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Imagine I sat you down in front a Chutes and Ladders board game. I tell you all that you need to do is get the red piece onto the finish square. You could spend half an hour rolling the dice, moving up ladders and down shoots until you get your red piece to the finish square. But you don’t need to. You could have saved yourself half an hour by just picking up the red piece and placing it on the finish square. I never said you needed to follow the made up rules to the board game.
That is what the filibuster is like in the Senate. It is not part of the Constitution. The founding fathers had no intention that a minority should be able to stop the majority from passing any law with a simple up or down vote (treaties being the one exception).
The rules for the filibuster are completely made up and have been changed repeatedly. At any time, a simple majority can just eliminate the filibuster if they really want to. Whenever the filibuster became too much of a problem, the Senate has just changed the rules. There use to be no cloture vote to stop the filibuster, so they eventually created a cloture vote requiring a two-thirds majority of members. It was later changed to a three-fifths vote when they threatened to eliminate the filibuster. Reconciliation was then created to help get around the filibuster on budget matters. The important thing here is that a majority of senators can just vote to eliminate the filibuster and pass all the bills they’d promised.
The problem is Harry Reid and his little club likes playing shoots and ladders. They enjoy the game. They are grateful that they can use the made up rules to explain why they are not delivering on their promises.
The problem is made even worse because Republicans don’t feel any need to play by these make believe rules. When Bill Frist was Senate Majority Leader, he did what he wanted to do. When a member of the caucus got out of line, he would threaten to take away their chairmanship. When he wanted to pass a bill, Frist used reconciliation if he needed to circumvent a cloture vote. If the Democrats threatened to filibuster a top priority, he would just threatened to use the “nuclear option” and get rid of the filibuster.
The only reason Reid thinks there is a problem with using reconciliation is because he is unwilling to truly go to the mat to help the people of Nevada get health care reform. He does not even need to use reconciliation. Reid can do anything with a simple majority if he were willing to give up some of his silly, made up Senate privileges.
Remember, there is nothing stopping Reid and the rest of the Senate Democrats from passing a decent health care bill with a simple majority. There is nothing stopping them from passing EFCA, or global warming legislation, nothing stopping him from repealing don’t ask don’t tell, or passing a second stimulus bill with a simple up or down vote. The Senate Democrats have to decide if keeping their fun, made up rules is more important to them than helping millions of Americans in need.
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Um…you mean Chutes, right? As in laundry chute, garbage chute, parachute…
But, seriously. Thanks for this Jon. Unfortunately, it seems the US Senate is all about itself, and each individual Senator is pretty much “all about ME.”
How Blanche Lincoln can say with a straight face that she’s representing Arkansans by blocking a po, I really don’t understand.
FunnyWheelieDiva
oh Jon, I have been heading here these past few days – of course you lay it out more clearly and help us get our heads around it. thank you
it really is about them. it’s almost hackneyed to say, but it is the only explanation for some of their unbelievable shit. ironic as hell considering their vanity, they are blowing off the opportunity to do historical shit, acts they would be remembered for and oh by the way cement their power for a generation or two
Yes, Jon. That’s it in a nutshell.
This still sounds like pent-up frustration speaking, though your points about Reid disingenuously hiding behind the 60-vote cloture margin even before his caucus had 60 votes, when he refused to call Republican filibuster bluffs, are certainly valid.
You are in fact proposing to somehow end the unlimited-debate structure of the Senate (which is what “eliminating the filibuster” – and thus the need for cloture votes, of any size majority – entails), without advocating anything to replace it, as I elaborated in one of my comments in response to your Monday post castigating anyone who still supports the existence of the filibuster.
It would inform the debate to see my arguments rebutted, if they’re all nonsense, or at least understood, if they’re not, so I’ll repeat that comment here:
It might help clarify people’s thinking about this to recognize that when many refer to ending the “filibuster,” they are actually talking about removing the need [the ability, really, as compared to when cloture votes didn't exist] for the Senate to use a “cloture vote” (needing 60 votes) to end a filibuster.
What I’m getting at is that the nature of the Senate, by design, is unlimited debate. And that, I think, is what those decrying filibusters are really trying to change (perhaps without realizing the import of what they are doing). Because so long as unlimited debate is the baseline Senate process, there needs to be some way to close off debate in order to proceed to action. Right now, on the vast majority of legislation, unanimous consent agreements create shortcuts past all the debate that would otherwise be happening. [Example: "motions to proceed" rarely require a cloture vote (which the controversial health care bill did require) - the Senate in fact, unnoticed by many, instead generally unanimously agrees to immediately proceed to debate pieces of legislation.]
Somehow I don’t think we’re going to see the Senate agree to a situation where it only takes, say, 66% of Senators (instead of unanimous consent) to agree to bypass regular order – they would all lose the power each individual Senator now holds (though rarely exercises) to “object” [to bringing nominations to the floor, to motions to proceed, to the offering of amendments, etc.]. But that’s what instituting limited debate in the Senate would entail, wouldn’t it?
That default position of unlimited debate has led to rules where, for example, even after cloture has been invoked, 30 more hours of debate are required, post-cloture, unless unanimously waived (as those 30 hours were waived, by unanimous consent the preceding Thursday, on the Senate health care bill post-cloture on the motion to proceed), before any further action can commence. Just using up those required 30 hours after every cloture vote can be a form of filibuster that the present rules of the Senate can’t stop, if one Senator insists. Chris Dodd used that process to good effect during his attempt to stop the FAA immunity provision last year. Such stalling works particularly well when the Senate is up against a recess or a sunset, or another hard and fast date for action.
Another thing that the instinct to quash the 60-vote cloture vote overlooks, I think, is the current paucity of real debate in the Senate, all this vaunted “unlimited debate” ability notwithstanding. Harry Reid, as a rule, is extremely impatient to “get the work done” and constantly and regularly tries to prematurely hasten the final passage vote on legislation, even if it means no amendments get offered on the floor. [Because the Democrats refuse to simply open the floor to any and all germane amendments, and Reid and McConnell fail to "agree" on a limited list of pre-selected amendments for consideration under unanimous consent.] And then Reid likes to blame Republicans – unhappy about not being able to amend a measure – for withholding unanimous consent to waive debate, forcing Reid to file a cloture motion instead. It’s a two-way street, and I don’t think the Democratic majority is blameless here.
Too-often, avoiding (politically) “tough votes” is the reason the majority Party tries to foreclose genuine debate and amendment (aka, foreclose representative democracy) on the floor, which prompts a predictable reaction from the minority, who have no interest in protecting the political fortunes of the majority Party. Meanwhile, worthy amendments offered by Senators of both Parties all too often get left on the shelf, unexamined. The absence, so far, on the floor journey of the Senate health care bill, of this routine of trying to foreclose open amending, is why I’m hopeful that this bill at least, will be left to the democratic will of the Senate, instead of being manipulated by backroom power plays by the Parties. It may be a slim hope, but until it’s gone, it’s there, and leaving it to the Senate does get the onus off Reid’s back, until the final decision about reconciliation has to be made.
To my mind, the successful cloture vote Saturday night should have eased fears about the 60-vote cloture motion’s ability to stop this bill in its tracks, but for some reason the opposite has occurred. Perhaps because people don’t recognize what a complete Party tool Blanche Lincoln, for example, is, and how frequently Mary Landrieu talks a good game in an attempt to win bribes for Louisiana, only to knuckle under to Party leadership when it really counts. [To the extent that if those two are humored by Reid/Obama behind closed doors, it's because Reid/Obama independently want what Lincoln/Landrieu/Nelson, etc., want, and not because their present, pre-floor-consideration threats to vote against a final cloture vote are at all credible.]
[letsgetitdone, in response to your comments in both threads and earlier diaries on the subject (and knowing that Jon is on a hard-earned, well-deserved holiday break) - and setting aside the fact that, as I understand it, you favor our Congress acting as a de facto Parliament (without a real Parliament's checks on Executive power) that obediently follows directions from a strong president (a scenario I abhor) - please also feel free to rebut my arguments here, by detailing how "eliminating the filibuster" and cloture votes is "it in a nutshell" - how, in particular, that would work to change the everyday procedural practice of the Senate, and what procedural system you think should replace it.]