The august members of the U.S. Senate have created rules that give each and every one of them the power to bring the Senate to a halt. The Constitution provides no such authority.
I believe these Senate rules are unconstitutional because they destroy the equality of the states granted by the Constitution.
Time to put a halt to the runaway accretion of power.
The Constitution establishes checks and balances designed to limit excesses by the United States government. We have 3 branches that can be in opposition, and in the legislative branch the Constitution establishes the House, where each person has equal representation, and the Senate, where each state gets equal representation. This was designed to prevent a few populous states from trampling on less populous states, and that still makes sense to me, even if I don't always like the result.
The Senate - already kind of a house of Lords by design - has magnified its imperial tendencies by establishing rules that fly in the face of the concept of one voter (individual or state): one vote. They've given each and every member the power to bring government to a halt. That's way beyond what the Constitution bestows. Maybe they each have an insatiable hunger for power, so they decided to give themselves ridiculous amounts of it. Who knows.
I contend these rules are unconstitutional because they destroy the equality of the states that the Constitution assigns, allowing the representatives of one state to prevent the representatives of other states from conducting the business of the Senate.
Cloture. Requiring 60 votes to end debate and proceed to a vote could allow the representatives of just 20 states, representing as little as 10% of the US population, to block any legislation. If cloture only required 50 votes, it could still represent as little as 17% of the population. All 40 Republican senators represent a total of 26 states containing 47% of the population (Florida, Texas, and Ohio are the big ones).
See this diary for the history of the filibuster in the Senate.
See this research article for a description of how the constitutional challenge might work, and also a discussion of some consequences and alternatives.
See this link for a list of the states ranked by 2008 population.
Holds. This abomination allows a single senator to place a "hold" on a nomination or a bill without even revealing who they are, preventing the representatives of the other 49 1/2 states even voting on it. Who the hell do these pompous asses think they are?
Dear Senators Liebermann and Nelson:
The Constitution gives each state an equal vote. My Senator, under the authority of the Constitution, has just as much power as you do. You are not special. So STFU, get out of the way and let my Senators have their vote.