Posted on 12/30/2003 3:31:41 PM PST by Federalist 78
And I'd rather have a filibuster-proof Republican majority (60+) in the Senate,
It is not necessary:
The United States Senate is the only place on the planet where 59 votes out of 100 cannot pass anything because 41 votes out of 100 can defeat it.
Try explaining that at your local Rotary Club or someone in the Wal-Mart parking lot or, for that matter, to the college freshman in Poly Sci 101. You can’t because this silly senate math stands democracy on its head.
James Madison, the Father of the Constitution, feared some future political leaders would pervert the legislative process in just this way. And he warned in Federalist Paper Number 58 that when it happened, "The Fundamental principle of free government would be reversed. It would be no longer the majority that would rule. The power would be transformed to the minority." So what’s happening today, I’m sure, has the man who wrote the Constitution spinning in his grave.
And Alexander Hamilton as well, because he agreed with Madison on this. He pointed out in his Federalist Paper #68 that the vice president was given a tie-breaking vote "to securing at all times the possibility of a definite resolution of that body." A "definite resolution, how well put. That’s what we need around here: "a definite resolution."
For many years, I taught political science and history at four different colleges and universities, I don’t think I ever taught a class without telling the old story about the origin of the Senate.
Thomas Jefferson was in France when the Constitutional Convention was being held and later, the story goes, he asked his friend George Washington, who presided over the convention, about the purpose of this upper chamber, the Senate.
Washington, according to the anecdote, then asked Jefferson "why do you pour coffee into your saucer?" "To cool it," Jefferson replied. And Washington responded, "Even so, we pour legislation into the senatorial saucer to cool it."
But there is nothing said in the Constitution at all about extended debate. Washington, I believe, thought the smaller size, longer and staggered terms, as well as chosen by state legislation, would provide more wisdom, hopefully.
Some constitutional lawyers have argued that any kind of super majority vote is unconstitutional, other than for those five areas specified in the Constitution itself: treaty ratification, impeachment, override of a presidential vote, constitutional amendments and expelling a member of Congress. Nowhere does it say it now should be a super majority on judicial nominations. But that is what we have going on today.
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