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- iHaveNet.com: Politics
by Robert Schlesinger
Senate Filibuster (© Matt Davies)
To observe the moribund Democrats and gleeful Republicans last week in the wake of
Scott Brown's Massachusetts miracle,
one would think that the number of Democrats in the
That's because of the filibuster, which allows 41 members to prevent a final vote on almost any piece of legislation. Mere majority support is insufficient to pass a bill; you must have a supermajority. Contemporary politics and recollections of famous past filibusters--whether the heroic Jimmy Stewart in 1939's Mr. Smith Goes to Washington or the villainous Strom Thurmond in 1957's civil rights debate--would lead one to believe that this was always the case. But that is not so.
In fact, the use of the filibuster has undergone a radical shift, from protecting the party out of power to creating a tyranny of the minority.
According to Barbara Sinclair, a political scientist at
Filibusters became both less disruptive and more easily managed, and by the mid-1980s, there were almost 17 per
Then the practice really took off. By the time Bill Clinton entered office, party leaders had realized that it could be used as a partisan political tool, and filibustering legislation became commonplace. "Republicans kind of realized that they can make a really concerted use of extended debate to deprive Democrats of victories," Sinclair says. The election of 1994 only reinforced the strategy of no. Why help the majority pass legislation when you can stall until voters, frustrated with gridlock, throw the other side out? Once out of power, Democrats went to school on the
The parties themselves were becoming ideologically homogenous as liberal GOPers and conservative Democrats disappeared. Historically, the filibuster "was liberals versus conservatives, but never Democrats versus Republicans," explains Donald Ritchie, the
By the end of George W. Bush's second term, there were an astonishing 52 filibusters per
The filibuster is out of control. And it's dangerous.
As President Obama argued in a year-end interview with
Democrats could exercise the so-called nuclear option, changing the
Another option is to take the filibuster old school. Kill the two-track method, and force all-night talkathons again. The problem, according to Ritchie, is that it's self-defeating. A small group of senators can sustain a filibuster in shifts, but because of parliamentary rules, all those trying to break it have to be on hand. "Jimmy Stewart made it romantic," Ritchie says, "but it actually doesn't wear down Jimmy Stewart as much as all the other senators who have to be there."
Maybe he's right. But maybe in a 24-hour media environment, the spectacle of watching a
The first step to reining back in the filibuster might just be public education: Make people understand that it has gotten out of hand and is being abused. "If this pattern continues," the president told
He could repeat that message, beginning with the State of the Union address. It may not be enough, but it's a start.
Available at Amazon.com:
The Political Fix: Changing the Game of American Democracy, from the Grassroots to the White House
AMERICAN POLITICS
WORLD | AFRICA | ASIA | EUROPE | LATIN AMERICA | MIDDLE EAST | UNITED STATES | ECONOMICS | EDUCATION | ENVIRONMENT | FOREIGN POLICY | POLITICS
How the Filibuster Changed and Brought Tyranny of the Minority | Robert Schlesinger
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