By Matt Bisanz
After recently seeing Andrew Harriss’ play Filibustero! I thought, gee there’s a great article for my column. So for this week I will examine the Democrats’ use of the filibuster technique.
The basic idea behind a filibuster is victory through fatigue; that if one group speaks long enough, a larger group will agree to their view just to shut them up. Mind you, the filibuster has no origin in the Constitution and is an invention of congressional procedure. The House eliminated this provision around the time of the Civil War when it was realized that endless debate served no substantive purpose in law making. The Senate has continued this practice through today, increasing its usage to the point that twice as many filibusters took place in 1992 than in the entire 19th century. Clearly this shows that the procedure has been abused and is in need of reform.
One problem is that the rule requiring continuous debate has been removed. This means that other forms of business, like passing uncontroversial legislation or admitting new senators, is allowed during filibusters. If this practice were changed, senators would be hard pressed to justify continuous filibusters that would tie up the entire working of the Senate and force the usage of cots in the chamber to maintain quorum.
Now this is not to say the Democrats are at fault for using them in the recent judicial debates, which was the subject of Mr. Harriss’ play. Instead the problem lies with the poor arguments put forward by the opposing party as to why there should not be a filibuster. In both the judicial debate and the recent confirmation of Condoleezza Rice, inane facts such as the origin of the name Condoleezza or the family situation of a potential judge were introduced by the Republicans. These are things that should have no bearing on the successful confirmation of a nominee. Rather these speeches should be devoted to the analysis of these nominees on the basis of their qualifications for the job. Filibusters reduce this analysis by promoting things like the reading of state constitutions or phonebooks to fill up time. The original reason for allowing unrestricted debate was to prevent the majority from restricting the minority’s ability to enter worthy information into the public record and possibly change the mind of a member of the majority. Is it worthy of the Senate’s time to spend 40 hours debating four judicial nominees when all the information is already in the public record and both sides know that no one will change their minds as a result of the debate? The answer is no.
Therefore I propose that the number of votes required for cloture be reduced from their current 60 to a simple majority. In today’s world of bloggers, 24 hour news networks, and mass e-mail lists there is no danger of the 55 Republicans in the Senate suppressing the 44 Democrats’ ability to debate the merits of an issue before the Senate. Yes it would result in nominees who the Democrats do not like being passed now, but it would also allow them to pass nominees the Republicans do not like when the Democrats regain the Senate. Yes the government is a slow lumbering bureaucracy and no single fix will make it completely responsive to the public’s needs, but this is one change that will slightly increase the government’s responsiveness. n