Tyranny of the minority

[Gob]

As everyone from President Joe Biden to the conservative Democratic senator Joe Manchin to liberal groups now push to reform the Senate’s rules, the defense of the filibuster goes something like this: by design, our nation is a republic, not a direct democracy, and therefore we must create institutional obstacles to empower a minority of Americans to prevent the whims of the majority from being too hastily enshrined in legislation. By this logic, we must keep the Senate’s cloture rule, which requires 60 of the Senate’s 100 members to end a filibuster and move a bill to a vote.

Those who make this case seem to love sounding like erudite constitutional scholars steeped in the grandeur of American history, and they purport to be pluralists worrying about minority rights.

“Letting the majority do everything it wants to is not what the founders had in mind,” said the Senate Republican whip, John Thune, in a floor speech defending the filibuster this week. “The founders recognized that it wasn’t just kings who could be tyrants. They knew majorities could be tyrants, too, and that a majority if unchecked could trample the rights of the minority … so the founders created the Senate as a check on the House of Representatives.”

But an inconvenient fact undermines Thune’s argument and should set pluralists at ease: even if the filibuster were eliminated and bills could advance on a simple majority vote, the Senate would still be giving a minority of the American population enough Senate representation to block legislation supported by the majority of the country.

In the debate over the filibuster, then, the question is not whether you believe the majority should rule. Instead, the question is this: how small a minority should be given legislative veto power over the rest of the country?

Back in 2010, the Republican Senate majority leader, Mitch McConnell, was not wrong when he said the founders were “quoted as saying at the constitutional convention the Senate was going to be like the saucer under the teacup, and the tea was going to slosh out and cool off”.

To that end, the founders created a Senate giving large and small states equal representation. The idea was for the upper chamber to act as a stately bulwark against the more uncouth ideas that could bubble up from the rabble and its representatives in the lower chamber. In the words of James Madison, the Senate’s undemocratic structure was designed as a “necessary fence” against “the impulse of sudden and violent passions” of the people.

In the modern era, the structure of the Senate has often turned the upper chamber into a place that does not merely respect minority rights – it has actually allowed the minority to rule, regardless of the status of the filibuster. As CNN’s Ronald Brownstein recounted last year, “While the [Republican party] has controlled the Senate for about 22 of the past 40 years, Republican senators have represented a majority of the nation’s population for only a single session over that period: from 1997 to 1998.”

Maybe you like this undemocratic dynamic, because you believe it represents the founders’ ideals. Maybe you hate this dynamic, because you believe it makes a mockery of democracy. Whichever side you are on, here’s the point that is germane to the renewed debate over Senate rules: even if the filibuster is eliminated, a minority of the American population will still retain disproportionate, outsized power in Congress’s upper chamber, just as the founders desired.

That is because under simple-majority voting rules, the majority of the country’s population does not necessarily rule the Senate. Even without the filibuster, the Senate is still a place where the 265,000 South Dakotans who elected Thune get as much representation as the 2.2 million Georgia voters who elected Raphael Warnock. Consequently, a filibuster-free Democratic Senate would still allow a minority of the population’s senators to rule, if they so choose – because the Senate still provides far less than half the country with the 51 votes necessary to stop any legislation in its tracks.

Continues here...

[Scooter]

I've said it when Republicans were in control and when Democrats were in control; it's a ridiculous rule that should be dispensed with once and for all.

[Sue U]

The entire chamber should dispensed with and the House should be expanded, with members elected through proportional representation. U.S. government has become an oxymoron.

[Big RR]

While it may well be time to change the rules, I do think the fact that the senate is (usually) less reactive and slower to act than the House (which often reflects the "passions du jour" as screamed by the loudest minorities, the filibuster includes its own problems. Putting the breaks on actions to encourage deliberation is a definite plus, but restricting action indefinitely is not. Maybe a filibuster which can delay action for some time, say 30 or 45 days, unless the vote is approved by the supermajority could be a good balance.

Sue, how bog do you think this expanded House could be before it would cease to function as a single body?

[Sue U]

When the number of representatives was fixed, the U.S. population was less than 94 million. I think you could easily eliminate the Senate and double the number of reps for a functional government that's a lot more representative of the people. (By way of comparison, the UK, with a population of about 67 million, has 650 seats in the House of Commons.)

[Big RR]

Perhaps, but then the parties have a lot more influence and control there than in the US system; I think a lot of policy is settled in the smoke filled back rooms as it is difficult for a group that size to debate anything.

[liberty]

The entire chamber should dispensed with and the House should be expanded, with members elected through proportional representation. U.S. government has become an oxymoron.

Yes, change the name to supreme soviet, and establish health and exercise camps for those who disagree. The federal government never was meant to be a democracy; it is the states that are democracies, but those governments are the ones you communist want it to abolish.

I don't want to lose any of the safeguards the founders gave us.

[Big RR]

So I guess you want established and state-funded churches which many states continued well into the 19th century?

[Burning Petard]

Specially the safeguards for human beings who are less than a full person, and don't forget to eliminate all the constitutional amendments after the first ten.

snailgate.

[Big RR]

Which didn't, for the most part, apply to the states before the 14th.

[Gob]

and establish health and exercise camps for those who disagree.

That would be a blessing for the US.

[Scooter]

[Bicycle Bill]

The "Ken" doll was introduced in March 1961 as Barbie's teen-aged boyfriend; so if we assume he was supposed to be around 15 or 16 at that time, that would make him 75 or so now.

So yeah.  An old white guy with no balls.  Definitely a Senate Republican.

-"BB"-

[Jarlaxle]

Repeal the 17th Amendment.

[Burning Petard]

I have send a letter to the two Delaware senators, asking that the filibuster be re-instituted as an actual activity. Now a single senator sends a note to a senate leader informing them that they want to 'filibuster' a particular bill and that bill is frozen. Nothing more happens to it.

Let the 'filibuster' work the way it used to be, when Ted Cruze had to stand there with his rubber pants on and read Dr. Seuss into the record. At least Bernie Sanders said something coherent enough that his filibuster speech was actually printed as a book called "The Speech"

snailgate

[Jarlaxle]

I'd rather have senators reading Dr. Seuss than passing 1000-page bills they have not read.

All bills should be required to be read aloud on the floor of the senate (and house) before voting on them. Any member who was not present for the ENTIRE reading should not be permitted to vote for the bill. (Options should be "no" or "present" only.)

[Big RR]

Repeal the 17th Amendment.

Yep, the hell with giving the people a voice.

[Jarlaxle]

Repeal the 17th Amendment.

Yep, the hell with giving the people a voice.

The people have and have always had a voice. Not sure if you're not bright enough to understand that or deliberately playing dumb.

[Burning Petard]

Jaraxle, you seem to ignore that the senators do not do the real filibuster speech now, and they still very much pass bills which nobody but lobbyists have read.

snailgate

[Big RR]

Repeal the 17th Amendment.

Yep, the hell with giving the people a voice.

The people have and have always had a voice. Not sure if you're not bright enough to understand that or deliberately playing dumb.

No, just that I don't want to dilute that voice by permitting elected representatives to making the choice instead of a direct election. There's absolutely no reason to repeal the 17th amendment. At one time it might have made sense, a time where communication was limited and people couldn't easily be aware of the issues and debates, but that is not now. I'd rather have more participatory democracy than less, and see no reason to empower a group of people to act on my behalf and elect my representatives. But if you see that as a real "voice", then we can just agree to disagree.