I mentioned a few weeks ago how the founding fathers would probably be shocked to find that in American Democracy in 2010 a super majority of 60 votes is needed to advance any legislation in the US Senate.
I doubt they ever meant for this kind of behavior to happen either:
As my colleague Jonathan Chait notes on his blog, Senator Richard Shelby’s decision to put a hold on all Obama nominees, until his state gets several billion dollars in pork barrel spending, really does seem to be a seminal moment in the evolution of Republican obstructionism. Jonathon Cohn, The New Republic
Never mind a super majority, you now need the approval of 100 Senators to get anything done!
Where are the tea party protests about pork barrel spending and the Republican press releases which have been lambasting earmarks since January 2009?
Anyone?
I live in the Washington Heights neighborhood of Milwaukee, WI with my wife Jen, our daughter Emerson, and sons Carter and Colton.
The founding fathers certainly never envisioned a super majority requirement, because they never would have not understood what that meant. The stranglehold that the political parties have on our federal government is ridiculous, and you can’t just blame the Republicans for that.
Since it was Aaron Burr that made the filibuster possible, even before it had been named. I think you’re wrong about them not envisioning it or knowing about it.
There’s still an option. The GOP was going to try and use it back when the Democrats were filibustering all of Bush’s judicial nominations, but they were stopped by the “Gang of 14″. It should be noted that it will take more than the Gang of 14 to prevent the Dems from using it today, if they so choose.
What makes you think that the filibuster was created as a political party tool?
It’s one of the “gentlemen’s agreements” the Senate has so many of. It’s been used on this kind of scale before, but generally only in presidential election years by the party not in the White House.
The basic power of the hold is that it is not a Senate rule, but rather a announcement of an intent to disrupt. In fact, the senate is free under all its rules to go ahead and “call the bluff” of the senator requesting the hold and take up the nominees anyway; there is no official power in the hold.
But what the hold actually does is simply put the senate leadership on notice that the senator requesting the hold is going to be obstructionist until his concern is met, so if they want the senate’s work to proceed smoothly, they need to listen.
The root of it lay in rules of order the senate as a body follows. Watch it on C-SPAN and you’ll see countless occurrences of “I ask unanimous to consent to…” as part of the daily business of the senate.
The Senator requesting the hold is in effect notifying the leadership that no one will be getting unanimous consent to do anything, that the Senator will object every time that request is made, and force delays, debates and votes on all sorts of things that currently just pass right on through the senate without comment. In effect, he’s threatening to singlehandedly slow the Senate down to a glacial pace.
The history of the Senate has been that they will value smooth running over all else and will not force the issue, but then holds have generally not been so badly abused as this. There have been more single-senator holds placed on Obama nominees this year than ever before in the history of the Senate, so far as I can tell. And it’s not just nominees; A GOP senator recently put a hold on a bill funding health care for Iraq war veterans, for example.
Personally, were I in the leadership, I’d say it’s time to start calling bluffs. The hold was useful when it was limited to expressing serious concerns about a particular nominee. Unfortunately, the ease in which the Senate has been giving in, without the “holder” having to pay any sort of political price for it, has led to it doing more harm than good.
(BTW, none of these rules are in the constitution, and they don’t need to be because Article 1 Section 5 says they don’t need to be, and places no limits on what any such rules might require. Indeed the founders might shake their heads about some things going on, but none of them would argue that the Senate rules are either illegal or unconstitutional. And before we take too seriously what might shock them, remember they would also be shocked by the presence of a black man in the White House, or a woman on the floor of the senate, so their sensibilities aren’t generally to be acceded to.)
So none of your frequent GOP friends have anything to say about pork! all the sudden??
Classic.
I guess it must be in the same place that Democrat outrage over the war went… right next to Democrat outrage over deficit spending. It’s on the shame shelf as Democrat hypocrisy over using the filibuster rules against Bush. I would imaging that if you could locate Democrat outrage over huge bonuses paid to Fannie and Freddie execs, it might lead you in the right direction.
If the Democrats were upset by this, they would simply force the filibuster. A threat of a filibuster is a far cry from actually performing that action. It’s ludicrous that the Democrats now feel helpless to govern as they only have the Presidency, control of the House, and 59 seats in the Senate. Are they really THAT incompetent?
Didn’t Harry Reid realize that when he resorted to bribery to get a bill passed that he was opening up a huge new can of unintended consequences?
hmmm … where are these guys now?
http://www.breitbart.tv/obama-dems-in-2005-51-vote-nuclear-option-is-arrogant-power-grab-against-the-founders-intent/