Those days are long gone.
Today’s Republican Party effectively refuses to allow the other side to govern when it wins elections. Republicans denied President Barack Obama the opportunity to replace the deceased Justice Antonin Scalia (but allowed a Republican president to jam through a Supreme Court nominee after voting had begun in 2020). Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-Ala.) has held up hundreds of military appointments for months; at various times, individual Republicans have refused to allow votes on State Department or Justice Department nominees.
When the late Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) was incapacitated by illness this year, Republicans refused to allow Democrats to replace her on the Judiciary Committee. (After her death last week, Republicans appear willing to allow Democrats to fill her committee seat.) Meanwhile, Republicans’ blue slips have periodically stalled confirmation of judicial nominees.
This is the nature of the MAGA Republican Party. It cares not one whit for governing and considers Democrats’ electoral victories of no consequence. (The latest game: Make baseless impeachment threats to hamper duly elected Democrats from fulfilling their duties, as they’re doing with President Biden and a newly elected Supreme Court judge in Wisconsin.) Pleading with individual Republicans to break ranks or offering trade after trade to accommodate those acting in bad faith is useless. Worse, it blurs responsibility for chaos, paralysis and gridlock.
Democrats can change the rules, just as they did for Senate attire, on a majority vote. Republicans abuse rules, thwart democracy and hobble our government because Democrats allow them to.
The exploitation of Senate rules is part of a larger GOP undertaking: the subversion of democracy. In their must-read book, “Tyranny of the Minority,” Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt cogently explain that Republicans, unable to appeal to a broader share of the electorate beyond diminishing numbers of White, rural Christians, have found ways to exploit, abuse and, indeed, break majority governance.
The authors have no quarrel with legitimate protections for minority rights (e.g., the Bill of Rights, an independent judiciary, federalism, separation of powers). Rather, the problem is Republicans’ insistence on denying the key component of a democracy: the power of the people to elect the leaders of their choice to govern. Republicans have grown attached to tactics that perpetuate minority rule, including thwarting voting (e.g., filibustering voting rights legislation) and denying election results (e.g., signing onto a brief to disenfranchise millions of Americans, baselessly challenging Biden’s electors).
Some democratic course correction can be achieved only through constitutional amendment or legislation. However, Democrats can change Senate rules and customs that are entirely outside the constitutional order and pile one minority-rule gimmick on top of another (e.g., a filibuster to block a vote in the Senate, which already favors sparsely populated, overwhelmingly White states).
Democracies that do not allow majorities to govern lose legitimacy. “America’s excessively counter-majoritarian institutions reinforce extremism, empower authoritarian minorities and threaten minority rule,” Levitsky and Ziblatt write. “To overcome these problems, we must double down on democracy. This means dismantling spheres of undue minority protection and empowering majorities … [and] it means forcing our politicians to be more responsive and accountable to majorities of Americans.”
Simply put: We need to shore up democracy.
Even small changes in Senate rules could have a big impact. For example, blue slips and holds could have a time limit (e.g., 90 days), allowing members’ concerns to be aired without thwarting the majority.
Likewise, a party should be able to fill seats on committees after the incapacitation or death of a member without “permission” of the other party. Indicted senators should be removed from and replaced on committees related to the indictment. Hearings on Supreme Court nominees could be required to commence within 90 days of a nomination.
Democrats for too long have been squeamish about allowing actual majority votes (or, rather, majority rule). The Constitution specified supermajorities in specific cases (e.g., treaties, Senate removal after an impeachment). It was never intended to be the norm.
The Senate created filibuster exceptions for judicial confirmations and reconciliation bills. Especially for matters pertaining to democracy (e.g., voting rights, investigation of a coup, legislative “correction” of an erroneous Supreme Court statutory interpretation), the filibuster could be limited in time (maybe 120 days); the filibustering party could be required to hold the floor (a “talking” filibuster); the 60 votes required for cloture could gradually reduce over time (e.g., 57 for cloture after a week, 55 after two weeks, etc.); or some combination thereof. The minority should not be able to permanently block majority governance. That was never the constitutional structure envisioned by the Founding Fathers.
Democrats can make these changes if they have 50 votes plus the vice president. Democrats running in 2024 should say how they stand on these matters. If they want to continue to perpetuate the “tyranny of minority” by allowing the status quo, voters should know.
After all, GOP shenanigans have shown that Republicans cannot be trusted to operate in good faith under the rules. The only alternative is to change those rules — or succumb to the evisceration of our democracy.
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