Not getting rid of the filibuster a few years ago was a huge mistake

[Ter]

When Republicans were in the majority roughly four years ago, they became frustrated that they couldn't get some of their federal judges confirmed due to the filibuster. They threatened to go nuclear, and get rid of the filibuster altogether. Democrats in the Senate threatened to walk out. Back then, I was just a lurker here. I was gonna join DU and post how I agreed with abolishing the filibuster, but joining a new board where 90% disagree with you isn't smart, so I passed.

I knew then what I know now. That Republicans won't always be in the majority. Yes, not having it will hurt us from time to time, but it will balance out and greatly help us as well. It was tremendously stupid not to support the idea of abolishing it then, but it's not too late now. It's undemocratic, not even 100 years old, and it needs to go.

[Warpy]

1. The filibuster, used properly, is a wonderful tool

that prevents a majority from riding roughshod over a minority. It was never meant to be used by a minority party to block everything the way the GOP has been using it.

I would be against abolishing it. I would be highly in favor of invoking a rule to suspend it for 6 months at a time in times of national emergency or when >50 bills and appointments were being held up by threatened filibusters.

It would give the minority party an incentive to get those bills through, to work with the majority party to arrive at a compromise or risk suspension of the filibuster. A minority party would always want to stay under that trigger point and business would get done.

There are more than 100 bills languishing in various committees under threat of GOP filibuster at present along with quite a few judicial nominations. The filibuster suspension should have been triggered already, in other words, had such a ruling been made.

I don't think anyone with sense wants to end the filibuster permanently, which is what the GOP were threatening in the heady days of DeLay's permanent GOP majority, which is why it didn't get far. More sanguine GOPs wouldn't have gone for it.

My idea makes sense. That's probably why Democrats won't do it.

[Bucky]

3. Power saws, used properly, are wonderful tools. But if you live in house full of impulsive toddlers

...you have to wonder if the tool isn't eventually do a lot more harm than good.

[Warpy]

4. It's exactly why you need to keep it locked away, out of reach

when the toddlers are running amok.

[Ter]

5. I agree

I's outdated. Without it, you win some, you lose some. Right now we'll win some a hell of a lot more than lose some.

[grantcart]

6. Incorrect.

your premise that it prevents the majority from overriding the minority is based on the incorrect assumption that the Senate is a representative body.

When the Senate was first constituted 51% of the Senate could be represented by about 33% of the population.

When you calculate today with the addition of the filibuster and the migration from rural areas, the minority in the Senate is able to stop legislation with only 17% of the population. The 20 least populated states have less population than California and New York, yet they have 10 times the population.

Eliminating the filibuster will still give the minority tremendous rights but not the exaggerated super super majority rights that the Senate plus filibuster now command.

In the first hundred years the filibuster was used less than a dozen times.

In fact at one point it was 66% and was reduced about 100 years ago.

It is time to send the filibuster into the dust bin of history.

[Warpy]

7. You've completely misunderstood the purpose of the Senate

The House directly represents the people. The Senate represents the states. That's why state legislatures were originally charged with voting for Senators, not the state population.

The House votes for measures the population wants. The Senate deliberates over those measures and how they will affect the states as entities. That focus makes the Senate inherently more conservative than the House.

The filibuster has come in handy as a last ditch measure against a bullying majority. The time has come for one of two things: a suspension like the one I suggested or forcing every Republican who has threatened to filibuster to stand on the floor of the Senate and do it.

It's time for Reid to stop being a wuss, in other words.

[onenote]

2. the repubs did not propose getting rid of the filibuster altogether

The nuclear option was specifically aimed at eliminating filibusters for federal judicial nominations.