Light Blogging

Mom and Dad still live largely off the grid. So Merry Christmas to all readers, friendly or otherwise. Meanwhile, here is my latest from the American News:

The process for passing a bill into law, as described in the U.S. Constitution, is about as complicated as the recipe for a peanut butter sandwich. Pass the bill in the House of Representatives, then in the Senate, and present the bill to the President. If he signs it, you've got a law. In actual practice, it's more like navigating a labyrinth.

One thing that made the legislation more difficult is the tradition of unlimited debate in the Senate. To pass the health care reform act in the House, Speaker Nancy Pelosi had had only to schedule a vote. All she needed to win that vote was a bare majority. She got it. The Senate is different. Before Majority Leader Harry Reid could get a vote on the Senate version of the bill, he first had to get a vote to end debate. That procedure, called cloture, requires three fifths of the Senate or sixty votes. Reid's Democrats, along with two independents, add up to exactly sixty senators. With all forty Republicans objecting to the bill, that means that any one of Reid's coalition could stop health care reform dead in its tracks by refusing to vote for cloture.

Blocking a bill this way is known as a filibuster, a word that originally meant "pirate." Majority parties in the Senate are understandably frustrated when this happens, and frequently resolve to end the piracy once and for all by abolishing the filibuster. There are two arguments for doing so, but both of them are weak and they contradict one another.

The filibuster is said to be undemocratic because it allows a minority to frustrate the will of the majority. But democracy doesn't mean that the majority can do whatever it wants. The Constitution is full of limits on the power of majorities. No congress can establish a national church or abridge freedom of speech, no matter how many senators or representatives vote to do so. If Congress should try such a thing, the Supreme Court, nine old people in silly outfits, can stop it. The filibuster is one more limitation on majority rule.

A more practical argument against the filibuster is that it makes legislation, and especially radical reform legislation, much more difficult. This is true, and it's a good thing. Consider what almost happened in the Senate in recent days. When Reid couldn't get sixty votes for a new, government run health insurance corporation, he proposed extending Medicare to cover millions more Americans. Never mind that Medicare in about to go belly up financially and that Congress is doing nothing about that. Never mind that the bill Reid is pushing through would cut hundreds of billions from the already insolvent program. Never mind that the nation is already locked into a multi-trillion dollar spiral of debt. Do we really want to make it easier for these people to pass legislation?

In fact, the filibuster makes the U.S. Congress more democratic than it would otherwise be. By making it easier for small groups of senators to block legislation, it requires the Senate to bring a wider range of diverse interest groups on board before it can pass something.

That, of course, is what frustrates the Democrats. They enjoy a majority in both houses of Congress, but the core of their party is solidly liberal whereas the American people are largely centrist or conservative in sentiment. Almost sixty percent of Americans oppose the health care reform bills, and we are a lot more worried about the deficit than about health care. Democrats complain that the filibuster is undemocratic, but it is precisely democracy that stands in their way.

Comments

[caheidelberger]

Isn't filibuster just another word for obstructionism? If so, am I to understand that obstructionist Daschle was a bad Senator but obstructionist Thune is a good Senator?

[KB]

Corry: yes, if one has a majority in the Senate. Republicans threatened to change Senate rules to disallow filibusters on nominations back when the Senate Majority was red. I think it would have been a mistake, and thankfully they didn't do so.

I do think that filibustering judicial nominations is more problematic than filibustering a bill. If both parties threaten to filibuster a nominee who does not pass some litmus test, then the nomination process could well grind to a halt. I think the filibuster of nominations should be reserved for very extreme cases.

In the case of a filibuster against a bill, there is always the prospect of modifying the bill to meet objections.

But your general point is right: Republicans can be just as irresponsible as Democrats on this matter.

Merry Christmas,
KB

[jack]

Congress passes laws but no one enforces them equally. Income tax laws, contract law, id theft laws, no account check laws only apply to honest people. The new health reform bill will only apply to honest people and people that want to comply with the law but due to lack of money/power. Crooks will just thumb their noses and laugh at the fools that comply with the law. The sheriff's report says it all and why is there no prosecution for id theft, income tax evasion, no account checks, fake social security numbers among the multitude of crimes?
Laws? Don't need no stinking laws.

Let's not forget the Judicial Qualifications Commission, who covers up crimes by Judges.