The U.S. Senate often called “the world’s greatest deliberative body” has fallen a long way from its idealist calling. If you haven’t been following the Senate’s progression to this point here’s the status quo as reported recently by Time The New Yorker The Economist and numerous commentators on the hill: The Senate is broken.
After its inception the U.S. Senate gained a reputation worldwide for representing the highest moral ethical and legislative goals that the thriving new nation had to offer.
“They represent only the lofty thoughts of the nation and the generous instincts animating it not the petty passions said French statesman Alexander de Tocqueville after a visit to the Senate in 1832. It was a shining example of the success of a multi-party system, where senators engaged in sincere and lively debate across the aisles in order to solve the nation’s toughest issues.
Today, the Senate has become a circus of rule manipulation and stalling tactics. In the last three years the Senate had to break 214 filibusters with three-fifths votes, more than between the entire time span of 1919 and 1976, according to Newsweek. The 1964 Civil Rights Act, one of the most controversial pieces of legislature in history, featured one filibuster.
The recent health care debate provided the perfect illustration of the behavior now expected from senators, especially those in the minority. In today’s Senate, the preferred way to kill legislation is to use outdated rules to delay it to the point of absurdity, until media and public attention pass on to another issue.
This attitude has led to a disheartening performance surrounding each controversial issue, where the majority party refuses to compromise and the minority party begins scouring their playbooks for a delay. This often involves a deluge of silly amendments calling for illogical additions to the bill. The Huffington Post listed some of the most ridiculous amendments that were submitted: amendments banning pedophiles from receiving Viagra using government aid, revoking the powers of the Health Secretary, and requiring each federal department who hires an employee to enact the health care change to fire an employee in the same office. My personal favorite was proposed by Senator David Vitter and read: To repeal the government takeover of health care.”
In response to this the majority party will inevitably accuse the minority party of stalling while the minority party insists that the majority is not open to compromise and bipartisanship. All of this is of course is carefully choreographed by party leaders to play perfectly to the media.
But media coverage is one of the smaller culprits in the downfall of the Senate. Senators rarely have the time to read the bills they are voting on and instead will vote based on the yes or no recommendation waiting for them on their desk from their party leader. Freshmen senators learn quickly that while their job description mentions something about representing someone and that oath about the constitution their main task is fundraising. Even in years when they aren’t personally up for re-election senators spend hours each day making phone calls writing letters and attending events in order to coax more dollars into their campaigns and into the treasury of their respective parties.
Today’s senate is practically devoid of moderates with each party absolutely dominated by the most radical members. Tocqueville anticipated this. “A minority of the nation dominating the Senate could completely paralyze the will of the majority represented in the other house and that is contrary to the spirit of constitutional government.”
After Senators are done courting our votes during an election our attention wanders away from our policy makers leaving them with only lobbyists and special interests to dictate their agenda. Voters don’t demand that Senators actually live up to their election promises of good behavior or even show up for work. It’s clear that despite the CSPAN nanny cam our legislature should never be without a babysitter. Among the amendments there was one that while out of place might have some merit.
Amendment No. 3566 proposed by Senator Tom Coburn from Oklahoma reads “To require all members of Congress to read a bill prior to casting on a vote on the bill.”