May 20, 2005

Boaz on the Nuclear Option

This column by David Boaz makes some key points. One is incredinbly obvious. Ending the filibuster has to be one of George "Big Government" Bush's dearest dreams. He's shown a hearty desire for his entire tenure to spend spend and spend some more (well, not necessarily on Medicaid, programs for those with disabilities etc., but in general the man seems set on taking the national debt ever higher into the stratosphere). And obviously anything that will make that easier he's likely something he'll approve of. It's no shock that Boaz and the other libertarian types in the party disagree, but they aren't in charge right now, Bush is. And Bush's approach to government in many ways looks much more like that of LBJ and Nixon than it looks like Barry Goldwater's or Ike's.

But the other key point here is getting far too little attention. The Senate is by nature undemocratic, and if the politicians or the media foster the view that getting 51% of the votes there means that representatives of over half the country favor a bill or nomination they are misleading the people.

The Senate itself is apportioned by states, not by population. California has 53 members of the House to Wyoming's one, but each state gets two senators. If each senator is assumed to represent half that state's population, then the Senate's 55 Republicans represent 131 million people, while its 44 Democrats represent 161 million. So is the "democratic will" what the 55 senators want, or what senators representing a majority of the country want?

If the Democrats want to win the politics of this issue, bringing this up is just as important (and maybe more so) as constantly hitting that 1) the Republicans are going to knowingly misinterpret the rules of the Senate and 2) throw away an ancient rule that has been key in protecting many from a tyranny of the majority. If you look at it this way, and frame it this way, Democrats can make the case that protecting the filibuster actually is the truly democratic thing to do. It ensures that you don't have a narrow coalition from tiny states running things. If you don't want an unrepresentative minority running the Senate (and hence much of the country's business) the filibuster should be maintained - it does more to protect majority rule and the people's interests than the Republican's scheming.

Posted by armand at May 20, 2005 01:07 PM | TrackBack | Posted to Politics


Comments

Regarding points 1 & 2 in your last graf:

1. In 1975, Democrats changed the cloture threshold from 67 to 60 votes. They did it by majority vote. Why 60? Because there were 60 Democrats in the Senate.

2. Meaning, they threw away "an ancient rule that has been key in protecting many from a tyranny of the majority." For the balance of the 94th Congress and throughout the 95th, the minority was deprived of the right to filibuster on judges AND legislation.

Just thought you'd want to know that.

Posted by: Karl Maher at May 20, 2005 03:01 PM | PERMALINK

Interesting. But I still think that given the way in which Senate seats are assigned 60 votes is a not entirely unreasonable requirement on certain matters. And I don't much care which party is messing with the rules.

Though bringing up the issue of "judges AND legislation" ... the fact that this is so narrowly tailored is something else about this entire ugly scene that I find very ... well, I'm really rather shocked that the supposed proponents of majority rule in the Senate seem to only think that's necessary and approrpiate when it comes to federal appeals court judges with lifetime tenure. Why does the budget of the Post Office (which changes every year) require a supermajority, yet the appointment of a judge who might serve for 30 or 40 years does not?

And of course yet another weird thing, perhaps the weirdest thing of all, is why on Earth are senators giving up their own power on this? It would seem to fly in the face of all kinds of rational choice and economics/political science expectations.

Posted by: Armand at May 21, 2005 02:56 PM | PERMALINK
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