Filibustering the Public Option

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Filibustering the Public Editorial
This article appeared in the December 14, 2009 edition of The Nation.




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.Filibustering the Public Health Care Policy
Filibustering healthcare reform? This is not what democracy looks like.
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..Yet this is where America, a nation often inclined to tell other nations how to practice democracy, finds itself as the debate about healthcare reform reaches its critical stage. We have a president who is prepared to sign legislation to expand access to healthcare while establishing at least some controls against profiteering by insurers. We have a House of Representatives in which a majority has voted for imperfect but real reform. We have a Senate in which a majority is ready to vote for what could be even better reform. Unfortunately, that majority is sidelined as a few wavering senators game the system.

Unless Harry Reid and his colleagues implement majority rule--by abolishing rules that allow two-fifths of the chamber's members (as few as forty-one senators) to prevent passage of that legislation--the character and quality of any "reform" will be dictated by a tiny minority from some of the nation's least populous states.

The Nation has argued for years that the filibuster is antidemocratic. We long ago rejected the notion that rules preventing the majority of senators from implementing the will of the people must be maintained as a bow to tradition. The filibuster is not constitutionally mandated. It was established by rules that have been repeatedly altered over the years. Besides, as Thomas Geoghegan recently noted (see "The Case for Busting the Filibuster," August 31/September 7), the proper reply to the history buffs is, "Yes, well, slavery and segregation are also part of our history, and that's what the filibuster was used to defend. I'm all in favor of history and tradition, but I see no reason to go on cherishing either the filibuster or the Confederate flag."

The healthcare debate highlights everything that's wrong with the filibuster. Polling shows that more than 75 percent of Americans favor a public option, yet it could be eliminated--not to gain majority support in the Senate but to gain supermajority support. That's absurd, and citizens know it. That's why tens of thousands have signed petition