Disclosure: I'm doing paid work as a Fellow for ProgressiveCongress.org in addressing the necessity of filibuster reform in the Senate. The Fellowship is being supported in part by CREDO Action and Blue America. You can help support this work by signing CREDO Action's petition and/or donating at Blue America's ActBlue page.
Jed reminds everyone, once again, how pervasive the abuse of the filibuster really is:
But Ruth Marcus should know better than to get outraged about recess appointments. Recess appointments aren't the outrage here. If there's a procedural issue to get outraged over, it's the filibuster, because Republicans are using it over and over and over again to block the nation's business in order to score political points.
When Republicans abuse the filibuster to induce gridlock, Congress might as well be out of session. Not only was the President correct to use the recess appointment to get around their obstructionist tactics, it was his responsibility.
He's not the villain here. Republican abuse of the filibuster is.
Just another reason to start talking to your Senators about filibuster reform.
But while we're on the subject, I thought I'd make one quick observation in answer to the objection to reform that I hear most frequently, which is that one day, Democrats will be in the minority in the Senate again, and will mourn the loss of the filibuster.
It's absolutely a concern. But the thing I keep in mind is that item number one on the agenda for the next Republican Senate is almost certainly the elimination of the ability of a Democratic minority to use the filibuster. In fact, if you think back to how the 2005 "nuclear option" crisis was averted (or perhaps, "averted"), you'll recall that the agreement among the Gang of 14 was that the Republicans would refrain from eliminating the filibuster (allegedly only with respect to judicial nominations) if Democrats would agree to, well, refrain from using it, basically.
In all likelihood, the next Republican Senate will not be a Mitch McConnell Senate. You'll pine for the days of a Mitch McConnell Senate. No, unless they finally self-immolate, the next Republican Senate will be a Teabagger Senate. A Jim DeMint Senate. And Teabaggers aren't likely to sit still for being told that they "just don't have the votes" in a Republican Senate.
So I'd argue that if you think there's an imminent danger of losing the majority in the Senate, it's quite likely that you have just two choices as regards filibuster reform:
- take some advantage of filibuster reform and pass some decent legislation while you still can, or;
- sit back and wait to become the victim of filibuster reform instead.
In the coming days and weeks, we'll discuss more about the mechanics, politics and procedure of filibuster reform, and why you need to be thinking about it even if you're not quite ready for it.
For now, suffice to say that if your concern is that filibuster reform will come back to bite us in the ass, I would say that you're 100% right to be concerned and that you will one day be bitten, whether you act or not. The question is, what will you try to accomplish between now and then?