A Way Out of the Shutdown- Permanently
Entering the first week, of the fourth shutdown of the U. S. government, thanks to arcane Senate rules regarding budgetary reconciliation, the time has come to change Senate rules on all matters budgetary and otherwise. The fact that a small cabal of egomaniacs in the United States Senate, led by Chuck Schumer (D-NY) can continue to collect their ill-earned pay, while members of the military and others who provide critical services which protect life and property must report to work with no promise of pay, is outrageous enough.
Yet, historically, such an abomination is only made possible by the 1974 Robert Byrd (D-WV) rule, which requires a sixty-vote threshold to approve any legislation whose effects of increasing the federal deficit last more than a decade. Since any legislation passed by Congress has such potential implications which last that long, it is no wonder that a budget has not been passed in recent memory, and that the individual tax cuts in the 2017 Tax Reform and Jobs Act have to expire in ten years. In fact, our government has only been funded by a series of continuing resolutions since April, 2009- that’s almost nine years without an approved budget signed by the President of the United States, encompassing the entire administration of Barack Obama, as well as Donald Trump’s first year in office.
There is nothing in the United States Constitution providing for a filibuster. In fact, when the framers of the United States Constitution provided for bicameral legislature in Article I of that document, the only terms that permit a filibuster in the Senate are in a vague reference to Article I, Section 5, Clause 2 which stipulates that each house of Congress can establish its own rules for procedure. Given that this provision only stipulates a 2/3 voting requirement in order to expel a member of the Senate, it is a pretty flimsy allowance for the Senate to create what is known as Senate Rule XXII, which provides for a 60-vote threshold to evoke cloture, forcing the end to debate and move towards an actual vote.
Even there, it is something of a stretch to say that this rule allows for a filibuster, per se. Yet, it is a matter of record that use of a filibuster in the Senate is the accidental and unintended stepchild of an 1806 Senate resolution that the “previous question” rule adopted in 1789, which allowed for simple majority votes to end debate and force votes, should be scrapped due to the fact that it had only been used once in those seventeen years, and was therefore deemed redundant. Because the Senate created no other means to end debate, filibusters then became theoretically possible.
So, the notorious filibuster which has been used to do everything from blocking cabinet appointments, to evading budgetary responsibilities through the use of continuing resolutions, to outright shutting down the government for lack of a sixty-vote threshold, is all based on a theory that was the result of the lack of foresight in an effort to achieve the opposite.
Such a discombobulation that could only be understood by those addicted to their own sense of self-importance, the insane, or both.
The Senate can change these rules, as long as senators unwed themselves from blind adherence to tradition at the cost of doing the people’s business. They can easily approve a budget or, for that matter, any legislation with a simple, 51-vote majority, if they so choose. Or, are they so irrevocably married to a forty-four-year-old rule, put into place by a West Virginia Democrat senator, one Robert Byrd, who was once was an active recruiter for the Ku Klux Klan?
Don’t hold your breath.
-Drew Nickell, 22 January 2018
© 2018 by Drew Nickell, all rights reserved.
author of “Bending Your Ear- a Collection of Essays on the Issues of Our Times”
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