“Fixing” the filibuster is a suggestion that seems to be enjoying some high profile floating of late, including from two alphas from the “Heartland”, Senator Harkin of Iowa, and now (soon-to-be-retired) Senator Bayh of Indiana. As one who voted for Obama, and as one who finds himself frustrated at the impotence of the 2 branches run by “my team”, it would be very easy to hop on board with this idea. Now is when it makes the most sense for me to say it’s time to end what really is the extreme practice of allowing just one or two Senators to force the entire law-making process into super-majority-or-bust concerning anything significant. It would be easy to get on board this effort, but it would be wrong – wrong in specific cases and wrong as a matter of process. It is the wrong place for our energies for at least as long as our nation remains so deeply divided and caught in a cycle of political punishment and revenge.

Washington gridlock: new cause celebre for the left.

It is tempting to say that NOTHING should be done to make it easier for our government to do ANYTHING. One need not have a fetish for small government to fear a highly partisan political class even more free from restraint. Hopefully, for those on the left today, they would need no more convincing on this point than to be reminded of how they felt in 2005 at the prospect of George W Bush having an entirely free hand to act as he saw fit within the Executive, and finding his legislative agenda unrestrained by any fear of the political minority. I personally don’t feel the Democrats in Congress during the years of GOP/GWB trifecta did anywhere near enough to scrutinize and restrain that man and his minions, but only an unrepentant Nader voter of 2000 would dare say there was no meaningful difference between the Dems and Repubs during that era.

I am unhappy that Bush got away with much, but it could have been much much worse for the political left and for the nation if things had been even mildly easier for him to operate when the majorities favored him. Ideally, those on the right are now in a position from which they can easily understand the wisdom of The Gang of 14. If you are a far-right knuckle-dragger who can’t see why the Gang of 14 ultimately did you a favor, I would at least suggest you ask yourself if you can look at the major flip-flop of 2008 and say with a straight face that George W Bush ever enjoyed a clear mandate from the electorate? If you think he did, could you possibly deny that by the same criteria, President Obama’s is even bigger?

Would removing the barrier of the filibuster result in policies likely strengthen Obama’s chances in 2012? Would a weakened filibuster in 2005 resulted in freer hand for GWB to act in ways that would have helped the GOP’s chances in 2008? I don’t believe so, either way. Every time the GOP loses big nationally, their fringe kooks claim credit, just as the wacko lefties now want to take credit for the loss of Ted Kennedy’s seat (and want to be taken seriously as Kingmakers once again as we head into the 2010 election season.)

I would suggest that much of the threatened punishment that was supposedly going to be dished out by the loons of the right on the GOP members of the Gang Of 14 for blocking The “Nuke-lee-er” Option never came to pass. McCain didn’t lose in 2008 because he didn’t override the filibuster in 2005. If the Dems take a drubbing in 2010, it won’t be because of a tantrum of the left-wing of the party over the 60-vote threshold in the Senate. The elections of recent years have been so close, it is true that the fringe may indeed help one side or the other to just get over; but as usually happens, the fringes always over-play their hand. The key is for those of us who can disagree on individual issues – or choices of our opponent’s coalition partners – to keep in mind the fringe’s tendency to overplay hands.

Imagine the fringe you dislike most, either now or 5 years ago, and picture them having an even freer hand to act just as the checks and balances protecting you are watered down even further. Your gains will never outdo your pains, and we as a nation, are nowhere near being in position to take up a debate with those kinds of stakes. Let’s not lose sight of this debate, and let’s not fear talking about the big systemic problems hobbling the nation, but let’s not take up the checks and balances at the moment when divisions are most stark and forced. We are beset by a hyper-partisanship and political uniformity which benefits the parties far more than the people. That is precisely why we should do absolutely nothing which might make it more likely that the party line enforcers will have such a heavy, blunt instrument with which to operate upon our body politic.

Related posts:

1. Leahy sees several more years as Boeing’s enemy No.1
2. Bipartisan bills hit a brick wall in election-year gridlock
3. Obama to play small-ball, constrained by gridlock

Rudy Grahn Jr. is a former talk show host turned writer turned analyst who currently writes primarily on the personal on his weblog Rudayday.com. Rudy is also a digital photographer whose work has been featured on PBS, NBC, and web outlets like BoingBoing.com and The Morning News. His nickname “Rudayday” was conferred upon him by John Romano in the 20th Century.  

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