Current defenders of the de facto 60-vote requirement for enactment of legislation by the United States Senate invariably argue that a non-representative and obstructionist upper legislative chamber was crucial to the Founding Fathers’ system of constitutional checks and balances. Without a cranky and institutionally conservative Senate, you see, popular majorities might run roughshod over minority rights, and/or enshrine highly temporary objects of popular enthusiasm into law.
Attorney/activist Tom Geoghegan blows up this line of reasoning very effectively in aNew York Times op-ed piece that appeared yesterday. His main argument is that by requiring Senate supermajorities in very select circumstances, the Founders made it clear they did not contemplate a universal, routine supermajority requirement for every circumstance. This is, in fact, a very recent development, accomplished through the abandonment of actual filibusters for threatened filibusters as an obstructionist tactic, and then the routinization of filibuster threats. What used to be an extreme and controversial measure–an actual filibuster–that was very difficult to deploy has now become the normal order of business in the Senate.
Had the Founders wanted the Senate to require supermajorities for all sorts of legislation, they would have placed it right there in the Constitution. But they did no such thing.
Geoghegan offers several avenues for challenging the Supermajority Senate outrage. But his best contribution is an argument that will leave constitutional “originalists” sputtering in confusion.
This item is cross-posted at The Democratic Strategist.
Tags: filibuster, Politics and politicians, Senate
Geoghegan makes an excellent argument, but it’s irrellevant. We have these rules now, and they’re not going away any time soon. We also have the obligation to pass single payer, financial regulation, and fiscal responsibility, and to subsidize green industry and create jobs.
There are a number of ways to accomplish this, but only if the base gets active. They could call boycots of the spoiler States, Conn. and the rest. They could send cash to single payer lobbyists, and to challengers of Joe L and the others. They could work to elect more dems to the Senate. Liberal journalists on the net could start high quality commentary on cable TV.
But they won’t do any of this. It was all they could do to pencil in the ballot in the election. The netroots are proud of themselves for helping to elect an African American President, but symbolic gestures are all they’re capable of. Liberal journalists don’t dare speak out because that might ruin their chance for promotion to corporate media. Pundits in the media and the net are mostly into popularity, and there’s no chance they’ll call the base on their laziness.
[...] We could, for example, launch a frontal attack on Washington’s transactional culture and diminish the power of special interests by changing the way we finance Congressional elections. And rather than accept the inevitability of “rotten boroughs,” we could counter the worst abuses of gerrymandering by insisting that political districts be drawn by nonpartisan commissions charged with increasing rather than decreasing the number of competitive seats. We could also think seriously about addressing the abuse of the filibuster in the Senate, something that has sparked a great deal of commentary from progressives of late. [...]
[...] We could, for example, launch a frontal attack on Washington’s transactional culture and diminish the power of special interests by changing the way we finance Congressional elections. And rather than accept the inevitability of “rotten boroughs,” we could counter the worst abuses of gerrymandering by insisting that political districts be drawn by nonpartisan commissions charged with increasing rather than decreasing the number of competitive seats. We could also think seriously about addressing the abuse of the filibuster in the Senate, something that has sparked a great deal of commentary from progressives of late. [...]