It's looking like the Dems are at least considering real filibuster reform next Congress. Curious what others here think of the idea.

This is one issue that seems bipartisan, in the sense that both parties love the filibuster when they are in the minority and hate it when they are in the majority.

Personally, I was disappointed when the Rs didn't use the "nuclear option" when they last had the majority, even though the Ds were using the filibuster to stop things I wanted stopped at the time. For one thing, the filibuster is not in the constitution, and if the intention was to require a super-majority to pass laws, they would have put that in there, as with treaties.

From what I understand the two most popular proposals are 1) require 40 votes to start a filibuster and make them actually filibuster or 2) have a step down system where the first cloture vote requires 60, then 55, then 50, or something to that effect.

Thoughts?

Well, I don't think any House or Senate rules are in the Constitution, so I don't find that a particularly compelling reason to change it. I do think the Senators should have to actually filibuster, not just avoid a cloture vote. In a sense, I like that the rules force some bipartisanship (since generally one party doesn't have enough votes without it) but it can create logjams and add to partisan rancor.

I was opposed when they dropped it from 2/3 to 60 votes, although that was truly necessary to get the badly needed civil rights legislation through.

I think that having one house of congress with the filibuster is a huge and necessary protection against runaway one-party government, and I would hate to see it go away. I shudder to think where either Shrub or Obama might have taken us without the filibuster.

(12-23-2010 04:59 PM)Owl-88 Wrote:  Well, I don't think any House or Senate rules are in the Constitution, so I don't find that a particularly compelling reason to change it. I do think the Senators should have to actually filibuster, not just avoid a cloture vote. In a sense, I like that the rules force some bipartisanship (since generally one party doesn't have enough votes without it) but it can create logjams and add to partisan rancor.

I guess my point wasn't so much that it should be reformed simply because it isn't in the Constitution but that it's transformed over the last several Congresses from rarely used procedure into a defacto 60 vote requirement for passing legislation - and that's definitely not what the Constitution says. I'll try and dig up a chart - it's not a matter of it going from 20 to 25, but going up an order of magnitude. Enough that I'd argue it's a change in kind, not a change in degree.

It looks now like what might be passed is reform/change that would eliminate "secret holds" where one Senator can hold up legislation in secret (always thought that was crazy). That seems to have broad support. More controversially, but moderate compared to doing away with the filibuster, is to make the minority, you know, actually filibuster. A determined minority could still filibuster and the vote requirements are the same, but they'd have to make a decision that actually doing the filibuster is worth it. Currently there is almost no political cost to it.

(Ironically, I think most Americans incorrectly think this is actually what happens currently so it would actually be "changing" the Senate to how people think it already works...)

We have seen close-up the problems with one-party rule, by each party, over the last 10 years. The cloture rule should actually force bipartisanship. Over the last two years, it sorta went the other way because the democrat senate majority was so large that they could use it to force through whatever they wanted. Now that the senate is more evenly divided, I think the cloture requirement will go back to its intended purpose, to forcing some measure of bipartisan support for whatever action is taken. And that is a good thing.

I would prefer zero changes to existing procedural rules.

(12-23-2010 05:14 PM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote:  I was opposed when they dropped it from 2/3 to 60 votes, although that was truly necessary to get the badly needed civil rights legislation through.

I think that having one house of congress with the filibuster is a huge and necessary protection against runaway one-party government, and I would hate to see it go away. I shudder to think where either Shrub or Obama might have taken us without the filibuster.

This is a point where we probably have a basic philosophical disagreement. Shocking, I know. :)

[Disclaimer – I’m a former political scientist focusing on comparative democracies, so I’m geeky and idiocyncratic compared to normal people on this stuff…]

I’m a fan of the responsible party government model in a parliamentary system where a party or parties win an election and then can more or less implement their program. This is tempered by the size of the majority – if you have 51 seats out of a hundred, it just takes one defector to topple the government, or an out of control PM can be replaced. More to the point, party programs are taken more seriously by voters and are therefore more serious documents than our “platforms” which are largely meaningless. (Of course all systems fall short of the ideal, and some disastrously so – see Italy 1945 – present.)

I also think combining head of state and head of government is a bad idea, but we’re getting way off topic here.

Point is, given that I don’t even really think separation of powers (other than judicial review) is all that great, dialing back the filibuster a bit doesn’t bother me.

[Edited for typos and bad grammar]

(12-23-2010 05:14 PM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote:  I was opposed when they dropped it from 2/3 to 60 votes, although that was truly necessary to get the badly needed civil rights legislation through.

Since the 2/3 to 3/5 change took place in 1975, I am curious what legislation you are referring to.

(12-30-2010 02:09 PM)Native Georgian Wrote:  

(12-23-2010 05:14 PM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote:  I was opposed when they dropped it from 2/3 to 60 votes, although that was truly necessary to get the badly needed civil rights legislation through.

Since the 2/3 to 3/5 change took place in 1975, I am curious what legislation you are referring to.

Probably should have stated it somewhat differently, that the 2/3 was used to block civil rights legislation for years, and that the change was made in order to prevent the use of the filibuster in similar ways in the future.

(12-30-2010 04:24 PM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote:  Probably should have stated it somewhat differently, that the 2/3 was used to block civil rights legislation for years, and that the change was made in order to prevent the use of the filibuster in similar ways in the future.

Eh... sort of.

I generally consider all federal legislation to be presumptively harmful until proven otherwise. So on that basis, I presumptively want to make it as easy as possible for all federal legislation to be squelched in the sausage-making process. And I think, at some level, most Senators of both parties must share that view, or else the filbuster would have been taken off the table at some point in time over these past 35 years since the 2/3-to-3/5 change was made.

The history of the filibuster is so much more complicated than what is generally understood. I wish I had a nickel for everytime somebody in the media has pointed out that Strom Thurmond "set the record for the longest filibuster" by speaking "against a civil rights bill." (If I did, I could buy the next NFL franchise that comes up for bid). Yet it is almost never pointed out that the second-longest filibuster was staged by a left-wing senator from Oregon who wanted to prevent some example of so-called "McCarthyite" legislation from moving forward in the early 1950s. How "curious" that That example is hardly ever referenced.

I'm opposed to the filibuster since it's anti-democratic (small d). Certainly, there's lots of legislation I don't like, and removing the filibuster would make its passage easier--but removing the filibuster would also make repealing bad legislation easier. Generally speaking, I think there are too many veto points in American politics, which reduces the accountability of both Congress and the president and ultimately, I think, leads to things like unfunded mandates, tax expenditures (rather than outright taxes), and other inefficiencies. Removing the filibuster would make both a) enlarging the welfare state and b) repealing, reforming, and or simplifying regulation easier--and I'd be willing to sacrifice a) for b).

(12-31-2010 05:04 PM)amber34 Wrote:  I'm opposed to the filibuster since it's anti-democratic (small d). Certainly, there's lots of legislation I don't like, and removing the filibuster would make its passage easier--but removing the filibuster would also make repealing bad legislation easier. Generally speaking, I think there are too many veto points in American politics, which reduces the accountability of both Congress and the president and ultimately, I think, leads to things like unfunded mandates, tax expenditures (rather than outright taxes), and other inefficiencies. Removing the filibuster would make both a) enlarging the welfare state and b) repealing, reforming, and or simplifying regulation easier--and I'd be willing to sacrifice a) for b).

I'd take that tradeoff, too. I think we could actually learn a lot from Europe right now--more comprehensive safety net, paid for by lower anf flatter tax rates applied to a broader base, with significant reform and simplification of the regulatory process.

I don't share your optimism that ending the filibuster would get us there.

I'm more in agreement with Native Georgian, that all federal legislation is presumptively evil, therefore anything that makes it harder to pass something is good. The important stuff, like the 1964 civil rights act, got through over a 2/3 requirement because it was such a good idea, and so necessary, that there was broad based support. Looking back, I'm not sure we've had a good piece of legislation passed since then.

Other priorities have prevented me from coming back to this thread, but I did just see this, the outline of the proposed reforms:

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/plum-li..._refo.html

As regards the filibuster, 60 votes still for cloture, but you have to actually filibuster to filibuster, i.e. talk like we learned in high school civics.

Dems are hoping to get Republican support.

I'd want to check the fine-print -- don't trust Harry Reid further than I can throw him -- but on the surface that sounds like something I could support.

(12-30-2010 11:59 AM)JustAnotherAustinOwl Wrote:  

(12-23-2010 05:14 PM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote:  I was opposed when they dropped it from 2/3 to 60 votes, although that was truly necessary to get the badly needed civil rights legislation through.

I think that having one house of congress with the filibuster is a huge and necessary protection against runaway one-party government, and I would hate to see it go away. I shudder to think where either Shrub or Obama might have taken us without the filibuster.

This is a point where we probably have a basic philosophical disagreement. Shocking, I know. :)

[Disclaimer – I’m a former political scientist focusing on comparative democracies, so I’m geeky and idiocyncratic compared to normal people on this stuff…]

I guess I am, too, being that my brother is a political science professor....

Quote:I’m a fan of the responsible party government model in a parliamentary system where a party or parties win an election and then can more or less implement their program. This is tempered by the size of the majority – if you have 51 seats out of a hundred, it just takes one defector to topple the government, or an out of control PM can be replaced. More to the point, party programs are taken more seriously by voters and are therefore more serious documents than our “platforms” which are largely meaningless. (Of course all systems fall short of the ideal, and some disastrously so – see Italy 1945 – present.)

This model works well with two or three parties vying for parliamentary control, but if there's a more fragmented electorate, it can get very dysfunctional. To your example of Italy I'd add Israel. It uses a proportional system of representation (if your party gets at least 2% of the vote, you're in), and the result is that in the current Knesset there are no less than 12 parties with representation. Likud formed the government with only 27 of the 120 seats, and it's not even the biggest party in the Knesset (Kadima, who formed the previous government, has 28 seats). Likud had to get several other parties as part of a coalition to form the government. While this might seem to have a moderating effect on the government, because of the severe fragmentation of the electorate in practice it means that Israeli governments have to include small fringe parties in their coalitions (two of Likud's coalition partners are religious parties that advocate Israeli civil law conform itself to the Torah). Rather than moderating a government, it instead brings fringe elements into power - and that doesn't even include the two Arab-based parties in the Knesset who advocate the armed invasion of Israel.... Not surprisingly, Israeli governments don't last much longer than Italian ones, there having been 18 governments since independence in 1949.

I can be geeky and idiosyncratic about these sorts of issues as well. What I'd like to see is the house set up along more parliamentary lines, with proportional representation districts (I've seen a plan that I like where you'd have five-member proportional districts, with a 10% threshold to get representation) and the possibility of dissolution before full term. Couple that with an intentionally more deliberate senate, and keep president running the executive branch, and I think you could have a system which is both better and closer to the original intent of the founding fathers.

I've also thought of playing with terms, along the lines of 6 years with a one-term limit or a prohibition on consecutive terms for president, 8 years for senators, and 4 year maximum (with possibility of dissolution before full term) for the house. I've also thought about something that Jimmy Carter, of all people, suggested--cabinet members come from sitting senators. Basically, highest ranking senator on foreign relations committee from president's party would become secretary of state, highest ranking on armed forces would become secretary of defense, etc. This turns the senate into kind of a quasi-legislative, quasi-executive branch, and ultimately you'd probably see some power flow ftom the white house to the senate chamber, which I think would be a good thing.

I think this would potentially take some of the money out, since presidents wouldn't be raising money for re-election campaigns, senators wouldn't need to raise money as often, and the potential for irregular house elections would disrupt the fund-raising cycle, just as it does in parliamentary countries. But what I'd really do to take the money out is put an upper limit on what can be SPENT on a campaign (say, $1 for ever person that voted in the last election for the position at stake) and allowing only individuals to make political contributions (no corporations, no unions, no PACs). I would differentiate political ads from issue ads by saying if it mentions a candidate or party by name, it's a political ad.

As I said, I can get geeky and idiosyncratic about this too.

(01-08-2011 05:08 PM)Jonathan Sadow Wrote:  

Quote:I’m a fan of the responsible party government model in a parliamentary system where a party or parties win an election and then can more or less implement their program. This is tempered by the size of the majority – if you have 51 seats out of a hundred, it just takes one defector to topple the government, or an out of control PM can be replaced.

This model works well with two or three parties vying for parliamentary control, but if there's a more fragmented electorate, it can get very dysfunctional. To your example of Italy I'd add Israel. It uses a proportional system of representation (if your party gets at least 2% of the vote, you're in), and the result is that in the current Knesset there are no less than 12 parties with representation. Likud formed the government with only 27 of the 120 seats, and it's not even the biggest party in the Knesset (Kadima, who formed the previous government, has 28 seats). Likud had to get several other parties as part of a coalition to form the government.

I believe there is a movement in Israel to raise the popular-vote-% threshhold needed to be represented in Knesset. If the 2.0% bar were raised to (say) 5.0%, that would have the effect of forcing the smaller fringe parties to either consolidate with one another, or be left out in the cold. Even though it seems like a very slight difference, even raising the bar to 2.5 or 3.0 could have a notable effect.