As I’m sure most everyone here knows, the current filibuster rule in the U.S. Senate requires an affirmative vote of 3/5 of the Senate to close debate (“cloture”) and force a vote. (It used to be 2/3.) At this time executive nominees cannot be filibustered.
There’s been a lot of ink about the filibuster and how (a) it ought to be scrapped and also (2) recent rules changes made it easier to do (a filibuster no longer holds up business or requires a constant presence on the Senate floor, etc.)
But here’s the rule I want to apply to every action of the Senate, no exceptions.
No cloture vote shall be valid that does not include votes of senators representing a majority of residents of the United States.
“Residents” refers to the same definition used to apportion U.S. House seats.
So a minority of voters who control a majority of the Senate would not, alone, be able to pass legislation or approve executive appointments, including judicial appointments.
How you feel about this may depend on whether your governance model is for a small white minority to subjugate a diverse nation. The States Rights pearl-clutching that this would induce would frankly be worth the whole game. But the beauty part is that, once we take back the Senate, it could be adopted by a simple majority without a single GOP vote.
PS Obviously there are other details, such as what you do when a state’s two senators are divided on a question, but I think these are pretty easy to figure out.
You can’t even amend the Constitution to do this as it would deprive states of their equal suffrage in the Senate. Robert’s Rules requires 2/3 to close debate which works well, but also assumes someone is actually speaking and debate remains germane.
No constitutional issue here at all, Christopher, because when states vote on the main motion it will still be 1 state 2 votes all equal. The current filibuster did not require a constitutional amendment either, just a Senate rule.
The relevant part of the Constitution is in Section 5 of Article One:
There would be a constitutional issue if the Senate tried, through its rules, to devalue the vote of any state when adopting legislation, consenting to appointments, or voting in impeachment proceedings. But the filibuster is just a rule about how a motion can be put to a vote.
Not sure why you brought up that hoary monstrosity, Roberts Rules. Does the state committee use that? It is a lawsuit waiting to happen.
I don’t think Christopher’s concern is so easily addressed.
The wording you offer weighs the senate votes of densely-populated states more than sparsely-populated states in the cloture vote — that seems to be the very point of your proposed rule.
The result is that the two votes of Wyoming are less powerful than the two votes of New York.
I agree that Roberts Rules is irrelevant. The Senate can and has modified them as it chooses.
I only brought up Robert’s Rules to point out that requiring a supermajority per se is not a problem since the Robert’s threshold is higher than for cloture, but usually works pretty well.
Were that true, most of the Senate’s rules would be unconstitutional, since they value the votes of some members differently than others on procedural matters.
I think Tom is channeling what Mitch McConnell would say if the Senate were to adopt this rule. Hearing him splutter about that would be a side benefit of adopting it.
I know of no votes taken in the Senate where the votes of Senators are weighted differently.
Channeling Mr. McConnell or not, I assume you share my belief that we Democrats believe in the rule of law, and agree that Constitution is the foundation of the law of the land.
I think your proposal would require a Constitutional amendment to take effect. I’m not saying I oppose it — I agree with what you aim to achieve. I just think it cannot be put in place in the absence of an amendment.
Equal suffrage is equal suffrage, whether on the main motion or a procedural vote. I understand the filibuster is Senate rule which can be undone, but if there is a vote on anything it must be by equal suffrage.
Yes, the state committee uses Robert’s Rules, as do most non-legislative bodies in this country. Not sure why that would invite a lawsuit.
As long as the committee followed the law where Roberts deviates from it, there would not be any legal jeopardy.
Plenty of better parliamentary authorities out there, cult of RRO notwithstanding.
And Christopher: Under senate rules a Senate committee can bottle up legislation even though some states do not have votes on that committee. So what you call “equal suffrage” (which, if you think about it is unequal suffrage since it values some voters more than others) does not apply there.
So if you like, refer all bills to the Standing Equal Suffrage Committee, where the only requirement is that to advance a bill must have the support of senators representing a majority of U.S. residents.
Frankly you are being a bit obtuse here. Of course the Senate has committees and of course not all legislation makes it out of said committees. You are proposing the radical and unconstitutional idea that when a vote is taken on the floor Senate votes be weighted by the population they represent, which is precisely NOT the point of the Senate. The Constitution explicitly states that no STATE shall be deprived of equal suffrage, which means that on all votes of the full body every state is entitled to a vote equal to every other. There’s no way the Senate will agree to end run the equal suffrage requirement through the committee you propose nor should they IMO. The House is the place for people to be represented proportionally.
The state committees of the parties are creatures of state law, which of course they follow in relevant situations, but almost everything we vote on is on internal matters not touched by the law. Why do you think other authorities of parliamentary law are better? Robert’s is the manual most commonly known and as someone trained as a Robert’s parliamentarian I would certainly vouch for it.
Congratulations on ROR training, Chris. Are you accredited by either the American Institute of Parliamentarians or the National Association of Parliamentarians?
The latter focuses exclusively on Roberts (and is a touch cultish), but the former is about parliamentary procedure and parliamentary law. ROR is included in scope along with other parliamentary manuals.
I would recommend that as the next step in your development as a parliamentarian, if it is something that interests you.
I honestly haven’t looked at others so I suppose I should not insist that Robert’s is the best. I guess it’s one of those things that based on ubiquity alone becomes so familiar that others don’t appear on the radar of the general public. It’s sort of like certain celebrities who are “famous for being famous”. I have had some interaction with NAP and have easily passed their online sample tests. Probably the only reason I am not a “registered parliamentarian” to use their term is my reluctance to cough up the fees. I have not been involved with a body that uses anything other than Roberts and when I ran for Town Moderator I suggested switching to Roberts because in my experience voters assumed that’s what we using anyway. This is an example of Robert’s being so embedded in our culture that even those who would never be called parliamentary experts know what it means to call the question. I do know legislative procedure is different and I have the ability to learn new rules pretty quickly; even Robert’s itself says it is not the best manual for that context. It is designed to keep things moving smoothly and fairly, but its purpose is defeated if the opposite results. For smaller and less formal groups I like to say that the first rule of Robert’s Rules is to know when not to use Robert’s Rules:)
I’d agree that ROR is superior to Town Meeting Time, though there are some parts of Roberts that would not be applicable to that form of government. Did your experiment prevail?
Unfortunately I did not win that race so I guess we’ll never know:(
The Constitution expressly says that “each house may determine the Rules of its Proceedings.” The Senate, may in fact, determine the filibuster can be used only by left-handers on Tuesdays and only by right-handers on Thursdays. Why they would want to… who knows? But they can.
While I am intrigued by this tweak on Cloture, and think it has some merit on its face, I’m not sure it’s a complete fix. Consider: I don’t believe there has been an actual, gee-willikers, filibuster in the Senate in some time. It is mostly the threat of the filibuster — and not the actual thing — that has obtained. As I understand, legislation used to be ‘single-track’ whereby a filibuster would stop any and all business in the Senate, and the threat of a filibuster would be taken much more seriously. Now, legislation is not pipelined in this way: If somebody threatens a filibuster on a particular piece of legislation, they move on to different legislation. All this is to say, clever as the idea sounds, don’t be surprised if somebody someday out-clevers a way out from underneath it…
I understand the theoretical concept of the filibuster – it gives the “minority” the ability to have a say against the “majority” due to its implicit threat. Of course, McConnell overused it tremendously, turning the Senate into a 60-vote chamber, which is wholly undemocratic, and favors conservatism (with the idea that more than a majority are needed to do anything)
How about this as a compromise – instead of allowing the filibuster in the Senate – which is already horrendously undemocratic due to its “two votes per state” setup, why not implement it in the House?
I think a partial answer to the problem of voters in small states counting more than voters in big states is to require consent of senators representing a majority of residents in order to allow bills and other business to proceed to a vote.
You’d need a majority of senators to agree to such a rule, of course, just as you need a majority today to agree to the current filibuster rule.
I still think you are trying to end run the very concept that the Senate is and should be the chamber of the states WITHOUT REGARD to population.
Yes. Finally.
This is not only a brilliant idea. It is an idea that is one that can prevent us from becoming comparable to apartheid Sputh Africa over the next several decades. Thank you!
Come on guys, basic civics for a FEDERAL republic! The HOUSE is intended to represent the people in proportion to the population, though I do think we need to adopt the Wyoming Rule for that chamber.
Uprated for the Wyoming Rule. Something the majority could pass tomorrow without requiring a constitutional amendment. Yes it would probably get voted down and/or vetoed, but it’s worth it to bring the issue to the attention of the public getting robbed of representation.
Similarly the Senate could pass this change on a simple majority vote, and unlike the Wyoming Rule, it does not even require the consent of the president or the other house. I think your argument about the Senate being for states was also used against the 17th amendment. Since we now allow the people to elect the Senate it just makes sense to make it a more proportional body. Changing Article I is hard, changing the filibuster is easy.
I have often said we upset a delicate constitutional balance with the 17th amendment because it made it less obvious that the Senate is the chamber of the states. Changing this particular aspect of Article I is IMPOSSIBLE per Article V:
What I would like to see is expand the Senate to 3 per state thus giving each state an opportunity to influence its composition in each biennium.
Interesting, not sure if Senate expansion is any easier, but it’s something to ponder. Personally I would favor adding more on a nationwide basis in some capacity.
The Philippines has a smaller Senate but they are elected at large by the entire country on a slate, and it historically produced the presidential timber pre-Marcos. France has a similar council of elder statesmen who help with the French Senate.
That might help alleviate some of the imbalance that has developed due to population discrepancies. I’m also fine with abolishing the Senate, but I know that’s a much harder task.
See and I absolutely do not share the goal of redressing population imbalances in the Senate. I LIKE that one chamber is for the people and the other for the states as semi-sovereign entities. That is how a federal system SHOULD work IMO.
An interesting idea and one that may have merit.
But I’d like to up the ante a little bit and introduce an idea–that emerged from this idea– that may change the game entirely:
Rank the Senate classes by population.
There are three Senate classes, more or less haphazardly arranged to provide a third of the Senate up for election every two years. Rank them and arrange the elections so that the least populous states have to contend all at once. Class one are junior Senators from the least populous states, class three are the senior Senators from the most populous states and class 2 comprises the remainder (which might make an interesting tabulation…). Make the population of the Senate class up for election in a particular time part of the electoral calculus and give the electorate a handy map to see very quickly where population and Senate diverge.