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The Last Filibuster?

Posted at 1:30 p.m. on Nov. 8, 2012

Ezra Klein makes an impassioned case that now is the time to eliminate the filibuster and return to a functioning legislative branch.

“Today, the filibuster isn’t used to defend minority rights or ensure debate. Rather, the filibuster is simply a rule that the minority party uses to require a 60-vote supermajority to get anything done in the United States Senate. That’s not how it was meant to be… The problem with the filibuster isn’t that senators don’t have to stand and talk, or that they can filibuster the motion to debate as well as the vote itself. It’s that the Senate has become, with no discussion or debate, an effective 60-vote institution. If you don’t change that, you haven’t solved the problem.”

“Defenses of the filibuster tend to invoke minority rights or the Constitution’s preference for decentralized power. It’s true the Founding Fathers wanted to make legislating hard. That’s why they divided power between three branches… But the Founders didn’t want it to be this hard. They considered requiring a supermajority to pass legislation and rejected the idea… Instead of the branches competing against one another, as they envisioned, we now have two parties competing uniformly across all branches.”

“Ideally, a bipartisan majority of senators would end the filibuster — either immediately or with a delayed trigger six years after a deal is struck — so neither party would know which is poised to benefit. But doing away with the filibuster in the next Congress has some appeal, too. Democrats control the Senate and Republicans control the House; there will be no instant power grab leading to one-party dominance.”

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Government Reform

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  • jwallace79

    I think there are legitimate defenses of various Senate procedural rules (filibuster, holds, etc.) when they pertain to powers specific to the Senate – executive appointments, judicial confirmations, and treaty ratifications, to name a few. I say this begrudgingly because I really feel that these procedural tactics have been abused to such an astonishing extent that it’s easy to want to do away with all of them.

    The Senate is not merely the upper house of congress, insomuch as it only passes legislation. The senate’s purpose goes deeper than just affirming or denying House bills, and to that end, I’m open to keeping certain procedural rules as they pertain to business exclusive to the Senate. The use of the filibuster to halt the passage of legislation is wrong. Senate holds of motions that prevent debate of legislation is wrong. If senators wish to prevent passage of a bill into law, they must find the votes and vote it down.

    • http://twitter.com/kgoebel Kevin Goebel

      A very interesting idea to limit the filibuster only to matters that are the exclusive domain of the Senate. But my concern that it has already been overly abused to block judicial nominations. If this were the only filibuster reform, I can imagine the minority party using it even more to take judicial appointments hostage, either to ransom or retaliate for other legislative objectives.

      • jwallace79

        I agree with those concerns. I do think it’s very likely for executive and judicial confirmations, as well as treaties, to be hijacked by a united minority, as well, and this is why I think it’s so important for Democrats to quickly get behind an agreed concept, now, for what these rules are really intended to do and how they’re supposed to protect minority interests. We’re wasting a lot of time with this. We should be focusing our attention on how to reform those rules for Senate-only business. My concern with the current debate is that reformers are not aligning with a united message. While some want to eliminate the filibuster entirely, others want to whittle around the edges, allowing anonymous holds on executive appointments while changing the number of votes required to invoke cloture or reach a quorum. They’re obviously looking to an inevitable future where Democrats do not control the chamber. This is myopic, IMHO, and anti-productive when the public mood is so clearly in favor of broad reform.

        I think Democrats should get their act together on this and decide, conceptually, what they think these rules should be for, and they should do it very soon. There’s a very narrow window in January for the Democrats to act on this. Frankly, I see efforts to reform these Senate rules sputtering out right now, and this would be a tragic loss of opportunity to do some real good for the country.

  • rodger dodger

    Wait six years? We need to dump the filibuster or, at least, eliminate the motion to proceed problem; raise the number of votes for a successful filibuster; and end call-it-in filibusters.

    My preference would be to dump the rule altogether on both theoretical and empirical grounds. On the matter of super-majorities, these are preferable on a highly selective basis than the continuing gridlock resulting from the filibuster.

    I have started writing to Senate Democrats to remind them of Harry Reid’s public statement earlier this year that failing to reform the filibuster two years ago was a mistake.

    This is no time, in my opinion, for half-measures.

  • Anonymous

    Where is this six-year delay suggestion coming from? What if politicians three congresses from now decide to renege on the agreement? Senate rules aren’t federal law, and an earlier supreme court ruling said congresses cannot bind future congresses. How would a six-year delay agreement be enforced?

    That’s a very suspect suggestion.

  • cynic

    The problem isn’t the filbuster itself, or rather not directly. It is that it can be done at no cost for the one using it.
    Abandoing it totally is ok with me, but keeping it would also be if it was reformed.
    For example adding the rule that each Senator only can have one active filibuster and when he/she have one is not allowed to take the floor or suggest new bills.
    That would limit it to the issues the person/party find most important not everything thry don’t agree with, which would be an acceptabel level.

  • euphgeek

    I think the filibuster should stay, but the rule should be that the party that invokes it has to say exactly why they’re filibustering and what it would take to get votes from their side. And if they renege on that, then the filibuster is declared “bad faith” and broken without having to take a cloture vote.

    • Azphil

      That may be too sensible for repubs.

  • rhodent

    I think that the filibuster serves a valid purpose; it’s just too easy to abuse. Here’s what I’d like to see: First, raise (yes, raise) the number of votes needed to override a filibuster from 60 to 80. Then, limit every Senator to filibustering one issue per year (I say issue instead of bill so that the majority party can’t pull the trick of letting a bill get filibustered, then introducing a “new” bill which is identical to the old bill except for one change to one minor clause). If you’ve already filibustered one issue in the past 365 days, then your vote on any cloture issue is automatically recorded as a “Yes”. Filibustering appointments is still allowed, with each person counting as an “issue” (even if appointed to a different office).

    This way, during each Congress the minority party will have the opportunity to block four issues they consider really important, but won’t be able to entirely shut Congress down by filibustering every single thing the majority party tries to accomplish. This returns the filibuster to what it should be: an opportunity for the minority to have some voice while still acknowledging the fact that the majority is the majority and thus should get its way most of the time.

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