More on Cloture

I hope your op-ed stirs the pot as you intend it to. But I find myself on the other end of this issue which has reared its head from time to time since the beginning of the Republic. I'd have to look it up but you could probably find anti-cloture sentiment going back to 1806.

Just as I am willing to put up with the damage done to the Body Politic by blabbermouth idiots like Rush Limbaugh in the name of the First Amendment, I am willing to put up with the utter inefficiency of the Senate in slowing down change when the majority seems to want it. We need a deliberative process even more in the midst of crisis than we do when things seem “normal” (whenever that is). Our current monumental crisis demands action, but I don't see a clear consensus on what that action should be. We will have to work this out painfully through a cumbersome legislative process, which, as you know so well, is never pretty to watch on a daily basis. Government is inefficient by design.

There are some other important issues at work in this crisis that could destroy Congress as a co-equal branch of government. If this happens, our economic crisis will be compounded with the destruction of the U. S. Constitution, which has weathered Panics, Recessions, and Depressions before. Your proposal could lead to the Senate being merely a smaller version of the House. Why would we even need a Senate if it ran strictly by the numbers the way the House can when there is a clear majority? We need a Congress that can act wisely, but neither the House nor the Senate is any wiser than the people who elect them. If there is a culture of greed and excess in the nation, we should not be surprised to find that culture in Congress too. For years members have been elected to both bodies by claiming they are successful businessmen and women, and that what Congress needs is to be run like a Fortune 500 company — so much for that line of thinking. Government and business are not the same thing and we are finding that out in a monumental way right now. I am less inclined to change the rules and more inclined to work to get people elected to Congress who believe that governing is a noble profession and that its purpose is the general welfare and happiness of the nation not the bottom line of some insurance company. While you see Senate Rule 22 as a major problem, I see our own economic excesses, our boom or bust, get-rich-quick culture as the heart of the problem. We have built a culture that believes the highest form of human life is a successful businessperson. This is something more in need of change than the cloture rule. Since we can’t reform ourselves, we think we can tinker with the way the House and Senate work and this will compensate for the shortcomings of the American people themselves. This is the ultimate flaw of all political science.

I am reminded of the last stanza of a poem written by the late Howard Nemerov, the poet laureate of the U. S., who wrote a poem for Congress on its 200th anniversary back in 1989 and delivered it before a joint meeting. It goes like this:

praise without end for the go-ahead zeal
of whoever it was invented the wheel;
but never a word for the poor soul's sake
that thought ahead, and invented the brake.

The Senate is our most consistently reliable brake. I realize, of course, this does not mean that we always know when to use the brake or the gas pedal. But we would not buy a car without brakes and I don’t want a Senate without cloture.

[Dr. Smock is a former Historian of the House, and a previous guest on the EP podcast. g.]

Good Op-Ed, George!

And while we are at it, why not change the balance of representation in favor of more populous areas?

Why do states with less than 1 million people (Alaska, etc.) have as many Senators as vastly more populous states like California, Texas and Florida? This lack of balance ultimately results in stupid policies like subsidies for Iowa corn farmers and agri-business to make ethanol.

The U.S. of A. is a dramatically different country than when the bicameral legislature was created.

Cheers.

[It's a heuristically interesting thought experiment to ask whether, if we were devising a government today from scratch, we would include anything like today's Senate. I think the answer is unequivocally "no." My preference would be for a unicameral body but, absent that kind of radical change, fixing Rule 22 seems like an obvious priority. g.]