CRAIG STANFILL: History Tells Us How To Fix A Broken Congress
If we want a functional federal government, our leaders must follow the examples set by their distant predecessors who knew how to deliver a system that serves all people, not just some. They must commit to…
If we want a functional federal government, our leaders must follow the examples set by their distant predecessors who knew how to deliver a system that serves all people, not just some. They must commit to compromise—even if it takes more time and more debate.
Congress is fundamentally broken. Long-standing issues such as immigration, healthcare, education, and the conduct of our elections cry for a solution. Something must be done. And yet, nothing ever happens.
This paralysis has, in turn, broken the federal government. It is rare for legislation to settle anything of great importance; Congress has abandoned its role as the key arbiter of our disputes and ceded its power to the Executive and Judicial branches. Those branches have therefore become unreasonably powerful. The Federal bureaucracy has become a fourth branch of government, issuing regulations in numbers that stagger the mind. The Judiciary usurps the powers of the Executive branch, to the point where district judges override the President’s decisions, based only on a preliminary hearing.
The proximate cause of this is the filibuster. Unless one side or the other has a 60-seat super-majority in the Senate, legislation can be stalled forever. None of our problems gets solved, and the country heads to ruin.
It would, however, be a fundamental mistake to get rid of the filibuster or, more properly, the 60-vote threshold for ending debate. To do so would usher in the tyranny of the majority. Control of the White House, the House, and the Senate would give the ruling party absolute power, unchecked by the wishes of the minority. The resulting winner-take-all political system is not what we need; the tyranny of the majority is real.
We need compromise. We need the two dominant parties to come up with solutions both sides can live with. We do not want and should not have a winner-take-all political system.
Some try to solve this problem by bringing back the so-called talking filibuster. I think this is on the right track, but use of the term “filibuster” is prejudicial to what we ought to look for, which is compromise. A filibuster is an obstructionist tactic. It does not achieve consensus. Replacing the silent filibuster with a talking filibuster makes it more painful to obstruct, but it remains an obstacle to consensus and compromise.