Senate Democrats Change the Rules – How Should the GOP React?

Late last month, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and fellow Democrats changed centuries-old Senate rules by prohibiting filibusters for votes on Administration appointments and judicial nominees (Supreme Court picks excluded).

The potential requirement of a super-majority remains in effect for other matters (sixty votes would still be needed to cut off debate).

Republicans were outraged by this diminution of their power as the minority.  They wasted no time in shouting “hypocrisy” – both Harry Reid and then-Senator Barack Obama, among other Democrats, had decried threats to impose filibuster limitations when they were in the minority.

More ominously, GOP noted that their time in the majority will come soon again. How will Senate Democrats like the rule change then?  Of course, what goes around typically comes around.  And when Republicans regain a Senate majority, which thanks to Obamacare seems quite likely next year, should payback be the GOP response?

 

No.

Of course the temptation will be strong.  But is yes the right answer?

 

The purpose of a filibuster is to provide a roadblock to majority rule.  That is consistent with a purpose of the U.S. Constitution:  prevent unrestrained simple majority tyranny.

James Madison, in The Federalist Papers, #62, noted the special role of the upper chamber in this regard: 

“The necessity of a Senate is… indicated by the propensity of
 all single and numerous assemblies to yield to the impulse                      of sudden and violent passions… .”

The current Senate majority has undercut this Constitutional restraint.  Although Republicans, when they resume control, can adopt the new rule for short-term partisan gain, such would not be in the Nation’s interest.

Better, I suggest, would be for the Republican Party to demonstrate its higher allegiance to the Constitution by repealing the 2013 rule change.  That act, by itself, would probably carry political dividends for the GOP by illustrating that it is concerned with more than partisan advantage.

 

But of far greater importance to the country, rule reversal will likely serve as a strong deterrent to future efforts to tamper with traditional safeguards for minority rights contemplated by anybody.

 

If Senate Republicans do, indeed, acquire majority status in 2015, they will have the opportunity to set a standard of putting the long term interest of the Nation ahead of all other considerations.  It is reasonable to expect that future generations of political leaders will be inspired – or shamed – into honoring it.