We need people who will get on a little ship and try to sail across the ocean. We also need people who will tell them all the ways they will die doing it.
IOW, we need people who push the boundaries, and we need people who defend the boundaries. That’s not just a philosophical thing, it’s almost written into our DNA. We have to explore, but we also have a disgust reaction.
Our system of government was designed to prevent — or at least slow down — radical swings from one extreme to the other. We were supposed to have processes that allowed for deliberation and debate. The filibuster was part of this. It was a way to say “slow down and think.”
The filibuster has transformed over the years. It no longer requires people to stay up late, ala “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington,” reading the Bible on the Senate floor. Maybe that was a better model.
The important thing is that we have to have some way to prevent precipitous action, and we seem to have lost a lot of those restraints. We hardly even have hearings on bills any more, and it’s a dead certainty that most of the people voting on a bill don’t know what’s in it.
It’s wise to not allow a 51-49 majority to have their way, only to switch two years later, and the Senate has been the place to do that. The House is more democratic — more responsive to what the people want — and the Senate is supposed to be more deliberative.
I like that, and I want it preserved. I don’t mind if they tinker with the rules a bit to make it better, so long as we retain ways to slow things down and think for a minute before we commit ourselves to some new initiative.
When the Republicans retake the majority in both houses later this year, I will still support this basic concept — that the minority has the power to slow things down. In fact, I would support a rule that nothing can pass the senate without at least 60 votes.
