Editorial: Filibustering the Public

This is not what democracy looks like. When Americans vote, by overwhelming majorities, to place control of the executive and legislative branches in the hands of a party that has promised fundamental change, they are supposed to get that change. They are not supposed to watch as a handful of self-interested and special-interested senators prevent progress by exploiting the arcane rules of the less representative of our two legislative chambers–rules requiring that not a majority but a supermajority be attained in order even to discuss necessary reforms, and that a similar supermajority be in place to thwart a filibuster.

Yet this is where America, a nation often inclined to tell other nations how to practice democracy, finds itself as the debate about healthcare reform reaches its critical stage. We have a president who is prepared to sign legislation to expand access to healthcare while establishing at least some controls against profiteering by insurers. We have a House of Representatives in which a majority has voted for imperfect but real reform. We have a Senate in which a majority is ready to vote for what could be even better reform. Unfortunately, that majority is sidelined as a few wavering senators game the system.

Unless Harry Reid and his colleagues implement majority rule–by abolishing rules that allow two-fifths of the chamber’s members (as few as forty-one senators) to prevent passage of that legislation–the character and quality of any “reform” will be dictated by a tiny minority from some of the nation’s least populous states.

Full Story Filibustering the Public.