Why Are We Letting Aaron Burr’s Eraser Rule the Country?

The filibuster: just a theatrical performance designed to mask the fact that the Senate is where progressive hope goes to die.

We are constantly told, by hacks in both parties, that the filibuster is a “sacred tradition” of the Founding Fathers, and that the senate is, by design, slow moving, deliberative, and concerned about the rights of the minority party. The reality, however, is that it was an accident that has been weaponized by racists to keep America drowning in the past.

What is the Filibuster?

In the earliest days of our country and government, the senate and the house of representatives worked from rules that were essentially the same. Both had a rule known as the “previous question” motion, allowing a simple majority (50% +1) to stop debate. The house still has this rule. Alexander Hamilton and James Madison both wrote extensively against requiring supermajorities for ordinary legislation, arguing it would give the minority a “negative” over the majority and lead to paralysis. The Constitution does not mention the filibuster at all.

In 1806, due to a suggestion by then vice-president Aaron Burr, the senate eliminated the rule. But Aaron Burr just wanted a cleaner rulebook; he thought since this “previous question” motion was hardly ever used, that it should be deleted from the senate’s rules. So it was. What happened, though, is that he accidentally deleted the Senate’s ability to vote.

Filibustering didn’t start immediately; the government was still finding its legs. All this “cleanup” did was make the filibuster possible, but it took 30+ years for the rule change to be exploited. The inability of a simple majority to stop debate and force a vote lead, in 1837, to the first real-live filibuster. in this case, President Andrew Jackson was being censured, and a group of senators attempted to stop the censure from being expunged by using what is now known as a filibuster. They were unsuccessful.

Use of the filibuster technique has only gotten worse since then.

So let’s fast-forward to the 20th century. For decades, the filibuster’s primary use wasn’t “deliberation,” it was segregationists blocking anti-lynching laws and civil rights in the 1920s and 1930s. Later, it was Strom Thurmond and other southern senators using the filibuster to obstruct the Civil Rights Acts of 1957 and 1964, and the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Senator Strom Thurmond famously filibustered for 24 hours to stop the passage of that 1957 Civil Rights Act. In 1964, a group of Southern Democrats staged a record-breaking 60-day filibuster to block civil rights progress.

Representative Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez (AOC) said recently “The origin of the filibuster is part of the institutional racism that was baked into our institutions.” I can’t disagree with the result of that racism, but I will disagree with the origin part. The origin of the filibuster is simply a mistake (and no one gets to think that this country and its government hasn’t made many of these “clerical error” type mistakes). The idea that the filibuster was a “grand compromise” is a fairytale that launders a history of institutional racism, even if its origins were simply due to Aaron Burr’s short-sighted eraser.

Why does the Filibuster Matter Now?

Unfortunately, today, the filibuster’s 60-vote threshold allows Senators who only represent a tiny fraction of the population to block the will of the majority. Particularly when just the threat of a filibuster now triggers that 60-vote threshold. The filibuster has mutated from something that minority senators had to do, into something they just get to wield.

Because of this, several things that a majority of Americans actually want are stuck in limbo:

• The PRO Act – moving us toward more robust labor rights. The PRO Act would make it easier for workers to unionize and curb corporate union-busting tactics. Who today doesn’t think corporate malfeasance needs to be curb(stomped)?
• The John Lewis Voting Rights Act – Trump his MAGA lackeys have been using the courts to dismantle the voting rights we all currently have (because who needs to vote when our dear leader plans on never leaving office, right?) The John Lewis Voting Rights Act could be passed to counter the Supreme Court’s dismantling of the Voting Rights Act and end partisan gerrymandering.
• Climate Legislation – So much good could be done to make the USA the leader in alternative and green energy, but Trump is letting China run away with that leadership to appease his fossil-fuel financiers. Significant Green New Deal-style investments could be passed through regular order rather than being shoehorned into “budget reconciliation.”

Ending the filibuster would also end “Bipartisanship as a Delay Tactic.” Currently, the filibuster forces Democrats to seek “bipartisan” support from a GOP that often has no intention of negotiating in good faith. Eliminating it forces voters to see the actual platform of the party in power, rather than blaming “the system” for inaction. Honestly, this might expose corporate democrats, too, from talking out of both sides of their mouths. Good. I want to know where all the politicians stand – including the democrats.

The Swing of the Pendulum

If the filibuster is eliminated, it’s eliminated for everybody.

Does this mean that the MAGA republicans get to implement their “Revenge Agenda?”

• National Abortion Ban – today, state-by-state, tomorrow national?
• Dismantling the Social Safety Net – defunding or privatizing the Affordable Care Act, Social Security, and Medicare?
• National “Right to Work” – crippling unions across the nation?

Maybe. But what it also means is that the actual voting citizens in the US get to see how crazy and terrible the GOP is for the country, more quickly.

Could elimination of the filibuster cause Instability and “Policy Whiplash?” If every time there is a shift in power in the government, there is a resulting wholesale repeal and replacement of the previous administration’s laws, the country could enter a state of permanent instability. This “whiplash” likely would hurt the working class most, as social services and economic regulations become unpredictable.

Again, maybe. But I find this not very likely. For one thing, we are a capitalist society (like it or not), and the corporations that own our elected representatives are not going to stand for uncertainty for any length of time. Business needs stability so they can plan ahead exactly how they are going to manipulate and take advantage of us so they can make the most profit.

Additionally, you may have noticed how even the uneducated conservatives seem to love the Affordable Care Act (but don’t ask them about Obamacare, they hate Obamacare). So when the republicans inevitable start to talk about taking it away, their own constituents tell them not to. It’s one reason the GOP has not been successful in taking it away. For over a decade. Once those socialist programs that actually benefit regular people start, it’s really hard to take it away. So long as we regular people keep the volume high towards our congress-critters.

To be completely fair, the filibuster has occasionally been used for good not evil to block the most extreme conservative measures (e.g., during the Trump administration to protect certain environmental and immigration provisions). Removing it removes that last-ditch shield.

Once again, though, I’ll argue that the best way to show the American people how terrible the conservative agenda is, is to give the GOP just a little rope. They’ll hang themselves with their own agenda. We’re seeing it in real time today. Trump has never been less popular. Unfortunately, cornered animals are the most dangerous, so they will only get worse. Which, again, is better for the political left. The worse the MAGAs get, the more people look to the opposition.

Right Wing trolls might think this is just a power grab. They’ll say we just want to change the rules because we can’t win under the current ones.

What I want is a system where the people we elect can actually do the job we hired them to do. If republicans win a majority, they should get to implement their ideas too; and then voters can see exactly how those ideas work out in the real world. That’s not a power grab, it’s just accountability.

A more honest conservative (if any still exist) might say, “The Senate was designed to be the ‘cooling saucer.’ The filibuster prevents the ‘tyranny of the majority.’”

The ‘tyranny of the majority’ is a ghost story told by a minority that wants to keep their foot on the neck of progress. James Madison himself argued that requiring more than a majority would lead to ’embarrassment’ and ‘the sense of the smaller number will overrule that of the greater.’ We aren’t ‘cooling’ the tea; we’re letting the house burn down because we can’t find 60 people who agree on a which fire extinguisher to use, or whether one is needed at all.

What if the GOP passes an abortion ban with their 51 vote majority after the filibuster is gone?

1. They are already doing this through the courts.
2. Democracy requires accountability. If the GOP passes unpopular laws with 51 votes, they have to own the consequences at the ballot box. Stagnation allows extremism to fester without consequences. Action shows the people what each party actually stands for, and requires individual senators to show what their beliefs are, too. So we can hold the party and each individual accountable for their actions / votes.

Ultimately, we need to decide: do we keep a “tradition” that was never intended to exist, or do we build a government that actually functions?

Our system is broken, and we can’t fix a 21st-century crisis with a 19th-century accident. The filibuster has to go if we ever want to see any more progress in this country.

Stay angry. Stay honest.

~Cale

_{https://www.brookings.edu/articles/the-history-of-the-filibuster/}

_{https://factually.co/fact-checks/politics/first-filibuster-us-senate-history-3761d3}

_{https://democracy21.org/news/press-releases/a-timeline-of-the-senate-filibuster}

_{https://www.wnycstudios.org/podcasts/takeaway/segments/racist-filibuster-we-cant-afford-forget}

_{https://www.americanprogress.org/article/how-the-racist-history-of-the-filibuster-lives-on-today/}

_{https://gwtoday.gwu.edu/end-filibuster}

_{https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/research-reports/case-against-filibuster}