I'm taking some license in speaking of the 'end of the filibuster' technically-or as a Monetarist would prefer 'nominally' it's still supposedly very much alive for both SJC nominees and legislation. Still I agree that in reality one way or the other Ezra Klein has it right, this is a 'unstable equilibrium' that won't remain suspended in air while retaining its balance very long.
Either the GOP will make good on its 'threat' to end it for these last two items as well or the Dems may even get tired of it themselves next time the GOP obstructs an important bill or an Obama SJC pick-hopefully to replace a conservative judge-and end it. I take it as a foregone conclusion that this is the likely fate of what remains the question remains more when and what will constitute the last straw. For more on why Dems aren't too inspired by the GOP threat see the following link. Reid has the right answer to it-'if they want to end it totally they should do it. Why should we even care?'
http://diaryofarepublicanhater.blogspot.com/2013/11/the-gops-empty-threat-on-totally-ending.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+DiaryOfARepublicanHater+%28Diary+of+a+Republican+Hater%29
I see this as an unqualified good even if the GOP got a Republican Pr4esident and both Houses of congress in 2016. The trouble is that the Senate hasn't been working for 5 years-we have had half of all filibusters of cloture votes in history since 1917 during Obama's Presidency. For the GOP to say they won't play well with others now is laughable.
Indeed, their obstruction and sabotage of the process has become so egregious that the worry that most Democrats harbored for years-including your humble author-of what the GOP would do when the had the majority again no longer served to give them pause. How can it get worse than this?
The other reason given for why ending the filibuster would be a horrid thing is that its a strong and vital check on the rights of the minority being trampled. The trouble is that the history of the filibuster doesn't bear this out. The actual creation of the filibuster apparently was an accident according to the leading authority on the history of the filibuster, Sarah Blinder. What it actually seemed to amount to was the result of an attempt to get rid of some other bad rules in the Senate.
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/ezra-klein/2010/03/how_the_filibuster_was_invente.html
Now when we move on from the origins to the use of the filibuster it becomes even more sordid. It was used to prevent the abolition of slavery and then it was used to prevent strong anti-lynching laws that actually had some teeth in them, finally it was used to protect Jim Crow segregation.
True I would say that the filibuster did have some positive benefits when the Dems used it back in 2005. We are hearing a lot about the alleged hypocrisy of the democrats as they supported the filibuster in 2005 and now they've clipped its wings.
As Harry Reid rightly says, one has a right to change one's mind. Scott Sumner's predictable, facile snark misses the point. He claims to 'understand' the Dems frustration-just like he understands Keynesian frustration and then explains why fiscal policy can't possibly work and that austerity is fine because the Fed will offset it.
"I sympathize with some of the complaints of modern progressives. Yes, the filibuster is (was?) a bad idea. Yes, the modern GOP has regressed significantly from the Reagan era. But I think the long period of conservative dominance, and then policy deadlock, has led many progressives to underestimate the difficulties of enacting a liberal vision in a polyglot society of 320 million people. They have forgotten what caused the conservative resurgence in 1980. It’s really, really hard to make a big and activist government work. No one else has made an activist government work in a country so large. And based on the results from California and New York, it also seems difficult to implement in large states."
"Here’s the NYT endorsing the Senate’s filibuster vote:
Either the GOP will make good on its 'threat' to end it for these last two items as well or the Dems may even get tired of it themselves next time the GOP obstructs an important bill or an Obama SJC pick-hopefully to replace a conservative judge-and end it. I take it as a foregone conclusion that this is the likely fate of what remains the question remains more when and what will constitute the last straw. For more on why Dems aren't too inspired by the GOP threat see the following link. Reid has the right answer to it-'if they want to end it totally they should do it. Why should we even care?'
http://diaryofarepublicanhater.blogspot.com/2013/11/the-gops-empty-threat-on-totally-ending.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+DiaryOfARepublicanHater+%28Diary+of+a+Republican+Hater%29
I see this as an unqualified good even if the GOP got a Republican Pr4esident and both Houses of congress in 2016. The trouble is that the Senate hasn't been working for 5 years-we have had half of all filibusters of cloture votes in history since 1917 during Obama's Presidency. For the GOP to say they won't play well with others now is laughable.
Indeed, their obstruction and sabotage of the process has become so egregious that the worry that most Democrats harbored for years-including your humble author-of what the GOP would do when the had the majority again no longer served to give them pause. How can it get worse than this?
The other reason given for why ending the filibuster would be a horrid thing is that its a strong and vital check on the rights of the minority being trampled. The trouble is that the history of the filibuster doesn't bear this out. The actual creation of the filibuster apparently was an accident according to the leading authority on the history of the filibuster, Sarah Blinder. What it actually seemed to amount to was the result of an attempt to get rid of some other bad rules in the Senate.
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/ezra-klein/2010/03/how_the_filibuster_was_invente.html
Now when we move on from the origins to the use of the filibuster it becomes even more sordid. It was used to prevent the abolition of slavery and then it was used to prevent strong anti-lynching laws that actually had some teeth in them, finally it was used to protect Jim Crow segregation.
True I would say that the filibuster did have some positive benefits when the Dems used it back in 2005. We are hearing a lot about the alleged hypocrisy of the democrats as they supported the filibuster in 2005 and now they've clipped its wings.
As Harry Reid rightly says, one has a right to change one's mind. Scott Sumner's predictable, facile snark misses the point. He claims to 'understand' the Dems frustration-just like he understands Keynesian frustration and then explains why fiscal policy can't possibly work and that austerity is fine because the Fed will offset it.
"I sympathize with some of the complaints of modern progressives. Yes, the filibuster is (was?) a bad idea. Yes, the modern GOP has regressed significantly from the Reagan era. But I think the long period of conservative dominance, and then policy deadlock, has led many progressives to underestimate the difficulties of enacting a liberal vision in a polyglot society of 320 million people. They have forgotten what caused the conservative resurgence in 1980. It’s really, really hard to make a big and activist government work. No one else has made an activist government work in a country so large. And based on the results from California and New York, it also seems difficult to implement in large states."
"Here’s the NYT endorsing the Senate’s filibuster vote:
In a 52-to-48 vote that substantially altered the balance of power in Washington, the Senate changed its most infuriating rule and effectively ended the filibuster on executive and judicial appointments. . . .This vote was long overdue.
"And here’s what the NYT said in 2005:"
A decade ago, this page expressed support for tactics that would have gone even further than the “nuclear option” in eliminating the power of the filibuster. At the time, we had vivid memories of the difficulty that Senate Republicans had given much of Bill Clinton’s early agenda. But we were still wrong. To see the filibuster fully, it’s obviously a good idea to have to live on both sides of it. We hope acknowledging our own error may remind some wavering Republican senators that someday they, too, will be on the other side and in need of all the protections the Senate rules can provide.
"That’s right. During the Clinton Administration the NYT opposed the filibuster. When Bush took over they realized they’d made a horrible mistake, and that the filibuster actually was a wise policy. No, it was more than a wise policy:
But its existence goes to the center of the peculiar but effective form of government America cherishes.
"And now that the Dems are back in power the NYT recognizes that they were right all along, and that their 2005 apology was misguided."
I get tired of this constant game of conservatives in trying to demonstrate that you are saying something different form what you may have said on a matter years ago. I think the trouble is that conservatives don't believe in actual earning-they don't follow Keynes when he said that 'When the facts change, I change my mind, what do you do sir?'
Conservatives do believe in a 'foolish consistency' as they don't understand that genuine learning means sometimes you do change your mind. More to the point, the relationship between teh Dems and Repugs use of the filibuster isn't wholly symmetrical. We have yet again, a false equivalence. The Dems never abused the filibuster to the extent that the GOP has. This is a hangup of all VSP who think that 'both sides do it' and anyone who suggests that one side is more at fault than the other is engaging in knee jerk partisanship. What these VSP like Sumner would do well to do is read Garry Will's very find book on political philosophy-it also had a great title 'Confessions of a Conservative.'
He makes the point that truly thoughtful people in politics are usualy the frankest partisans. I also like to appeal to Thaddeus Stevens who said Principles indeed! Betray your principles and stand by your party!'
The Dems never used it in such an egregious way, and just plain didn't use it anywhere near so many times. Half of all filibusters of executive nominees have happened during Obama's 5 years in office.
It's off the topic a little but another example that the Dems simply are superior morally to Republicans-if that's a partisan thing to say it at least has the virtue of being true-that though they were quite critical of many aspects of the GOP's Medicare Part D that they rammed through in 2003-which has had a number of ill effects; one has been forcing seniors to find many benefits on the market they previously got as a matter of course right through Medicare; another being that the govt is not allowed to negotiation with drug companies under the law-they didn't try to sabotage it when it begun in 2006 but did what they could to make it function as well as is possible. Compare this to the GOP's relish with every anecdote of Obamacare problems-real or imagined.
Come to think of it, maybe it's not such a reach as many GOPers are decaring that this sea change on the filibuster was just about the Dems trying to change the subject form the failures of Obamacare-again, real or imagined; of course, this theory is absurd, this is something that's been a long time coming and the Dems have bent over backwards for years in making agreements with the GOP that Repubs then have reneged on.
The Dems did not use the filibuster so dishonestly, however, it's an asymmetric game as the GOP has no conscience in their dealing with public poliyc. They simply are very comfortable doing harm the society and country they are sworn to serve if they think it might provide some short term political benefit.
While the Dems allowed Bush his nominees, even extreme Right wingers like Harrient Meyers who has now give us some terrible anti abortion rulings from her federal bench. I'm going to say something that sounds 'biased.' If the filibuster was only available for Democrats it would be legitimate as they didn't abuse it nearly so much. It's the untold of level of GOP obstruction that seals its fate.
When both parties use it the Dems lose because they have a conscience and don't just use it in such a brutally remorseless way-they still let Bush have most of his executive and judicial nominees. So the results of both parties having the filibuster are asymmetric-the GOP uses it in a blanked way the Dems use it less and never just deliberately to gum up the works of government for the sake of just because they re out of power.
The filibuster-and the gerrymander for that matter-are similar to Sumner's Market Monetarism actually in that all of these things are about enabling the minority to rule over the majority. They disenfranchise the majority in either case.
Again, I'm not engaging in an ad hominem 'partisan' attack. Why do you think that Monetarism's real 'natural experiments' have been places like Pinochet's Chile?
P.S. I'm sure that Sumner would be scornful of the idea that the Democrats are morally superior to the Repubs but why should this be shocking? If there is no meaningful distinction between the parties why have them at all? If a democracy is worth anything then it should offer sharp differences on matters of consequence. I do argue that in this point of history the Democrats are superior both morally and intellectually but this wasn't always the case-when the GOP was formed back in the 1850s it was certainly morally superior with its belief in abolition and to end the domination of the country by the Antebellum South. Northern and Western industry needed to be unfettered-a major party of which was ending the slave system-and the GOP was on the side of angels.
My claim of 'moral superiority' is only outrageous if you don't believe that matters of moral and ethical significance are at stake in political differences-if you believe that then why should society have parties at all? Surely the goal is to better society? If you don't believe voting for your party betters our society why do you vote for them?
P.P.S. Sumner razzes the NyTimes:
"This is why it’s often said that unless you adopt H.L. Mencken’s cynicism, politics will immediately take 15 points off your IQ. (And we all know people at the Times who have suffered that sad fate.) There are actually people in New York City, highly intelligent people, who think the Times is a reasonably objective paper. I’m not kidding."
Maybe Sumner can tell us what a reasonably objective paper would look like-is it the National Review or Cato, both places he has published at? Is it the Wall Street Journal's editorial page-they are totally 'balanced' in their views of the Republican and Democratic parties right? I can't even guess who they prefer...
Again, the most politically engaged and knowledgeable voters usually are partisans-pace Garry Wills. What Sumner and other such VSP who preach Centrism don't get is that if you have two kids and one is constantly beating up the other one and you tell them both to knock it off you aren't being 'reaonably objective' you're taking the bully's side. It's not surprising though that Sumner would take the side of bullies. This what conservatism is about-taking the side of bullies and laughing at the pain of their victims.
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