By Bruce S. Ticker
PHILADELPHIA, Pennsylvania — After 20 children were shot to death at Sandy Hook Elementary School on Dec. 12, 2013, gun-control legislation was shot down in the Senate five months later. The filibuster was the opponents’ weapon of choice.
The House of Representatives adopted a “public option” to administer health-care coverage in 2009, but it was not an option in the Senate. Cause of death was diagnosed as the filibuster with Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman of Connecticut driving the final nail into the coffin.
As the presidential election moves into its final stages, the fate of the filibuster deserves attention equal to the ramifications of the electoral college and the attendant congressional elections.
Whatever your political leanings, a candidate must prevail in the electoral college even if s/he is elected to the presidency in the popular election; the president can only succeed with the cooperation of Congress; and the Senate’s majority can only enact laws when the minority cannot block its legislation through a device such as the filibuster.
Let us hope that we elect a progressive president supported by a responsible Congress that seriously strives to make America a better place for us all. Practically speaking, that translates to Democrats controlling both the White House and Congress.
I personally have many concerns about the political process. Among them, I hope that one day we will have a multiple-party system, meaning more than two viable political parties, but until then we can only rely on the Democrats to accomplish anything sensible.
At the present rate, I expect the Democratic nominee will win both the popular election and the electoral college, and Democrats will retake the Senate. Due to turmoil in the Republican party, the Democrats’ chances of seizing control of the House of Representatives are readily increasing. Of course, there is no guarantee the Democrats will achieve any of these outcomes.
However, the Democrats can cripple their chance for accomplishment if they permit the retention of the Senate’s filibuster power, which allows the minority to block legislation. Sixty votes are needed to end a filibuster.
Interestingly, Sen. Orrin Hatch of Utah, a Republican, complained that Democrats have abused the filibuster since Republicans took control of the Senate in 2015. Former Rep. Barney Frank, a Massachusetts Democrat, griped in a Washington Post op-ed in 2011 that it was the Republicans abusing their filibuster power.
Neither party abused its power. They exercised the power granted to them by the majority. Democrats before and after 2011 permitted Republicans to obstruct legislation that the majority of senators supported. Two legislative initiatives that went nowhere included a form of government-sponsored health insurance known as the “public option,” and strong gun-control legislation that resulted from the mass murder of 26 students and school officials in Newtown, Connecticut.
Citizens who are oblivious to the filibuster’s downside may blame former Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman for defeat of the “public option” since, as an independent, he usually sided with the 59 Democrats who served in the Senate at that time. He upheld the filibuster. Is he supposed to follow the Democratic line? He did represent the citizens of Connecticut, not any political party. Lieberman’s vote was surely appalling and likely motivated by insurance lobbyists, but he was able to obstruct the “public option” because senators in both parties gave him this power.
Most progressive voters vote Democratic because they see the party as representing their interests. Yet what good does it do to elect a senator whose hands are tied by the filibuster?
The Constitution says nothing about a filibuster. Both chambers of Congress acted on majority votes when they convened in 1789. The cloture to end filibusters was formally enacted in 1917, but a change in procedure dates back to 1805 when departing Vice President Aaron Burr complained about the dearth of debates in the Senate. The next year, the Senate eliminated its rule requiring a simple majority to end debate and 111 years later the Senate voted to require 67 votes to end a filibuster. This was later reduced to 60.
Attempts to change the filibuster have been made in recent years. A trio of senators pushed a plan that would dilute its power, but that failed. Democrats since narrowed the influence of the filibuster, but legislation can still be blocked by the filibuster.
Democrats consistently represent the majority of Americans whether or not they control the Senate. As a reminder, each state is represented by two senators no matter its population. My estimate is that Democrats and the two independents in the Senate represent 170 million of our population of 310 million. The senators from third-place New York and first-place California combined represent 58 million people, already one-sixth of the population.
More small states are represented by Republicans, though 49th-place Vermont is represented by independent Bernie Sanders and Delaware was represented for more than three decades by Vice President Joe Biden. True, Republicans have second-place Texas, but more populous states are represented by Democrats and some states large and small, in fact, frequently rotate between the two parties.
If Democrats retake the Senate, they will probably represent two-thirds of the population. If they oust the Republican incumbents in Florida, Illinois, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin – whose Senate delegations are now split between both parties – an additional 60 million people will be represented by Democrat-only Senate delegations. Republican incumbent John McCain is even endangered in Arizona thanks to Donald Trump’s denigration of Mexican immigrants.
What difference will it make if the filibuster effectively allows last-place Wyoming (pop. 500,000) to outvote California?
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Ticker is a freelance writer in Philadelphia. He may be contacted via bruce.ticker@sdjewishworld.com. Comments intended for publication in the space below MUST be accompanied by the letter writer’s first and last name and by his/ her city and state of residence (city and country for those outside the United States.)