The abuse of the filibuster has been a story that every political junkie in the nation is aware of. It might be a little opaque to most folks but the fact is that right now a filibuster, which is just an insistence of continuing the debate and amendment process in the Senate, does nothing of the sort. When a motion for cloture (cutting off of debate and moving to voting) fails in the current Senate, that august body does not keep working on the issue at hand but moves on to other work.
This is where legislation basically dies or is pushed to the end of the year where Republicans can complain that it is "being rammed down the throats of the American people". It also holds up nominations for things like Ambassadors and Federal Judgeships.
"Originally posted at Squarestate.net"
The unprecedented number of "filibusters" that the Republican minority has engaged in has fairly broken the ability of the Senate to work as a democratic body. Literally hundreds of bills were passed by the House and have never received a vote by the Senate. It does not matter that they have majority support, they are kept in limbo by the fiction that they are being debated. There is no debate going on about these bills, they are being blocked from any consideration by the Republicans.
While this might be a good tactic politically it is very bad for the actual job of the Congress which is running the nation. If you are a true believer in small government you might think that no action by Congress is a good thing, but the reality is that a nation of 308 million needs a working Congress to do things like, oh I don’t know, fund the government or approve judges and ambassadors.
To address this problem Sen. Tom Udall of New Mexico is proposing some rule changes right at the start of the 112th Congress. Up to now it has been the tradition of the Senate to just maintain the rules of the previous session without changes. This makes the threshold for changes very high, except at the beginning of a new Congress where the Senate is allowed to form new rules by a simple majority, if it chooses to do so instead of continuing the old rules.
These new rules are not, as the folks at Red State and other conservative blogs are claiming, a maiming of the tradition of debate in the Senate. Rather they are intended to make the idea of unlimited debate exactly that. Under the plan Sen. Udall is pushing there will be three changes. First off there will be no more "secret holds" which are basically an anonymous threat to filibuster. There will also be no ability of the minority to block debate completely.
Finally and most importantly any no vote for cloture, keeping the 60 vote threshold will mean debate on that issue will have to continue. No other work can be done until that issue is resolved.
It would mean that some member of the minority would have to stay on the Senate floor and keep on talking to keep debate open. It would allow for everyone’s point of view to be heard, often at great length but it would not allow a minority to obstruct forever the ability of the Senate to have an up or down vote on the issue. Sooner rather than later everyone would be tired of talking and everything that could be said will be, then there will be a vote.
It is easy to see why conservatives and Republicans hate this idea. It is going to take away their most effective tactic for thwarting the will of the people and put the onus of obstructionism where it belongs, on the obstructers.
In the past I was one of those who argued against changing the filibuster rules in the concern that we would have them used against us in when we returned, at some point, to the minority. I have since come to understand that there are worse things than this concern, especially since it is clear that the Republicans would not scruple to change the rules if they gained the majority in the future anyway. At this point it is a good thing to pre-empt any changes they would make with reasonable changes that do preserve the deliberative nature of the Senate while helping to actually be able to do the work of the people.
Will we see these changes? I think so. At this point Sen. Udall says he has the support of the "institutional" Democratic Senators, those old guard senators who were loath to change the rules out of a fealty to the history of the Senate (which has to be the dumbest argument I have heard since someone tried to convince me that the parting of the Red Sea was caused by Venus orbiting too close to the Earth). With the support of these senators it seems likely that we can have new rules which will allow the minority to be heard but not to prevent the workings of the Senate.
There is a risk, of course. Some of the things that the Democrats were able to hold strong against in the Bush years might not have made it if these rules were in place. But when we have an uncaring and implacable Republican party ready to put its political fortunes ahead of the good of the nation, something has to change.
Here is hoping the beginning of the new Congress will see it act as the Constitution allows and make rules that make sense for this time and place.
The floor is yours.