We know that our federal government is dysfunctional. We know that much of that dysfunction is related to the filibuster in the Senate. It is time for “We the People” to make the election of our senators and representatives conditional on their pledge to support a revision to the rules of their respective Legislative body so that all business, short of changing the rules themselves, requires only a simple majority of the quorum present.
My thinking goes like this. If an elected official cannot support such a simple majority requirement, they probably aren’t an effective debater in the first place, so how does that weakness help us? Our republican democracy depends on majority rule and our experience with supermajority requirements can make dysfunction an unavoidable result. That was one of the lessons learned from the Articles of Confederation, before we even had the Constitution, and that has been our experience with the filibuster. If our senators and representatives conducted themselves based on a simple majority, more of our business would be getting done, so how does that hurt us?
The Sausage Grinder is Broken, will you help to fix it? If you haven’t read A Broken Sausage Grinder; Is Our Government Fundamentally Flawed?, you’re not prepared for the job.
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