Senate’s minority rules

Commentary

January 26, 2010

Anonymous The Hendricks County Flyer Tue Jan 26, 2010, 04:54 PM EST

Imagine a school board polling its residents on an important change in school policy, and that despite a 59 percent against and 41 percent for, the school board voted for the change. There would be no small amount of voter outrage.

Yet this is exactly what happens time and time again in the U.S. Senate.

It’s the rule of filibuster. Any 41 senators can stop the will of the other 59. Of course, that’s the way it’s always been, and there appears to be little public push for changing business as usual. But there’s more at stake with this policy now.

As author and longtime Atlantic Monthly editor and commentator James Fallows points out in a recent article, those 41 votes could come from states with just 12 percent of the U.S. population. That’s because we’ve stuck with a system that may be antiquated, that of giving every state two senators no matter what their population.

There’s plenty of ammunition for this argument no matter what side of the political aisle one may be on. The current so-called “gang of six” senators who crafted the Senate health care reform bill came from states that make up 3 percent of the total U.S. population, notes Fallows.

It’s also a bit ironic that the health care reform bill may come down to the vote of one senator from Massachusetts in a close election. Add to that this thought: Within the last 10 years, we almost had two presidents win elections without winning the popular vote. George W. Bush beat Al Gore in the 2000 election through the Electoral College, even though Gore garnered more of the popular vote. And were it not for an unusual vote counting and last minute turnout situation in Ohio, John Kerry may have been the second-straight Democrat to win the popular vote but still lose the election.

Of course, constitutional founders set up the Senate system of vote allocation as a delicate compromise at a time when the country was trying to unite widely disparate interests of free states and slave states and of varying differences in regional economies, according to Fallows. But as a business model, it doesn’t work very well today. We’ve created incentives for parties to amass power, that 60-vote majority or that 41-vote minority. And we wonder why both parties take so much money from lobbyists and special interests.

And of course, the taste of success is sweet. So the winners of any particular election are more than happy to entertain the well-funded ideas of new lobbyists and welcome them into Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood where everyone’s a friend. Each year, they get a few more tax breaks, a few more special deals, and the credibility of the system wanes.

That may be where we are headed: more legislation without representation. We can change the players every year or every 10 years. It doesn’t seem to affect the rules that much. Each takes advantage of what is theirs when they’re in power. And powers that be are reluctant to change the rules that benefit them so much.

Thomas Jefferson said we need a revolution every once in a while to keep this system of democracy honest. Let’s hope it can be done without the use of cannons.

— Editorial by The Free Press in Mankato, Minn., a CNHI sister publication

Text Only

Commentary

From the bench ...
A judge sentencing a criminal defendant takes many factors into consideration. I cannot describe them all in one article, so this article will have a sequel.

November 7, 2011
Donation gives boost to this volunteer
Most people I come into contact with know that I am a board member for Susie’s Place, Hendricks County’s Child Advocacy Center.

October 25, 2011 1 Photo
— Senior moment —
In addition to all of the major happenings here in Hendricks County, sometimes this paper, the Hendricks County Flyer, holds a little gem, a surprise of a happening. Such was the case last week when I read of a play scheduled to take place at Brownsburg High School. This was not a play rehearsed for weeks and weeks, but a work completed just this summer by a college student, a BHS graduate of 2009.

August 30, 2011
The tax that wasn't
Prior to the passage of the health-care law, President Barack Obama was at his most emphatic and condescending in insisting the penalty for defying the mandate to buy health insurance is not a tax.

December 20, 2010 1 Photo
Letter to the Editor Oct. 27, 2010
I am not a citizen of the Avon community, but I feel compelled to point out what I consider to be a mis-statement in the article published in the Oct. 13 edition of the Hendricks County Flyer titled "ACSC considers school addition."

October 27, 2010
Election note
October 12, 2010
Letters to the editor 10-13-10
October 12, 2010
Letter to the editor
October 12, 2010
Letters to the editor 10-8-10
October 8, 2010
An education in spending
Of all the things the Newark, N.J., school system needs, the last of them is more money. Newark spends more per pupil than any other city in the country, and gets dismayingly little for it. For $22,000 per pupil — more than twice the national average — it graduates half its students.

October 5, 2010
More Commentary Headlines

Commentary

Search Results

Senate’s minority rules

Has Indianapolis done a good job of hosting the Super Bowl?

Site Map