SALON

Friday, Oct 14, 2011 3:00 PM UTC

Harry Reid’s wimpy Senate reforms

Fixing the dysfunctional upper house requires more dramatic measures than the majority leader's tinkering

By

Topics: U.S. Senate,

Harry Reid's wimpy Senate reformsSen. Majority Leader Harry Reid (Credit: Yuri Gripas / Reuters)

Senate reform is back in the news, thanks to some incredibly obscure procedural shenanigans on the Senate floor last week and a follow-up Op-Ed by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid in Washington Post. The narrow issue concerned filibuster rules but the broader issue is how to fix dysfunctional Washington.

The news was not good. For those who believe that the Senate is unable to function properly under current rules and practices, however, neither the very minor change in precedent nor Reid’s Op-Ed — which blamed Republicans for abuse but didn’t even hint at doing anything further about it — were very encouraging. Indeed, for anyone who wants to retain the Senate’s old traditions and advantages, the time to reform Senate rules is as soon as possible — because otherwise the Senate is most likely going to wind up as a second House of Representatives.

The problem is that both parties have been in a decades-long war to exploit the Senate rules, which has produced a dysfunctional chamber that looks little like what it was in, say, 1961 or even 1981. Most of the ratcheting up has been by Republicans, who began filibustering all major legislative initiatives during Bill Clinton’s presidency and increased that to across-the-board filibusters in 2009. During Barack Obama’s first two years, we had for the first time a true 60-vote Senate, in which every bill and every nomination was automatically filibustered.

Democrats have contributed, too: Their defeat of Defense Secretary nominee John Tower in 1989 ushered in a new era in which partisan battles over nominations were the norm, and in the majority they reacted to filibusters by restricting the ability of minority-party senators to offer amendments. The Senate has never been a strictly majoritarian body, but it used to be perfectly ordinary for bills and nominations to pass narrowly — which used to mean (winning!) votes of 51-49 or 52-28. No more.

This can’t and won’t last. During periods of divided government, such as the current one, it doesn’t matter very much; the seemingly epic struggle over the jobs bill in the Senate over the last week was really just over bragging rights, since everyone knew that the House wasn’t going to support Obama’s bill regardless of whether it passed the Senate or not.  But the next time there’s unified government, it’s unlikely that a majority party, just elected, will allow itself to be constantly thwarted — especially if it has serious policy goals.

Indeed, that it’s lasted this long will probably be seen to have been a fluke; Democrats were less frustrated in 2009-2010 because they had 60 seats for part of the time, and Republicans during 2003-2006 rarely had any legislative plans of their own, so wound up only really caring about judges — and so that was what they threatened to go “nuclear” about.

If what you want is a parliament-like Senate run by and for the majority party, in which the minority party and individual senators have little ability to legislate, that’s all good. But there’s good reason to search for a middle ground between the present mess and party control.

First of all, a Senate in which individual senators from both parties can fight for particular interests adds something in terms of representation not available elsewhere in the political system. And second, a chamber in which individual senators can make significant contributions to policy, with or without the support of the majority party’s agenda, can be an overall more productive institution, increasing (as I believe the framers intended) the overall potential of the system. We’re used to thinking of checks and balances as a way to prevent things, which is true, but checks and balances also means giving more actors a chance to have meaningful policymaking roles, which makes the whole system far more vital.

So those who really do want a powerful Senate that uses contributions from all its members should be acting now to reform the rules before it’s too late. I’d like to see reforms that include a simple majority confirmation of executive branch nominees while retaining holds so that individual senators can fight for their narrow interests; a guaranteed but still supermajority vote for lifetime judicial nominees; and a new superbill or leadership bill to replace the awkward and arbitrary reconciliation rules. Such a bill would give the majority party a good shot to get (some of) their priorities passed each year — while giving the minority a real chance to pass amendments. Others have tried to invent complex schemes for some sort of sliding scale of filibusters, trying to guarantee both minority voice and majority action.

But unless real defenders of the Senate step up and act soon, none of that will matter. We’ll most likely wind up with majority party rule, with a meaningless minority party with strong incentives for irresponsible behavior, just as we have had in the House ever since reforms implemented in the 1960s and 1970s strengthened majority party leadership in that chamber. And Congress, and the constitutional system, will be permanently damaged.

Jonathan Bernstein writes at a Plain Blog About Politics. Follow him at @jbplainblog More Jonathan Bernstein.

Next Article

Related Stories

More Related Stories

Featured Slide Shows

The week in 10 pics

close X
  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on Facebook
  • Thumbnails
  • Fullscreen
  • 1 of 11
  • Lisa Montgomery embraces her nephew Thursday after a tornado tore apart her home in Cleburne, Texas. The twister killed six people and destroyed entire swaths of the North Texas town.
    Credit: AP/LM Otero

  • Jack McMahon, the defense attorney for abortion doctor Kermit Gosnell, speaks outside the Criminal Justice Center Philadelphia Tuesday. His client was convicted of killing three babies in his clinic, and will serve multiple life sentences.
    Credit: AP/Matt Rourke

  • A photo taken Monday captures Vice President Joe Biden's response to a Milwaukee second-grader's innovative proposal to end America's epidemic of gun violence. This guy!
    Credit: AP/Jenny Aicher

  • Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., flanked by a grouper-eyed Michele Bachmann, addresses the IRS' admission that it targeted Tea Party groups in advance of the 2012 election. In an op-ed for CNN Thursday, the Kentucky senator slammed the president for his faux outrage.
    Credit: AP/Molly Riley

  • Ousted IRS chief Steven Miller is sworn in on Capitol Hill Friday. Miller testified before the House Ways and Means Committee on the extra scrutiny the agency gave conservative groups applying for tax-exempt status.
    Credit: AP/J. Scott Applewhite

  • Attorney General Eric Holder pauses as he testifies on Capitol Hill before the House Judiciary Committee Wednesday. Holder is under fire, among other things, for the Justice Department's gathering of phone records at the Associated Press.
    Credit: AP/Carolyn Kaster

  • O.J. Simpson sits during an evidentiary hearing at Clark County District Court in Las Vegas, Nev., Thursday. Simpson, who is currently serving a nine-to-33-year sentence in state prison for armed robbery and kidnapping, is using a writ of habeas corpus to seek a new trial.
    Credit: AP/Las Vegas Review-Journal/Jeff Scheid

  • Major Tom to ground control: On Sunday astronaut Chris Hadfield recorded the first music video from space, a cover of David Bowie's "Space Oddity."
    Credit: AP/NASA/Chris Hadfield

  • When it rains it pours. President Barack Obama speaks during a news conference Thursday with Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, inexplicably inspiring an #umbrellagate Twitter meme.
    Credit: AP/Jacquelyn Martin

  • A smoke plume rises high above a road block at the intersection of County A and Ross Road east of Solon Springs, Wis., Tuesday. No injuries were reported, but the the wildfire caused evacuations across northwestern Wisconsin.
    Credit: AP/The Duluth News-Tribune/Clint Austin

  • Recent Slide Shows

  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on Facebook
  • Thumbnails
  • Fullscreen
  • 1 of 11

Related Videos

Comments

 6 Comments

Comment Preview

Your name will appear as username

You may use these HTML tags and attributes: <a href=""> <b> <em> <strong> <i> <blockquote>

follow salon

Most Read

Popular on Reddit

links from salon.com

vote
New Yorker launches tool by Aaron Swartz to protect leaks: Strongbox, co-created by the late technologist, is an open-source drop box for leaked documents
155 points156 points | 4 comments
vote
New Yorker launches tool by Aaron Swartz to protect leaks: Strongbox, co-created by the persecuted late technologist, is an open-source drop box for leaked documents
110 points111 points | comment
vote
Obstruction will ruin the GOP: Playing politics and abusing the system can excite the extremes, but it's a recipe for long-term political disaster
37 points38 points | 8 comments
vote
Revenge editing on Wikipedia: The unmasking of a writer who took advantage of online anonymity to pursue vendettas with other writers
12 points13 points | 3 comments
vote
In Montana, dark money brings down a judicial candidate
10 points11 points | 5 comments

From Around the Web

Presented by Scribol
listener_new_rect The Listener: So long, Sookie Stackhouse

Recommendations