Today we were presented with one more reason why the un-democratic filibuster has to go. 56 senators out of 100 voted to move ahead with the annual defense authorization bill, including allowing the repeal of the wasteful, discriminatory Don't Ask Don't Tell policy that endangers our national security by kicking out qualified troops. But 56 out of 100 wasn't enough, under Senate rules. That's just crazy.
If you want a more detailed writeup on why the filibuster has to go when the Senate rules window is open briefly in January, I can't do better than this 2009 piece by Thomas Geoghegan. Now what do we do about it? More after the jump.
My suggestion is to direct some dollars to three low-population states where our money can have the most impact in helping three Senate candidates -- two of them support filibuster reform and the third probably will. (California has about 50 times the population of Delaware or Alaska, and there are about 30-some times as many voters to reach in California as in New Hampshire.)
The 2 who definitely support filibuster reform are Paul Hodes in New Hampshire and Chris Coons in Delaware. The one who probably will is Scott McAdams in Alaska.
(There's a lot more detail -- including an FAQ -- in my initial diary on this from last week.)
Here's my ActBlue page for these 3 potential filibuster-enders.