Wednesday, March 04, 2009

Filibusters: The Senate’s Self-Inflicted Wound

Filibusters: The Senate’s Self-Inflicted Wound; New York Times

Barack Obama — unlike the other five presidents my colleagues and I are discussing on this blog — must contend with a worrisome new feature in American politics: the trivialization of the filibuster in the Senate. A simple majority vote no longer suffices to pass major pieces of legislation. Instead, in almost every case, the Senate must muster at least 60 votes (a “supermajority”) to close off debate. And because of a rule the Senate adopted relating to deficit spending, it took another 60 votes to pass the stimulus package last month...

No comments: