Thursday, June 24, 2021

Filibuster?

Almost all democratic countries rely on simple majorities to pass legislation and if the legislation is unpopular it gets reversed.  It doesn't generally cause much of an issue since that threat manages to require compromise.

Requiring the Senate to get 60 votes to pass anything allows a minority to control the agenda.  We have also eliminated any onerous requirements, such as actually filibustering since that is a lot of work and holds up all Senate business.  So we made it easier because we certainly wouldn't want the obstructionists to be inconvenienced.

We have checks and balances built in to the constitution and they should be sufficient.  If a majority in both houses and the President all agree, we still have the Supreme Court as the ultimate arbitrator.

We honor the things the founders put in the Constitution even if they lived in a different age than we do.  Guns were so different in the 18th century for example.  We should also honor the things they left out.  The evidence we have in the Federalist papers is that they believed a simple majority was enough.

So should we.


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