The GOP managed to pass virtually every bill and appoint almost every conservative official it wanted without a filibuster-proof majority. Why is it that they can do it, but Democrats won’t? Will losing the filibuster really be worth the cost once Republicans retake the Senate in 2012 after making substantial gains this November? The solution is not to destroy democratic government, but to enforce party discipline within the Democratic Caucus, replace conservatives with actual progressives, make the Democrats stop bending over backwards to accommodate the opposition.

Keep the filibuster, ditch Reid and the other conservative Democrats. It’s not as easy or as neat, but it’s better than further dismantling democracy.

You might want to do some homework before you spout off on this topic.

A quick click over to Wikipedia, or the US Census website, will show you that:

– 50% of the entire population of the US lives in 9 states.
– 60% of the population of the US lives in 13 states.

The filibuster is posed in the press as a 59-41 asymmetry. That’s how it’s counted in terms of senate votes, but if you look at the populations represented by those senate votes, what we have is an extremely unstable system.

The actual asymmetry, based on demographics, is closer to 307-1.

Here is a list of US states with fewer than one million population:
Wyoming
Vermont
North Dakota
Alaska
South Dakota
Delaware
Montana

Any single senator can filibuster, even if it means that their fewer than one million voters gets to screw the other 307,000,000. This happens again, and again, and again and the Senate now appears to be one of the bigger fuckups on the planet — which is a shame because smart people like Whitehouse, Boxer, and Levin don’t deserve to be tarred with that brush.

So 7 states represent 14 Senate votes, and fewer than 7,000,000 Americans.

That’s an imbalance that is incredibly destabilizing.

The filibuster rule simply makes quite clear that we are in the grip of irrational, unreasonable obstructionists who appear to be proud of using their minority power to screw what is in fact a huge majority.

But unless Reid and the Dems enforce that rule — make the GOP actually drink only water, milk, and no toilet available during the filibustering — people will continue to confuse the Dems with the GOP.

Reid needs to enforce the filibuster rules so that their tyrannical, unreasonable conduct is obvious to even the dumbest, most low-information voter.

Most people that I know understand that reasonable people can disagree, but they don’t have much patience for tyrants or obstructionist whiners. Until those GOP senators have to reveal just how they continue to toss sand in the gears, how completely incapable of reasonable negotiation they’ve become, we’re all lost.

I hope like hell that Harry Reid insists they blather like the idiots they are until every Dem and Independent and Green voter wakes up and makes the turnout of 2008 look like child’s play.

There is opportunity here for the Dems, but only if they USE it by forcing the GOP to expose themselves as the vapid corporate shills they truly are.

The GOP passed all their bills because they rammed them through without requiring any more than 51 votes, and in that process they got an inflated view of their own importance. But even more dangerously for them, they lost the arts of compromise, reasonable problem solving, and negotiation.

They became tyrants, but as long as they held the Senate that was harder to see because few voters care about process. Now that their only hope is to act like tyrants by invoking the filibuster, they are on the verge of revealing how unreasonable, incapable of political arts, and tyrannical they truly are.

It’s poetic justice.
Now, we just need Reid to insist that they follow the true filibuster requirements and make asses of themselves on the Senate floor. Over, and over, and over, and over, and over….

How do all the other democracies in the world manage to operate without a filibuster?

The abuse of the filibuster has grown out of control. Last year saw more cloture votes than all of the 1950s and ’60s combined. The essentially standing Republican filibuster on everything has slowed the Senate to a crawl and forced multiple cloture votes for even mundane matters that end up passing by huge margins.

the abuse of the filibuster is by the dems also – in that they won’t let the republicans filibuster so that when the filibuster is over, the dems can pass their bills by simple majority. the dems currently have this option right now — and refuse to use it, instead blaming the republicans for obstruction (which i believe is what the republicans seek to do, but they don’t have the numbers to obstruct the dems, IF the dem leadership will use the filibuster process that is available to them right now, with no rule change.

powwow explained this in the comments of your previous post on the topic and also in the comments of dday’s post on tom udall’s strategy.

what’s the deal with not including powwow’s info?

the filibuster just gives the minority in the senate (which might actually represent a majority of the population) the opportunity to make their case for something they feel passionate about via a temporary stand and debate process, after which the majority can pass their legislation by simple majority.

what’s happening now is that rather than go this route, and let the republicans filibuster, the dems have been refusing to move on any of their legislation that they don’t have the 60 votes necessary to prevent the filibuster (which, again, is just a temporary and probably very short delay). i highly recommend powwow’s comments and diaries to you on this subject.

looks to me like the dem leadership wants to blame republican obstructionism for their own failures, even when they have — right now — the procedural tools to get past any republican obstructionism, so long as the dem leadership has 51 votes on their side.

Great Reply! Now if only the Dems were’nt owned by the same corporate masters who own the Repubs maybe your ideas (which are pretty straightforward) could be put in to play. But they ARE owned so we won’t see anything happen except more Byzantine stupidity.

So, off we skip down the yellow brick road, not to Oz, but to oblivion. Ta-ta.

the opportunity to make their case for something they feel passionate about via a temporary stand and debate process, after which the majority can pass their legislation by simple majority.

Well, which is it? A TEMPORARY stand and debate, or a REAL ability to say NO to legislation, or an excuse for all sides to preserve the status quo?

If it is just a temporary stand and debate then it should’nt have any real effect except as a momentary spotlight that most likely would’nt alter the final outcome of legislation. If this is the situation, why does so much hinge on the threat of the filibuster?

Is it a REAL impediment to legislation? If so it has historically been used most effectively by Republicans and is a devastating instrument for preserving the status quo.

If it is merely an excuse for both sides to do nothing, THAT preserves the status quo.

All three scenarios lead to the degradation of the nation which we are witnessing presently and may well accelerate.

The filibuster seems to exist as some sort of security blanket for its adherents. But we as a nation are way past that now.
If the filibuster is simply an excuse for both parties to do nothing, then let’s dump it and force them to come up with other excuses. We need to flush them out any way we can.

I don’t think there is any way you can look at the filibuster as a win for Progressives. It just does not and has not functioned that way historically.

it’s a temporary delay. it gives the passionate minority a chance to make their case to other members of the senate and to the public — and that give us (by that i mean American citizens) the opportunity to get informed and mobilize if it’s an issue we care about too.

the dems are pretending it gives the minority the ability to say “no.” but that’s not the case.

Is it a REAL impediment to legislation?

i don’t think so — not unless the population mobilizes and takes action to influence the outcome. not likely, but we may need that option someday soon to protect social security. i think the filibuster is a very good thing and since it is so very rarely used, what’s wrong with keeping it?

what i think is a bad thing is the way the dems are abusing the process — i think it’s so that they can pretend to be for the kind of change they were elected to implement, and yet not have to actually do it because that would piss off their corporate sponsors. so they pretend and tell us it’s all the republican’s fault. when in fact, they’ve been given a mandate for change, by the voters, and control of the house, the senate and the white house to implement that change.

it’s up to us, especially those of us who have supported dems, to hold them accountable. the filibuster is just their latest shiny object to distract us from that task. let’s not be fooled into going on their wild goose chase.

i seriously recommend powwow’s analysis to you (if you have time to read it). i think it will answer all your questions. (but if you don’t, i’ll try — or better yet, i hope powwow will show up on this thread since powwow is the real expert on this. i know of none better, and imo we are very lucky that powwow is back to commenting on fdl.)

selise and I have been arguing about the filibuster fro some time now. I want to get rid of it. She wants to restore the physical filibuster. Most recently we had a lengthy exchange on in the comments on this post. That exchange ended with a long post of mine that she may not have had a chance to answer because the time for commenting was ended soon after my last one appeared. Since the present discussion is directly on the same topic, I’m offering that comment again here in slightly revised form.

selise, thanks very much for your well thought-out reply. You begin by making the point that you think the risk that the Democrats will pass something that hurts large numbers of people is a real risk and is not balanced by the hope that they’ll change if given more power. However, I think there are two points to be made in reply here.

First, where the filibuster is allowed, the situation is very different from when it is not. Here the “they” is constituted of the whole Senate, perhaps including more than 50 Senators, both Democratic or Republican who might support a filibuster in one way or another, since they don’t have to go on record in an up or down vote, removing the possibility that, say, a health care bill that was not favored by the industry would pass at all.

On the other hand, where the filibuster is not allowed, 59 “Democratic” Senators are the “they” who would have to have an up or down vote with their support recorded yea or nay on health care reform, or any other sensitive issue where they might do harm in conflict with the Democratic platform. I think the chances are much smaller that the “they” comprised of 59 Democratic Senators would do serious harm, since “they” could afford to lose either 8 or 9 or 9 of their number, and still either block a harmful bill, or pass a good one.

Second, I think the risks of bad behavior must be compared for all three situations: the status quo, the physical filibuster, and no filibuster at all, to arrive at a fair assessment. Continuation of the status quo is very risky relative to the possibility of bad legislation as we’ve seen in the health care, cap-and-trade, credit card reform, and economic stimulus scenarios. The status quo has magnified both Republican and blue dog influence on key legislation in all four areas, and has so slowed down the legislative process, that we have gotten very little done.

The physical filibuster still carries with it the risk that certain bills could be blocked entirely from up or down votes (depending on how many Senators want a bill not to come to a vote and so will not pressure the minority to end the filibuster), and that agreements to bring bills to votes might be made on condition that those bills be modified so that they are bad bills. For example, if the physical filibuster had been in effect for health care reform, the majority still might have had to guarantee everything that is in the Senate bill now, to get the number of Senators necessary to exert pressure on the minority to end the filibuster.

If there’s no filibuster, on the other hand, the Democratic leadership would then have more power to ram through legislation without compromising with Republicans at all, and with minimal compromise with blue dogs. I think the chances of arriving at decent or even good legislation, or at least not arriving at harmful legislation are just far better in that situation, than they are in the other two. Again I acknowledge the risk that 50 or 51 Democrats might also hurt us, but I think the risks are much greater that 59 Democrats or 100 Senators, as the case may be, would either pass legislation that would hurt us, or continue the status quo that is hurting us more and more with each passing year.

Next, I agree “. . . if my friend continues to advocate for something that goes beyond my moral limits (setting off bombs is a clear if over the top and not quite analogous example) then they are, sadly, not my political ally on that matter.” But this, of course, doesn’t imply that in disagreeing with me, my friend is using me as “a political pawn.”

I also agree with you that not any change in filibuster practices is a good change, but when I referred to “this custom of the Senate’s” I was not referring simply to the present silent filibuster, but to the filibuster in all its historic manifestations to date. It has always served as a protector of the status quo and a barrier to change, and, in my view, in the overwhelming number of cases it has had only undesirable consequences. Can you name any historical instances where it has had any desirable consequences? I am sure I could find some, but I’d be surprised if I could count them on the fingers of one hand.

You questioned my view that the Senate will be more responsive to what the public wants if the filibuster is gone, and you asked me why that should be and to explain the logic of my thinking. My logic is simply that if the Senate can make decisions by majority rule with much less delay than is now the case it will make many more attempts to solve problems that the public wants it to solve, and will also see and correct errors much more quickly and perhaps even arrive at much more viable solutions.

You asked how often the filibuster delayed needed legislation for months? Well, clearly, the silent filibuster has blocked legislation in certain areas for years, not months, and is still doing so. Physical filibusters have blocked action on certain bills entirely, since the majority has given up trying to pass them and has gone on to other business. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 was delayed by 57 days until the filibuster was broken by invoking cloture which then required 67 votes. Today I think that physical filibusters could easily last for months, if a whole Party wanted to block legislation, since filibusters can be conducted by teams of cooperating senators.

Next, I agree that we need to do grass roots organizing before we have enough power to defeat Democrats if they act badly, and that we could not always vote against the Democrat who screwed up if it means turning the country over to a Cheney or someone even worse.

You said that you don’t see how the presence of blue dogs and the filibuster makes the current opportunity of Democrats to pass good legislation, more ambiguous than would be the case, if the Dems could easily by-pass the blue dogs by not having to cope with the filibuster. I guess my reply to this is that if there were no filibuster and no need for 8 of the blue dogs to vote to end one, then there would be much more pressure on those Senators who claim to be solid Democrats or progressives to insist on more liberal legislation, since the notion that this couldn’t be passed anyway would be much less plausible.

I don’t think powwow’s argument really affects the politics of this very much. We all know that it only takes 50+1 votes to pass legislation once it comes to a vote. However, in the case of a physical filibuster it may take many more than 51 votes to end one. That was certainly the case with the Civil Rights filibuster, and it can easily be the case with much controversial legislation today.

Next, you suggest that by the time the filibuster is killed the Dems may no longer have a majority. That may be true, but it also is true that the filibuster could be gone tomorrow if Democrats decide they need to pass a lot of legislation quickly with a bare majority in order to save their skins. So if the polls get bad enough quickly enough, we could find it gone by March. You next said:

agree about the order. but since laying the foundation for social movements takes years (usually a lot longer), i think focusing on the theoretical, and probably not even likely, delay of a few days or weeks a filibuster debate could add makes no sense to me. in the timeline of big changes, a filibuster debate is only a blink of an eye. if we don’t seize this moment while the dems have strong control of the house, senate and white house we could have to wait years or longer before another similar opportunity presents itself.

I think what I’m saying is that if the Dems do seize this moment and they do want to get their legislation through, they are going to have to get rid of the filibuster on the way to passing it, because they’re just not going to get cloture in the present environment, and even if they restore the physical filibuster, the likely delays that will introduce will be too great to allow them to pass much good legislation before the Fall even if they are able to break a filibuster or two.

You said that the price of getting rid of the filibuster is less open Government, making citizen participation more difficult and running the risk that simple majorities will govern destructively without the filibuster as a check. This is the classic defense of the filibuster. I just don’t see that history shows that the check on majorities it has provided has not been harmful, or has led to more open government, or to more citizen participation.

In fact, I think the record of the filibuster is almost always negative in its effects. Other societies (e.g. Canada, the UK, Australia, New Zealand) that are not troubled by the filibuster have higher voting participation than the United States, along with Government that is just as, or even more open than ours is. In fact, one can argue that the unresponsiveness of our Government to the majority of people, in part due to the filibuster has depressed political participation in the US, compared to what we find in other Democracies.