If health care reform dies or ends up as a toothless tweak of the current system, we can lay the blame at the doorstep of Harry Reid. At a press conference yesterday, Reid said: "We have to have 60 votes" and invoked the Founding Fathers to back up this conclusion. The Republicans are leaping with joy with this gift of empowerment and the Founding Fathers are turning over in their graves with this blasphemy of their intent. The Founding Fathers were careful to limit supermajorities to rare instances such as veto overrides, votes on treaties and constitutional amendments. They would be appalled to learn that supermajorities are now required to pass ordinary legislation. The last time I read the Constitution it still required only a 51 vote majority in the Senate to pass legislation. But Harry Reid has his own version of the Constitution that he goes by, much to the detriment of the majority of people who voted for change in 2008.
Apparently Harry Reid thinks that a filibuster is unthinkable. Thus, all major measures must be filibuster-proof before he will bring them to the floor. Well, let’s think about a real filibuster. What would be so horrible about that? It would bring the Senate to a halt for a week or two – maybe more if those mounting the filibuster had enough participants to hold the Senate floor 24 hours a day for weeks on end. But in due course the filibuster would end either from fatigue of its participants, the invocation of cloture by 60 senators who felt enough is enough, or by the filibusterers being embarrassed by public ridicule for very visibly holding up the business of the Senate by reading from phone books, and other extraneous material. (Senate committee meetings could still be taking place during a filibuster.)
We have waited over 50 years for health care reform. Don’t you think we can wait a week or so more for a filibuster to take place if it means a strong, effective measure, not some weak measure watered-down by having to cater to enough senators to reach the 60 vote (imaginary) requirement?
Harry Reid should be replaced by someone who will interpret the Constitution correctly, fight to enact the agenda of a president who won by a large majority, and is not fearful of the Right.
For an excellent discussion of the filibuster see the New York Times op-ed piece at this link: http://www.nytimes.com/...
Below is the exact quote from Harry Reid at his press conference yesterday:
"We have to have 60 votes. Is that fair? Well, the rule we have in America is the United States Senate was set up by the Founding Fathers. It requires us to get the votes as required under the rules of the Senate. We’re going to do that."