Continued Trump Administration Fallout

[*michaelsean*]

(05-07-2021, 06:21 PM)Dill Wrote: Ok I am not sure what you mean here, as the "bemoaning" you originally addressed referenced a GOP vote in the Senate which voided Trump's removal from office.  Impeachment requires a super majority. I was not claiming that the GOP was in the Senate minority then, or that they somehow won the impeachment vote with fewer votes.

My reference to "minority rule" concerned the ability of a party representing a minority of the population to keep effective control of the government. Remember the context: I was reminding Hollo that Trump support has never been a majority of the voters; it has rarely exceeded even 40%. So while my complaint may include current functioning of the Senate, it is not merely that, but speaks to a larger constellation of political innovations, including Gerrymandering and voter suppression, which enable a minority to exercise outsize power, especially to keep itself in power.

To flesh out the Senate's part of this: even under simple majority votes, it is possible for 50 senators from the states with the least population--16% of the total population--to block legislation desired by the 50 senators with the remaining 84%.  When the filibuster effectively requires supermajorities, then 41 Senators representing only 11% of the population could potentially block the will of the majority.

Because the US is, ultimately, supposed to be a Democracy based upon the principle of majority rule--that's what makes democracies democracies--something is wrong with this picture. Even if senators were not intended to represent "population," the effect of current arrangements re-produces the very flaw/problem which led the Founders to scrap the Articles of Confederation and re-affirm the principle of simple majority voting. They were tired of a few minority population states holding the entire government hostage.

The problem the founders faced is intensified by the addition of party politics (which as Bels explained above, tends to negate the regional and economic divisions that Federalists assumed would mitigate factional dominance). And that party problem is worsened now that, for the first time in U.S history, we have party demanding allegiance to a person/personality rather than to principle. (That's the import of the Cheney op ed posted above.)

I don't think we disagree on how or what the Senate was meant to represent--which is states, not population. As someone who grew up in a small pop-state, I am fine with federalism. (I esteem the invaluable uniqueness of Wyoming much more than does Hollo.) I am fine with the original simple majority requirement for passing bills. And I am even willing to countenance a TALKING filibuster at this point, if it helps assure accountability and thorough debate. So you could say I "hate" the current Constitution much less than Bels does. 

But I am not fine with a situation in which, for example, a person not in power can, through his control of a party's duly elected officials, effectively select and block legislation willed by the majority of US voters, in part because the Senate is set up to represent states rather than population. 

I understand what you meant by minority rule, and as stated previously that I disagree.

But the specific instance you mentioned (Trump’s potential removal) is a poor choice to complain about your idea of minority rule as constitutionally a minority of actual senators can stop it.

While I find the timing of the anti-filibuster rhetoric questionable, I am fine with it being removed as long as the ones doing the removing don’t start bitching when the tables turn. Since the talking filibuster requires a certain number of the non-filibustering party to be in the chamber to make up a quorum , I don’t think we will see the return of that.