make our day.
geg6
@brent:
The majority should have to overcome a significant burden if they want to pass legislation over the vociferous objections of the minority. Again, I don’t see any problem with that whatsoever. And the idea that they have no chance of winning a filibuster is ridiculous. It may be hard to win a filibuster, but it’s not impossible. We would not have the 1964 Civil Rights Act if not for overcoming it’s opponents filibuster. All it takes is commitment, with the larger burden of commitment on the majority.
Sorry, but your arguments don’t wash with me. It boils down to: it’s hard. And again, I say, so what.
CalD
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They’d obviously be a hell of a lot more justified in doing it now than the Republicans were a few years ago, in terms of rank abuse of the practice. I read somewhere the other day that there have been more filibuster threats in this congress than in the entire two decades between 1960 to 1980.
But I never bet on Democrats in a PR fight. Republicans simply outclass them when it comes to working the ref’s, whipping up faux-righteous indignation and crying for the cameras. Obviously Glenn Beck could be counted on to squirt a few. And of course most people on both sides of the argument would be reversing previous positions on the issue. Liberals are typically the ones most likely to pay any penalty for that.
There might still be an opportunity to enact some reforms more quietly when the next congress organizes itself though. I’m not completely sure but I believe that might be somewhat easier than changing the rules midway through. Democrats may also have somewhat slimmer majorities in the next congress, which would be an added incentive to do it.
brent
@Shygetz:
And history does not support your assertion, either—Strom Thurmond’s famous filibuster of the Civil Rights legislation was not defeated through cloture, but rather through waiting them out.
As you know, in that circumstance, they only had to wait one person out, Strom Thurmond, who spoke for just over 24 hours. So yes, I am happy to agree that if Democratic Senators are faced with a situation where they have to outlast one filibustering Senator to get a vote, then they should do so.
Ian
@DougJ:
That hurt. Broder must have had too many pills today.
danimal
Changing the filibuster requirement from 60 senators to 55 just changes the prima donna pivot point. The dynamics of the Senate guarantee that someone (whether that person is the 60th vote or the 55th) will have disproportionate power.
As a compromise, I’m in favor of making filibusters more difficult on the minority (make them all show up for quorum calls), rather than the majority, but the best solution is to eliminate the filibuster altogether. There are already plenty of checkpoints to stop or slow bad legislation without resorting to a supermajority requirement for every bill.
brent
We would not have the 1964 Civil Rights Act if not for overcoming it’s opponents filibuster.
Not sure what you mean here. In fact, with respect to the 1964 Civil Rights Act, a compromise was offered which allowed cloture. The minority in the initial filibuster was successful and that forced the majority came up with a compromise that could get enough votes to invoke cloture. Is that the sort of scenario you are imagining with respect to the sort of filibuster you imagine? Honestly, that is not much different than what we have now.
If you mean the ’57 Act, as I mentioned to Shygetz, that was a one-man filibuster, which is quite different than what we are talking about here.
Rick Taylor
@Stooleo
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Actually, even during the Bush years, some Democrats argued we should end the filibuster, because later when the majority switched hands we’d regret having it. I think they were right? Did the filibuster really accomplish much when Democrats were the minority party? Bush got his tax cuts and the Iraq war.
Elie
@r€nato:
Your point about having third parties I have heard is correct. That said, parliamentary systems can lead to paralysis and control by small, rabid minorities, as the major party/ies can have a difficult time getting critical mass to get anything done. The small minority parties seize that opportunity to block or to severely skew legislation. This, I understand, has been a big issue in Israel.
NobodySpecial
@Elie:
Which is exactly different than the current business how?
brent
@danimal:
I agree with this entirely. I have wavered a bit on it thinking particularly of some of the really crappy Federal judges we would have to contend with but the more I consider, the more I think we would be better off just dumping the filibuster altogether
Stooleo
Thats a great point, goes right to chickenshitatude that is inherent in most Democrats. I’m just saying can you imagine the Republicans again in control of both houses and the Democrats with no means of forestalling idiotic legislation. The folks up at GOS, to me, are displaying amazing short sightedness and this reminds me of how Republicans act.
Elie
@NobodySpecial:
I acknowledge your point.
Just noting that if we wanted a complete fix to the current situation, that (a parliamentary system) might not work.
Sentient Puddle
@Rick Taylor: This is because back then, the Democrats felt obliged to uphold some arbitrary “gentleman’s agreement” or something like that which was supposed to give off some notion that they were a high-minded body.
In contrast, Republicans today simply look at the procedural rules and say “OK, how can we fuck up the Democrats’ agenda?”
I’ve said time and again that I’m surprised as all hell that it took one of the parties this long to lean this much on the rules. If this were any other form of competition, this sort of rule would be exploited five minutes into the game.
If the intent of the filibuster is to ensure that the Senate doesn’t get too hasty in considering legislation, then the filibuster utterly fails. I’m not entirely sure that any sort of rejiggering of supermajority threshold holds to that intent either.
So in short, I think I’m a fan of Harkin’s proposal.
Comrade Scrutinizer
@danimal:
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I don’t think you know what quorum call means.
Ivan
I’m on the “mend it don’t end it” side too, and I do think there is a simple solution that also addresses the issue brought up by people like @Stooleo and @brent, which boils down to the filibuster being too easy and cheap on the minority.
The current filibuster requires 3/5ths of Senators “duly chosen and sworn,” which makes it require 60 senators at all times (absent vacancies), and as @brent correctly notes can be held by a single minority Senator but requires 50 majority Senators to be present to prevent the quorum call. It’s cheap for the minority and expensive for the majority.
The older filibuster required 2/3rds of Senators “present and voting,”, which meant that the bulk of the minority had to be in the chamber too during debate. A chamber with 50 Senators of the majority and a single minority member would’ve been able to end the filibuster easily. That can’t be done today.
So what’s the solution? Go back to the “present and voting” model, keeping the 3/5ths bar if you can. That means that determined minorities can still filibuster if it’s deemed important enough, but it’s not cost-free, and does get us back to the “make them get up and talk” suggested by @Stooleo.
As an aside, the Bush tax cuts were not filibusterable (sp?) because they’re a budget item and automatically part of reconciliation. Of course, so would a tax hike if the Democrats had the balls to push one.
geg6
@brent:
Apparently, you think the only value of the filibuster is the obvious horse race win/lose scenario. But the 1964 filibuster happened, made the racist fucks look like creeps, and the racist fucks in the minority that didn’t like looking like racist fucks finally decided to quit looking like racist fucks and agreed to cloture. Thus, the filibusterers lost. Doesn’t really matter that it was negotiated. What mattered was the filibuster made them look so bad, they decided to allow cloture. And then the racist fucks who didn’t like being shown to be racist fucks could piously point to themselves as not racist fucks unlike the 29 who voted against.
Caffinatedone
End it, don’t mend it.
With the current party dynamics, which aren’t likely to change anytime soon, the filibuster is almost always going to cut against Democrats. So long as republicans are ideologically dogmatic, disciplined and essentially vote as a monolithic block and Democrats are a loose coalition, we lose.
republicans:
a) have very strong enforcement mechanisms to assure ideological purity and don’t brook dissent well
b) control/manipulate the MSM well enough to drive the meta-narratives for most any debate.
c) republicans have no concept of fair play or honor; if a rule or situation can be abused to further their goals, it will be
d) the accountability rules for Democrats and republicans are quite different in the MSM. republicans are free to change positions, rationales, and arguments at whim and at no cost. (I think that they have a cloak of “+5 shield of hypocrisy” that they hand out to new members.
Given that Democrats are a really loose coalition with no meaningful enforcement mechanisms, it’s fairly straightforward for republicans to peel off a few Dem votes to pass bills when they run things. That same setup essentially results in the country being ungovernable by Democrats. I’m sure that’s the goal, and yes, that’s what we see in California as well.
We’ll never have the 70+ Dems that we’d need in the Senate to provide a solid voting block, and I expect that the “60” that we have today is likely near the high water mark, so things will get harder from here, not easier.
Kill the filibuster.
chuck
The most conservative proposal I can think of is that debate should have a scheduled end, with an affirmative 40 votes to sustain debate and not 60 to cut it off. No quorum, debate is done. That would have the desired “make them filibuster” effect.
But hey I’m just a lowly plebe not of the favored Senate caste, so what do I know? Hell, they’ll hold on to their rule all the more firmly at the notion of the rabble daring to dictate to them.
So frankly I think the whole thing should be shitcanned.
Shygetz
@brent: Why do you think they allowed Strom to bloviate rather than invoke cloture? It’s because there were plenty of Senators who were unwilling to invoke cloture, but also unwilling to stand in front of the Senate and talk for hours and hours on end. What makes you think this batch of Senators are different? Do you really think all 42 Senators are willing to stand up on camera and bring the Senate to a halt? And even if they do, and if each Senator matches Strom Thurmond’s record, we are looking at the majority’s health care bill in ~43 days. That’s 43 days of Republican and conservaDems looking like total asses and bringing the Senate to a grinding halt on national television in order to deny constituents health care. It’s a PR win and a policy win for the Democrats.
@Brien Jackson: No, I’m right…you cannot hold the floor without speaking, and once the roll has been called, the majority can move for a vote. The minority can then again note the absence of a quorum, which starts the roll call again. But in order to hold the floor, the minority must stand and address the chair uninterrupted. So, it depends on how they choose to obstruct–either we see old-style filibustering, or we see repeated motions to vote responded to by repeated roll calls. Either way, we see Republicans standing and obstructing the Senate on national TV–over and over again. Each would require cots to be broken out. I say make ’em do it.