Legal Commentary

The Senate Being The Senate: More On The Filibuster

By Big Tent Democrat

See my previous posts here and here. Two post on the subject caught my eye this morning. First, David Waldman takes apart Senator Chris Dodd's rather ludicrous defense of the filibuster. As David points out, the constitutional structure of the Senate is not to obstruct legislation, but rather it was to protect smaller states from the dominance of the larger states. See, ironically considering Dodd is the Senator from Connecticut, the Connecticut Compromise.

Dodd has a better point when he says "people who haven't been here in the minority [. . .] don't understand how the rules, if intelligently used, can help protect against the tyranny of the majority and cause things to slow down[.] Now that is bad for small-d democracy, but as I have argued before, not necessarily bad for Democratic policies. Which brings me to the second post I want to highlight - Matt Yglesias' point that extreme conservatives and libertarians are also stymied by the filibuster. Matt writes:

David Boaz attempts to mount a libertarian defense of the filibuster: [". . .] Those of us who prefer liberty, limited government, and federalism appreciate the constitutional and traditional mechanisms that slow down the rush to legislation."

That’s a bizarre argument. Bills to reduce taxes are “legislation.” Bills to relax regulations are “legislation.” People who want to move public policy in the United States in a more libertarian direction support the idea of having congress pass legislation. As I was able to get Jonathan Bernstein to agree, the impact of the idiosyncratic elements of the American political system is to enhance the influence of interest groups and decrease the influence of ideologues and technocrats. Libertarians shouldn’t like that very much, it seems to me.

Seems obvious to me. And yet I am continually being told that eliminating the filibuster will only be a boon to progressive policy. As Yglesias ably points out, this is nonsense.

Speaking for me only

Full post as published by TalkLeft on August 05, 2010 (boomark / email).