I was talking years ago with another lobbyist at a charity fundraiser at a Boston hotel when a former state representative known to both of us happened to walk into the crowded function hall where the event took place. Everybody I knew who knew this ex-rep liked the guy because he was as charming as can be and the opposite of a fathead. We both shook his hand enthusiastically and exchanged greetings with him as he squeezed past us. When the ex-rep was out of earshot, I said to the other guy, "You knew him when he served. What was he like as a legislator?" My brother-in-advocacy smiled faintly, then offered a succinct assessment: "He liked everything about the job but the voting."
The memory of that encounter has popped into my head more then once in the time since Joe Biden was elected president, his party took control of the Senate, and widespread speculation began on whether Democrats would attempt to eliminate the filibuster, a procedural mechanism that allows any senator to block action indefinitely on a pending bill. The obstruction may only be removed if a minimum of 60 senators vote to override the filibuster, meaning nothing significant can win passage in the Senate without the support of at least 60 of the 100 members of the upper branch.
The filibuster is not ordained by the Constitution. It is an optional rule the Senate chooses to impose upon itself, even though it runs counter to a basic standard of democracy, i.e., the majority rules, and even though it allows a relatively small number of senators to constantly thwart the will of the majority.
Proponents of the filibuster assert that it serves as a salutary inducement to bi-partisan lawmaking. The reality is that it motivates the party in the minority in the Senate at any given time to slap away the hand of the majority so as to stymie its agenda and render the majority impotent in the eyes of the electorate, and thus more likely to lose its majority in the next election.
The filibuster is a formula for endless gridlock in our time. There are many reasons to eliminate it, and I'm at the point where any reason is good enough for me. My personal favorite is that it has become a gigantic wall for senators to hide behind, a place where they crouch when they should be standing up and making a stand.
If the former state representative I mentioned at the top of this post were now a senator serving at the Capitol, he'd be both feet in for the filibuster.
Democrats and Republicans have both played the filibuster game shamelessly through the years. The game requires the party in the minority to cry that, if the majority does away with the filibuster, the spirit of bipartisanship and all inter-party comity will be forever banished from the chamber.
"And be careful what you wish for," the minority warns. "The next time you're out of power, you'll rue the day you destroyed the filibuster."
The minority also warns, "Next time we're in power, we'll overturn everything you did with your majority-only votes. So what would be the point?"
I think it's a crock that what our nation most needs now is less political divisiveness and more bi-partisanship in lawmaking. What we need is the party in the majority, which happens to be Democrat at this time, to enact its legislative priorities so that when November of 2022 rolls around, Americans will have a definite idea -- as opposed to a suspicion or a hope -- of what they are voting for or against.
I'm not saying the Democrat agenda is ideal, or that it is sure to produce marvelous results if enacted, only that we should vote for or against it in November of 2022 based on what it is actually accomplishing, as opposed to what the Rupert Murdochs of the world predict it would do to the country if the filibuster was not there to stop it.
We elect people to go to Washington and make decisions for us. (In a rational world, the Congress would always make the toughest issues a priority for deciding because those are the ones that would produce the greatest good if resolved correctly and swiftly.) Deciding means voting. Not voting means delay, which means the compounding of problems. Not voting is a bad deal for the people.
It is an ironclad law of politics that elections have consequences. The filibuster is an unnatural interference in the operation of that law.
I'll wrap up with a shout-out to members of the Congress from Massachusetts who unequivocally want to kill the filibuster...
Not long after Biden was elected, our two U.S. Senators, Elizabeth Warren and Edward Markey, clearly re-stated their desire to see the filibuster eliminated.
And, on April 22, six of our nine U.S. representatives -- Jake Auchincloss, Katherine Clark, Jim McGovern, Seth Moulton, Ayanna Pressley and Lori Trahan -- joined 93 of their House colleagues in signing a letter to Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer urging him to do all he can to strike it from Senate procedures.
That letter said, in part:
"In today's hyper-partisan climate, there is simply no avenue for bold legislation that meets the needs of everyday Americans without ending the filibuster. Just last month, we witnessed one of this Congress's and President Biden's core promises, increasing the federal minimum wage to $15, fail to be included in the American Rescue Plan...
"...the path forward in the fight for the $15 (minimum wage), voting rights, climate and environmental justice, gun violence prevention, immigration reform, worker protections, LGBTQ equality, and reforming our criminal-legal system will likely be further obstructed -- unless we end the filibuster.
"...what has become patently clear is that we cannot let a procedural tool that can be abolished stand in the way of justice, prosperity, and equity..."
Amen.
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