Superfilamajoribusterty 2008

Politics is full of strange ideas and bizarre words. Filibuster sounds weird, supermajority sounds pretty cool, but what do they mean? More importantly, how will the election results in two weeks potentially be affected by these concepts?

Let's imagine that the Senate has 54 Democrats and 46 Republicans, and let's imagine that each Senator votes with his party on every bill (obviously this doesn't happen, but we'll pretend for simplicity's sake). Under these assumptions, any Republican bill will never get the majority vote and every Democratic bill will easily get the majority vote. So is the minority party, representing 46 percent of the country, completely powerless? Fortunately for the sake of democracy (unfortunately if you're rooting for the Democratic Party ideal), the answer is that the minority does have some power (on top of not-part-of-this-simple-explanation backroom negotiations, committee deals, party non-hardliners, etc), the minority can utilize the filibuster.

By Senate law, the presiding officer of the Senate gives the floor to any Senator who requests it; once a Senator has the floor, he or she can speak on whatever they want for as long as they want provided that they drink only milk or water, remain standing, and take no breaks. Using this temporary control of the floor to delay a vote is called a filibuster. In the past, Senators have read recipes, given discourses on the Constitution, and relayed family stories to take up time and delay votes. The longest continuous filibuster in U.S. history was held by Senator Strom Thurmond for just over 24 hours.

At the end of the filibuster (they can't last forever), the vote will still happen and a filibuster won't necessarily change the votes of other Senators, but the goal is to delay other business when the rest of the Senate is hoping to move through many other pressing items, it's just a temporary road block. A filibuster, or as usually happens anymore, just the threat of a filibuster can help shape legislation even before it comes to a vote, giving the minority party a little power in the Senate to negotiate more favorable terms.

So that's a filibuster, what the heck is a supermajority? In the Senate, at least for the present discussion, a supermajority is when a vote has three-fifths or more support, or 60 out of the 100 votes. In the Senate, a supermajority has the ability to invoke cloture (or 'a quick end to debate'). The effect of the supermajority rule is that a successful filibuster (success being defined here as able to resist a motion of cloture) requires 41 or more dedicated Senators who would not move for cloture. One party having a supermajority effectively eliminates the ability to filibuster and removes the minority party's negotiating capabilities (assuming again that all members of each party are voting in line with the rest of their party).

So how does this affect the 2008 elections??? Well, if current polling accurately reflects how elections will go on Nov. 4th, Barack Obama will win the White House, the Democrats will strengthen their majority in the House of Representatives, and the Democrats could possibly gain a filibuster-proof supermajority in the Senate. In other words, Republicans (and conservative-leaning independents) are going to be severely weakened. Now, depending on your political positions, that may or may not be a good thing. But it's certainly something to think about.

The Wall Street Journal posted an article that talks about this and the effects that a Democratic supermajority could have on legislation for at least the next two years. The article is obviously partisan against the Democrats and I disagree with a few of the issues, but the general idea comes clear.

Of the points mentioned in the article, the issues that would bother me the most include 'union card check', higher taxes (not on income tax, unless you're making over $250k, but on long-term capital gains taxes), climate control, free speech (the Fairness Doctrine is a disturbing idea), and trying terrorists in U.S. courts. On the other hand, I would welcome net neutrality, education reform and business reform (though in all fairness it was the Democrats' fight against reform in the past few years that helped destroy the market today). Not to mention that while much of America is currently disappointed with how little Congress accomplishes (10% approval rating? seriously?), a fully Democratic Congress working with an Obama White House would certainly get a lot done... we just need to decide if the things getting done are the right things.

Anyway, my point of posting all of this was to say that on November 4th, there is more on the line than just the presidency. There are senate seats open, house seats open, possible local elections, and in some states there are ballot initiatives, and it's important to keep in mind all of the far-reaching effects your vote can have, filibuster-proof supermajorities being just one.

Two very helpful sites to be prepared when you walk into that voting booth are:

Vote-USA - this site will give you a customized sample ballot if you enter your street address. This helps you know if you'll be voting for a Senate Seat, House Seat, etc. and lets you see all of your options (for example, entering my town shows all presidential candidates, all candidates for an open senate seat, all candidates for an open seat in my congressional district, and two referendums).

Ballotpedia - this site gives more information about ballot initiatives for your state, though keep in mind that from what I've read the contributors have at least a slight liberal bias. (Is there such a thing as an unbiased approach to politics?)


It's better that you don't vote at all than to vote blindly.

Get educated, then vote; you've got two weeks.

Labels: politics

posted by Brett at 12:28 PM