The Sounds Good But Isn't FILIBUSTER

The Morality of the Filibuster: Why Bi Partisanship Sounds Good and Isn't

Since when does it take 60 votes to pass something in Congress? I hear this everywhere as the higher morality or at least the higher reality. It may be the latter but it is not the former. Apparently the division between the two "Americas" has grown so big that one side simply can't abide what the other is doing and feels compelled by higher principles to threaten the filibuster unless they win their way. So instead of taking 51 votes we need 60 to get something through the Senate.

The President learned this the hard and embarrassing way when he courted his presumed partners, only to receive not a single vote on the first rescue plan.

We might reconsider the morality of bipartisanship and the hammer for the nail in its own coffin. That hammer is the filibuster. No doubt its bangers think it morally necessary to obstruct government. The punishmentalist party doesn't know much about the virtue of humility. There are conflicting principles to their moralistic, not moral, positions. When they obstruct this government, they obstruct a majority. Majority rule is much more moral (and constitutional) than minority rule.

The framers of the rules probably knew what they were doing in passing out hammers to the minority. They did not assume (nor has it been historically true) that the right and left would drive each other so apart that rule justice would prohibit ordinary justice. Right now those of us who have the majority legally and decently elected almost couldn't get the economic bill through, finally did, and are now being told that unless we have a filibuster proof 60 votes for Health insurance, Comprehensive Immigration Reform, and many other moral necessities for the nation, that we can't win. I think that is immoral, unfair, un-American and way too kind to the minority party. The minority's principals are also not very respectable - but that is another story. When we protect the minority's rights to differ, we have to expect to genuinely differ.

Beyond morality and its high fallutin' considerations, I played too much basketball to understand how the over used filibuster can be right. You can win or lose a game by one point. When the buzzer sounds, even if you were about to sink a three pointer, the game is over and if you have one less point than the opposition, you lose. Period, the end.

The majority needs to rule much more than the minority needs to disrupt. I am as tired of any one when it comes to contacted my electeds about the issues that drive me. I actually use a service, the Progressive Letter Writer, to help me get my point of view out. I wish there were more. What I don't understand is how come my electeds don't think I am making enough noise about Comprehensive Immigration Reform, or Universal Health Care, or stopping the war, or guaranteeing the right to choose an abortion? After winning the election? They keep telling me that others are louder than I. The message is always the Franklin Roosevelt message that we are to go out and "make" them do what we want them to do by making noise. The pragmatic message of politics is "Hit" them harder, and make it inconvenient for them to vote any other way than the way you want.

Even if we think "W" won in Florida in 2000, which he did not, and even if we think it was the higher cynicism for progressives to get a hold of all those secretaries of state in this last season, even if we think politics are just politics, what about the American way, the sacrosanct vote, the will of the people? What about plain old fairness? What about basketball? In the name of plain old fairness, I think the over use of the filibuster constitutes a very high, deep and serious immorality.

What is to be done if you agree? Figure out how to put a little spine and passion in the Democrats. Call the minority's bluff. Rush Limbaugh says out loud that he wants to see Obama fail. Why not show the filibuster failing? Make them filibuster. Make them filibuster for a year or a decade. Show the American people just how unprincipled the right wing's principles are and how they attack simple fairness. Show the public what genuine obstructionists they are. Encourage the filibuster. Let the public see obstructionism in full flower and them let them put the nail in their own coffin. That's how you beat the filibuster, not by trying to get 60 votes to win but by creating a situation where 51 is enough.

The Rev.Dr. Donna Schaper is Senior Minister of Judson Memorial Church in New York City.

Comments

[Rule Of Law]

How is 51 enough?

[sptatt]

The problem is Harry Reed is up for election next year, which raises his normal spinelessness to a whole new level.