Voting In The US Senate
Background
The Senate was designed to be the “upper” house. Senators were given staggered, six year terms and members of the House of Representatives were given two years. The basic reason for doing this was to provide more continuity to the Senate. While, there was discourse about how to organize the legislative branch, it was hoped that the longer terms and the staggered terms would combine with the limit of two Senators per state (large or small) to create a conservative body that would respond more to the needs of the nation and less to the every-changing popular sentiment of the people. The House of Representatives was organized to be responsive to the people, so representation and terms were designed around the distribution of population.
Cloture
To further stabilize the Senate and to prevent tyranny of the simple and/or hasty majority, the mechanism of cloture was “borrowed” from the British Parliament. While it only takes a simple majority (51 of 100 Senators) to pass a bill into law, it takes a vote of three-fifths (60 of 100 Senators) to end debate or discussion and move the bill on to the voting step. The motive here is to make sure those Senators who are in the minority regarding an issue have a fair chance to voice their opposition. It prevents a simple majority (51 in this case) from overwhelming the minority (49 in this case). It also provides some protection to small (as measured by population) states.
History
Cloture was proposed by the Democrat President Woodrow Wilson in 1917 and originally required a 75% (of the member present) majority. It was modified by the Democrats in Congress in 1975 to three-fifths (60%) of the number of Senators seated in the Senate (rather than 60% of the Senators physically present).
Recent Change
Rather than calling it cloture, it has been repositioned and redefined as “a fair, up or down, simple majority” vote. Long standing tradition in the Senate is that a proposed subject or bill is debated until 60% of the Senators agree to take it to the voting step which only requires 51% to pass. This agrees with the conventional approach that has existed for 200 plus years. The implication is that cloture is unfair and damaging the American people or cheating them out of something by requiring something more that a simple majority (sounds All-American; sounds fair) vote. Statements are also leading people to infer that 60% approval is needed to pass the bill. The cloture procedure is being made to look anti-American so that current bills under consideration would pass through every step of the legislative process with a simple majority of 51 out 100.
Conclusion
The Founding Fathers talked about the tyranny of the majority where 51% can hold a hammer over the heads of the other 49%. The Constitution gave us a structure that prevents outside or fringe ideas from becoming law. For example, amendments to the Constitution require 75% approval from Congress and the States. The filibuster rules have the same intention – a protection against imprudent attempts to pass less-than-rational legislation.
The legislative process is set up to accommodate proposals that have broad support by a clear majority. Bills that are marginally popular have a more difficult time becoming law with protections like the 60% super majority in the Senate in order to get to the voting process.
Efforts to dismantle and change the traditional legislative process with a vested interest in getting specific legislation passed preys on people’s unfamiliarity with history, the Constitution or basic understanding of civics and democracy.
As someone once said, no new law or benefit is worth giving up our liberty in order to get it. If it can’t get though the legislature, it does not seem justified to change the traditional process or lower our democratic standards. Maybe the legislation itself should be changed until it has the approval of the majority.
It is also misleading to dissect the issue and show that people agree to various parts, therefore they (probably) approve of the whole. It is disingenuous, for example, to say that people want health care reform and then extrapolate that everyone, therefore, likes a particular proposal.
A pile of half-truths still doesn’t add up to one full truth.
