To begin at the beginning the Constitution at Article I, Section 3 awards two seats to each state. Fifty states times two seats each makes for a 100-seat Senate.
Article 1, Section 5 declares each of the two houses “…may determine the rules of its proceedings…” So they do.
In doing that the Senate, principally in the interest of segregation, came up with the rule called the Filibuster that in almost all cases except appointments still requires 60 votes – 60% of senators – to do the regular business of the Senate except in extraordinary circumstances that require it to use extraordinarily complicated devices to do its business by a simple, democratic 51-vote majority.
This super-majority is not in the Constitution, was never contemplated, never mentioned, never intended by the authors and signers of the Constition when they agreed the two houses would be authorized to make their own rules.
Indeed, from what we know of their proceedings and we know a great deal, had the Filibuster been proposed for incorporation in the Constituton it would have been rejected decisively.
Hamilton might have approved of it. But Washington, Madison, Franklin? Never.
In a 100-seat chamber in a democracy it is or at least should be axiomatic that a simple majority decides – that 51 votes will carry the day on every occasion.
That of course would likely mean that majorities from time time changing from one party to the next raises an inherent risk of one party’s laws being undone by the other party in a game of legislative tit for tat.
So be it, that is democracy, that is how democracy works, except in the United States Senate. No, not in the U.S.Senate in which the original Filibuster rule required a 67-vote super-super-majority.
As a reform, yes a reform, 50 years ago the requirement was pared to 60 votes. It has since been adjusted and/or abandoned for judicial nominees including the Supreme Court after Democratic and Republican tit for tatsmanship in this century.
But is 51 votes an actual majority of the nation, of its population as the Senate is constitutued today when Republicans are using the Filibuster to frustrate the constitutional Democratic majority composed of 50 Democratic senators with the vote of the vice president to break a 50/50 tie?
No. Here are the numbers as they are in the Senate resulting from the 2020 election on the basis of estimated population from the Bureau of the Census before it released the new Census in 2021, which in all essential would not change what you will read next. Each of the two major parties has 22 two-seat Senate delegations, 44 senators each.
In 4 states there are a Democrat and a Republican while 2 are represented by an Independent and a Republican. In both the latter the independent senator caucuses with and votes with the Democrats, and functions in all ways in the Senate as a Democrat.
The 44 Democrats from the 22 Democratic states elected in 2020 represent 168 million Americans.
The 44 Republicans from the 22 Republican states elected in 2020 represent 123 million Americans.
The six senators from the six split-delegations represent 35 million Americans.
Among the 10 most populous states, Democrats have 5 two-senator delegations, Republicans 3 and 2 are divided. Among the first 20 states in population, Democrats fully represent 11, Republicans fully represent 6 and 3 are split.
Taking only the Democrtic and Republican state populations, Democrats represent very nearly 58% (57.77%) of the population while Republicans represent the remaining 42%.
If the populations of the 6 split-delegation states are divided evenly between the parties and added to the 44 state population totals, the percentages natually do not change.
So in fact the Democrats’ 50 Senate votes represent nearly 58% of Americans.
They could have lost both of the sharply contested seats in Georgia and yet would represent 54% of the national population with but 48 seats. But of course they won those seats so in fact they represent nearly 58% of all of us.
But they don’t have 58% of the votes in the Senate to govern as the true majority in a true democracy would.
If Democrats hold their own in the 2022 Senate mid-terms and gain even one of the Republican seats on the ballot in the two largest split delegations, Pennsylvania or Ohio, each with a population approaching or exceeding 12 million, then no matter the outcome everywhere else the Democratic Party share of actual Senate representation of actual people will very likely at least remain as it is – or explode beyond 60%.
But the Constitution, written for a nation that then totaled about 3 million of whom 600,000 were enslaved, with only white men of property permitted to vote, is now a nation of 330 million in which the Republican Party is acting with ferocity to interfere with the right to vote of the slaves’ descendants.
Thus, as it was in the bad old day of Dixiecrat control of the Senate, race is the dirty secret on which the Filibuster is erected. Like monuments to Robert E. Lee, it is time to take it down.
If the Constitution stands in the way of a democatically proportionate Senate, then at least the Senate’s rules should no longer stand in the way of more democracy and more representative representation.
Peeling the Onion 
Carl – Excellent analysis. We certainly need a revision to the filibuster rules now. I have to wonder, though, whether we would be happy with the same change if and when the Republicans have a majority of less than 60. James Madison was brilliant enough to come up with the Virginia Plan creating a House that was controlled by the majority and a Senate controlled by State Sovereignty. That enable us to have a Constitution and a country. It was great idea then, but times change. Again, my applause for your blog. If you have any time or have trouble falling asleep, here’ my latest – my view of another aspect of the Congressional inability to do anything—
| | | | | | Looking Back At Looking Forward by guysmichael |
The title of this blog is “We Were Right.” It comes from a song I once wrote about how my generation – the one that learned its political lessons in the sixties – has abandoned what it thought was right and has now become what it thought was wrong.I cannot help but harken back to that song, and those days, and how we felt during them, as I watch the war between the “progressive” Democrats and the “moderate” ones. My sixties self would have been pushing hard for the progressives (we called ourselves “liberal” back then, if not “revolutionary”) But my seventies self (age not decade) finds me frustrated by the progressives and rooting for the moderates.So, what happened? Am I one of those people that I decried in my song? Has my advanced age pushed me toward a more conservative outlook? Do I no longer feel as deeply for the causes I once revered? Have I gone nuts?I opt for none of those possibilities (except maybe the “going nuts” one has some merit). I prefer to believe that my support for the moderates is because the world has changed since the sixties; that my generation was a large reason for that change; and that our experience then and since has taught us how best to obtain the very things we then wanted, and still do.What we really wanted then was an end to the Viet Nam War; an evolution into a new age of civil rights; and a realization that we needed to be listened to. I am setting aside our other cause – “The Sexual Revolution.” But that was really just our attempt to get laid more often. We were in large part successful (again I set aside the getting laid part, at least in my case). Not that we completed the tasks, but that we did get a lot of it going. And that’s the point. We didn’t get everything we wanted, but we did get a good deal of it, and that made the country a better place.We learned then, and we have learned more since, that achieving everything is less important than achieving something. A pyrrhic victory is no victory at all. Death on the battlefield is still death. What the progressives want is laudable and I cannot imagine any reasonable person not wanting it. Should we not be able to provide for the poor? Should we not be able to make sure that our children have a better education? And most of all, should we not want to save our planet from environmental destruction? We should want all of those things and it would be fantastic if we could have them NOW. The root word of fantastic is, of course, “fantasy.” Our sixties fantasies did not come true, but our sixties efforts did achieve something and those achievements are things about which we are rightly proud.The Progressives are right to ask for what they want. But they won’t get it. If they truly want what they are saying they want, and not want just more opportunities to be on talk shows and splash their faces in front of cameras every hour or so, then they have to make concessions.Oh, sure, some could say that the moderates are the ones who should make the concessions. Why put that sole burden on the progressives? I’m not saying that either side should bear the entire burden. What I am saying is that, at some point, and this is the point, the progressives have to realize that the moderates have the votes. When we marched in the sixties it was all about democracy – power to the people. Well, power to the people means that the most votes win.So, what does this make me? Am I one of those phony liberals we laughed at in the sixties – the ones that Phil Ochs described in his classic song, “Love Me, I’m A Liberal”. Here’s one of my favorite verses:Once I was young and impulsive I wore every conceivable pin Even went to the socialist meetings Learned all the old union hymns But I’ve grown older and wiser And that’s why I’m turning you in So love me, love me, love me, I’m a liberalI hope not. Instead I rely on the old saw, “Do not let the perfect be the enemy of the good.” If the progressives undermine the proposed legislation, it will similarly undermine the Democratic majority and, likely, the Biden Presidency. And that might very well mean (and I get nauseous just typing these words) another Trump Presidency. I’m not asking for the progressives to fold their tents. Only to move closer to the center. It doesn’t have to be much. It just has to be enough to preserve any hope of getting, maybe not everything, but a lot of what we all want.That’s not giving up. That’s progress. And they are progressives after all. guysmichael | October 9, 2021 at 7:53 pm | Categories: Uncategorized | URL: https://wp.me/payoza-dx | Comment | See all comments | Like |
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Guy S. MichaelMichael & Carroll501 BroadwayPoint Pleasant Beach, NJ 08742732-714-8500732-714-8404 (fax)
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