‘You won’t let us have a vote. You won’t let us have a debate.’
– Sen. Lindsey Graham (R- South Carolina)
By Bruce S. Ticker
PHILADELPHIA –Republicans could have done more to save Israel from presumed destruction, after all.
His protestations to the contrary, Lindsey Graham and his 53 fellow Republicans could have easily launched a debate followed by an up-or-down vote to oppose the nuclear deal with Iran.
The Republicans could simply eliminate the filibuster rule by employing their current majority power, as could the Democrats when they held the majority for the preceding six years. Of course, that would not stop President Obama from vetoing the measure, since a sufficient number of senators announced that they would offset an override vote.
The GOP and other opponents would claim their loss was preordained because they could not recruit the 10 senators required to overcome the filibuster, which calls for 60 senators to block debate and an up-or-down vote on a given measure introduced in the Senate.
If Republicans are right, Israel could be doomed in the next 10 to 15 years because the agreement eventually allows Iran to build a nuclear device with which they have threatened Israel. Even some opponents of the deal admit that it is impossible to predict what Iran can or will do.
Whether opponents are right or wrong, the Senate should have taken a vote on the dissenting measure to kill the deal, which would lift sanctions on Iran in exchange for a delay in its nuclear program. For that matter, there should be no filibuster. It denies the citizenry a simple majority vote on a given issue.
The filibuster is among a handful of procedures that undermine majority rule such as the electoral college, the disproportionate composition of the Senate, Supreme Court appointments and the amendment process.
The Constitution does not even mention the filibuster. Both chambers launched their operations in 1789 requiring majority votes, but the Senate reconsidered this rule after Vice President Aaron Burr criticized the Senate’s neglect of debating issues. Senators moved in the direction of the filibuster during the next century until a military controversy compelled the Senate to legitimize the filibuster as a Senate rule in 1917, requiring a two-thirds vote to invoke cloture. That number was reduced to 60 in 1973.
The Republicans can eliminate the filibuster by virtue of its majority control. Democrats limited the scope of the filibuster a few years ago by using their majority power because the Republicans, then in the minority, repeatedly employed the filibuster for presidential appointments. If the Democrats can do it, so can the GOP. Eliminating the filibuster is long overdue – by two centuries, I would say.
Taking Graham’s side, the Sept. 10 Jewish Exponent of Philadelphia editorializes, “Any effort to cut legislative corners or to invoke procedural maneuvers would reflect an insensitivity toward the intensity of the opposition and a reneging on the agreed protocol for the deal review.”
We would not have had so much fuss had the GOP taken a majority vote to finish off the filibuster altogether. Though I reluctantly support the deal, after being on the fence most of the summer, the end of the filibuster would be worth it.
Unless, of course, opponents of the deal are selective about use of the filibuster. As the Exponent editorial states: “While the filibuster is a time-honored Senate tradition, its use in order to avoid an up-or-down vote on the Iran deal would be a mistake…Given the importance of the Iran issue, and the rancorous debate over it, any effort to prevent a vote threatens to remove a last chance for America’s political representatives to give voice to the public’s concerns.”
When they were in the minority, Republicans had no qualms about filibustering universal health care and gun control. During the current debate, Democratic leader Harry Reid recalled how his Republican counterpart, Mitch McConnell, repeatedly argued when Democrats controlled the Senate that every important issue should be decided by a 60-vote super-majority.
To paraphrase Oskar Schindler in the Holocaust film “Schindler’s List,“ Graham should really be saying, “I could have done more.”
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Ticker is a freelance writer based in Philadelphia. He may be contacted via bruce.ticker@sdjewishworld.com