The Filibuster Used To Be Used More Appropriately

Mark Schmitt, executive editor of The American Prospect magazine wrote a fascinating post about the history of the filibuster last week:

Underlying that, of course, was the structural change that came with the realignment from a four-party system, in which each party had a liberal and conservative wing, to two ideological parties. (A center-left party and a far right party.) As frustrating as today’s conservative Democrats like Mary Landrieu are, none of them are more conservative than any Republican, and no Republican is more liberal than even the most conservative Democrat. As a result, a filibuster can be organized and enforced by a party leader, whereas in the past, there was considerable ideological overlap, so both sides of a fight would be cross-partisan, and thus loose and shifting.

[...]

As a result the Senate feels suffocating. It’s easy to fantasize that maybe a tougher or more creative Harry Reid could do something, but even LBJ would be stuck if he drew this hand. The combination of the change in custom — which involves not just using the filibuster to excess, but pushing to defeat legislation regardless of its content, for political purposes — and the particular alignment of parties leaves shockingly little room for legislative maneuvering.

Indeed, these days the filibuster seems to do less toward helping improve our democratic system and more toward keeping the parties in ideological lockstep. The Democrats are forced to move their legislation to the right and the Republicans are constantly forced to threaten a filibuster. As Schmitt says, there’s no cover for a “liberal Republican” to exist (although there’s definitely an opportunity for a conservative Democrat to have a safe senate seat). I imagine that if the situation was switched and the Democrats were in the minority, threatening to filibuster as much as Republicans do there would be no opportunity for a conservative Democrat etc…

–Daniel Strauss