By Stephen Macaulay
On January 26, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) tweeted, "I made clear that if Democrats ever attack the key Senate rules, it would drain the consent and comity out of the institution. A scorched-earth Senate would hardly be able to function."
He was talking about the filibuster. The Senate cloture rule calls for a supermajority, or 60 votes, to cut off debate. The Democrats, who hold a simple majority, would prefer that is all that is required to end debate; odds are, with Vice President Harris as president of the Senate, they would end all debate on subjects and get right to the voting, which they would again, as bill passage depends on a simple majority, come away as victors.
While “scorched-earth” may be a bit of an exaggeration — after all, we’re not talking the Third Punic War here and the salting of the ground upon which Carthage once stood — but a point of trying to uphold what the Senate should be about: being a deliberative body (it would be hard to put “greatest” in front of that term). To deliberate means to debate. To debate, when done properly, means to have an exchange of ideas, of opposing viewpoints.
In one regard it is somewhat ironic that I open with a tweet from McConnell in that it seems too many political issues are now being dealt with in 280 characters, rather than with an open, fulsome, spirited debate.
The Senate structure, as you know, is one where each state has equal representation. (The House, of course, has a structure predicated on population.) The point of the way the Senate is put together is to protect, in effect, the minority, meaning that California and New York can’t step on Wyoming and Vermont.
The Senate cloture rule does the same thing by requiring that there be two thirds, not one half, of the body in agreement that debate ends.
Of course, there’s the question of whether this is too high a bar, if getting cloture is some sort of impossibility. Perhaps that was once the case (or Senators just tended to be more loquacious back in the proverbial day) because from 1917 to 1968 cloture was invoked just eight times.
In 2019-2020 it was invoked 270 times (a record).
There is a feeling that we “must get things done.” A bunch of droning Senators doesn’t seem to be the way that can or will happen.
But McConnell does have a point, with the point being that before important things get done there needs to be sufficient support — by both sides — for its execution to have the positive effects anticipated by its existence.
To simply have a situation that says, in effect, “OK. We’ve had enough. Go back to your desk and put your head down,” isn’t going to be particularly beneficial.
This is not to argue that McConnell is an exemplary politician. He has proven himself over the years to be more of a tactician, a man who makes moves to benefit his, and his party’s, interests.
But there is something to be said for the ability of the minority to be heard in a fulsome manner.
And McConnell ought to know that Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) is far from being Cato.
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