Posted on 01/25/2018 6:45:06 AM PST by Liberty7732
“Gridlock is the greatest protection to our personal liberties.” Justice Clarence Thomas, addressing Stetson Law students
With Congress’ hyperpartisan posture and the difficulty passing legislation through the Senate, interest has grown in doing away with the filibuster rule. Be careful what is hoped for.
Senate rules require a greater than 60 percent vote to forcibly end a filibuster, a supermajority requirement is essentially invoked in order to pass a substantive bill out of the Senate. The difficulty in surmounting this hurdle has many lamenting the filibuster rule and wondering whether it’s time to do away with the supermajority provision so that bills may be passed by a simple majority.
My answer to this suggestion is quite simple. No.
One of the great priorities of the Framers in designing the Constitution was the concept of separation of powers and the decentralization of authority. These are the principles that gave rise to the enumerated powers of the federal government and the creation of three co-equal branches of government. Even within the legislative branch, the plan was to maximize the tension between the chambers so as to elevate the hurdle to be cleared to successfully get a bill to the President’s desk.
According to the Framers, the House of Representatives was designed to be the chamber of the people, reactive to its whims, and directly elected by the constituencies of the various districts. Towards that end, every member of the House of Representatives was subject to reelection every two years so that if Congress were to proceed in a direction contrary to the will of the people, the people themselves could forcibly and quickly effect a change in the direction of Congress.
The Senate was decidedly different as it was supposed to be the more seasoned, more stable chamber.
First, only one third of the Senate was to change hands each election cycle, that way, while the House could be subject to dramatic, biennial membership changes, the Senate could only change one-third of its members at a time.
Second, the Senate was equal in representation of each state. This meant that while the number of members in the House of Representatives varied according to each state’s population, the representation from amongst the various states was equally weighted. It also meant that each Senator was responsible for a much larger constituency, which would have a tempering effect on the Senator’s views. While it is easy to take a hard right or hard left position when one represents a small geographic location with similar views, taking on a population as large as that of a state checks the breadth of a senator’s views as the state as a whole can never be as radical as its most ardent congressional seat.
But there was a third distinction to the Senate, and one that is arguably more influential upon its actions. In the Constitution’s original incarnation, the members of the Senate were elected by each state’s legislature. This was instrumental to defining the actions and the policies approved by the Senate since, under this scheme, the Senate was truly answerable to the states. One can scarcely imagine a Senator voting for imposing a funding mandate upon a state if that senator knew that his state legislature would be negatively impacted by his vote.
That all changed with the passage of the Seventeenth Amendment to the Constitution. As a result of the Seventeenth Amendment, senators were elected by a direct vote from the people of each state. Instantly, the Senate became less responsive to the state legislature and became decidedly more like the House of Representatives. As a result, it became a lot easier for a bill originating in the House of Representatives, namely the budget bill, to get passed out of the Senate.
Enter the filibuster. In light of the decreasing tensions between the two legislative chambers resulting from the ratification of the Seventeenth Amendment to the Constitution, it has become much easier for the federal government to pass laws. Power has been centralized, not decentralized, as the Framers had intended.
The filibuster with its 60 percent plus one supermajority requirement to break it, although not constitutionally prescribed, imparts a difference in the inner workings of the two chambers that serves to increase the tension between the two chambers and decentralize power away from the House of Representatives. In so doing, our liberties stand a higher level of protection.
So, in light of the trend toward centralization of power brought to us through the actions of the Progressive wing of our political spectrum, should we encourage the Senate to do away with the filibuster rule?
The answer, clearly, is no — unless we want even more centralization of controlling authority.
With Trump in the White House, this is a load of crap! We have, perhaps the last opportunity to save our country, and the filibuster is a detriment to that effort. Besides, when and if the RATs take charge again, it’s gone anyway, so we should make the first move with the hope that the legislative process can undo what the RATs have done to such and extent that it will take them decades to “put things back” should they ever get the chance.
Keep the filibuster. Just require the senators to actually do a filibuster.
“Gridlock is the greatest protection to our personal liberties.” - Judge Clarence Thomas
GRIDLOCK is not the same as SEDITION. America is in the midst of a COUP.
And if Rs lose the Senate (which they will eventually) then we’ve set the table for activist progressive giveaways which become impossible to undo, even with a majority.
Personally, I just don’t trust Congress. So the more they’re limited, the less trouble they can do.
Trump is doing great with his pen and appointments.
FACT - If/When/God Forbid Chuck Schemer becomes Majority Leader the filibuster will be eliminated.
FACT - Chuck Schumer pushed Harry Reid to eliminate filibuster on Judicial picks
Republicans might as well take advantage while they can.
Stupid, misleading article.
There is no filibuster. A real filibuster requires the senator to speak till he drops. Ask Jimmy Stewart.
Modern filibuster means just one stupid senator (a redundancy) can just threaten a filibuster, and the Republicans all cower and say ok, we’ll quit.
The democrats have perfected this, and the Stop-Trump forces thwart the will of the people.
Kill the filibuster. it’s 51 votes. If Mc Connell doesn’t do it now, Schumer will certainly do it next January.
Been saying this for years. Ridiculous that they can just claim or threaten a filibuster and it counts. Make them stand there 24 hours/day
Add me to the folks that would require an ACTUAL filibuster. Not a “virtual” one.
Two easy answers to the author : (1) Keeping the filìbuster won’t protect us because only people like him will observe it. (2) We’ll never get back to small government if the Democrats can block us when we are in power.
Back in Obama’s second term Senate Dems ended the filibuster for Federal judges and administration and agency employees.
At that time they were sure that a Republicans would not win the WH in their lifetimes.
Demographics made it impossible for a Republican to win the WH so they had no risk that Senate Republicans would use it to get their appointees through on 50 Senators, so they were sure.
Bad gamble for them.
Regardless there are not near 50 votes in a Senate to end it for laws so its a moot point.
Remove the 17th!!!!!
The State legislatures should have the right to determine their Senators. The people get to determine their representatives, the Legislature the Senate. The Founders knew what they were doing!!
I disagree. It’s not easy for one party to get control of both houses and the White House. If the people give them that power they should have a chance to enact their agenda, for better or worse. Once upon a time the opposition party would accept that the winner had a mandate and cooperate. Reagan got his tax cuts through without Republicans controlling the house because people agreed with that premise. Those days are over, at least for the Democrats. The pubs can’t continue to play by the old rules when the Democrats will do anything to obstruct and will ditch the filibuster if the situation is reversed.
Get rid of the filibuster right now. If the RATs get in again they will do it first thing.
Time is running out.
I may agree except IT’S ALREADY GONE. The next time Ds are in majority, the minority Rs will not be allowed to use it. By keeping it now, Rs are just screwing themselves (and us) and delaying the date when it is officially declared dead.
Reid fully ended the ideal that the minority should have a say - even if only in limited cases. Without both parties trying to live up to that ideal it’s stupid for one party to accept the filibuster.
Reid didn’t “partially remove” the filibuster because he thought it should be kept. He removed it in limited cases because he only NEEDED to remove it in limited cases at the time. And he hoped Rs would not take it the next step if they became majority (and he seems to have been right). But he fully intended for Ds to go the next step whenever they wanted.
It’s as dead as the concept of senators representing states. They can’t bring back the filibuster any more than I can get rid of the 17th amendment. And small-government conservatives are doubly screwed until they figure that out.
The problem is not the filibuster, the problem is the 17th Amendment and the liberals designed it to cause the problems we have today.
BUT, we have grown to be a big government country. We need changes to bring us back to a limited sized government. If we retain the filibuster then I believe the change that we need would be impossible.
Removing the filibuster is our best chance to return to limited government.
We have already seen an unresponsive central government which listens to the voice of big money contributors, rather than the voice of the citizenry.
This.
I humbly disagree.
EVERYTHING should come to a floor vote.
Make every one of the bastards take an on-the-record, yea or nay vote on EVERYTHING.
Than let the voters decide.
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