Light At The End Of The Tunnel: Death Of The Filibuster

The Hill is publicizing something exciting: Senate Dems Tom Harkin and Jeanne Shaheen are pushing a bill to ban the filibuster – kind of.  The bill wouldn’t exactly eliminate the filibuster, but it would rewrite the rules on how to block legislation.  Basically, there would be a diminishing threshold of votes required to bring a vote to the floor, dropping over time from 60 to a simple majority (51).  The Washington Monthly explains this a little differently if it’s confusing on the first pass.

This is incredible.  It’s happened before (this is a revival of a 1995 bill), but it’s wonderful to see somebody supporting a measure like this.  Of course, it won’t pass – or at least I’d be highly surprised if it did.  It would take 67 votes to pass any changes.  On the other hand, it’s not too radical.  They aren’t trying to abolish the filibuster altogether.  Even if it doesn’t go through on this pass, as long as the Senate continues to have a few folks willing to stick their necks out a bit for this kind of legislation, my guess is it could eventually go through.  As it turns out, a majority of people want changes in the filibuster rules, compared to 44% who don’t.  If the Senate were a little more representative, we might actually have a quick change in the filibuster rules.

Now, you may be part of that 44%, in which case you might ask, “Why do we want to get rid of the filibuster in the first place?”  Obama’s with you on that (according to the Hill article), and that might be reason enough for some.  If you’re looking for more, though, you can start here, but I think some parts of the Hill piece speak for themselves:

“A recent vote to extend unemployment benefits was delayed for weeks, for example, only to be passed on a 98-0 vote, while a vote to provide more consumer protection against credit card companies passed 92-2 after weeks of gridlock.”

You can see here that vote-blocking is often used for purely obstructionist reasons.  These bills were filubstered originally but after compromises passed virtually unopposed. That’s how the filibuster works, bills are taken hostage because less than 60 senators are in perfect agreement.  There doesn’t even have to be the intent to undermine behind a filibuster; that the tool is there for Senators leads at best to abuses that throw a wrench in Senatorial processes and at worst to campaigns to block substantive debate or decisive voting on a bill.  The filibuster is an outdated, obstructionist practice.  Here’s to the worthy vision of Harkin and Shaheen.

–Aaron Bekemeyer