Steve Burns: Why Harry Reid loves the filibuster

Like most Americans, my understanding of the filibuster was - until a few years ago - based entirely on the film Mr. Smith Goes to Washington. In the film, the filibuster was portrayed as a means by which a single Senator, by speaking for hours on end and refusing to yield the floor, could bring the entire Senate to a standstill.

Oh, if only real life were like the movies. In practice, the filibuster - especially in recent years - has become a gentleman's agreement in which the minority party - when it's Republican - need only threaten a filibuster to kill legislation it objects to or to force significant concessions from the majority party - when it's Democratic.

The filibuster is one of the Standing Rules of the Senate, instituted by the leadership of the Senate - effectively the leadership of the majority party - at the beginning of each Senate term. After the 2004 elections, when Republicans still held a majority in the Senate, the Republican Senate leadership threatened to eliminate the filibuster. This was met with strong objections by the then-minority Democrats, who claimed the filibuster was the very foundation-stone of our democracy, even though our founding fathers strangely omitted any mention of it in the constitution. The filibuster, they said, was an important check on the power of the majority and a vital protection of minority rights. The controversy was settled by an agreement to keep the filibuster in place, in return for a promise by certain "Moderate" Democrats (including then-Democrat Joseph Lieberman) that they would join with Senate Republicans to break any threatened Democratic filibusters.

After Democrats retook the Senate in the 2006, Republicans, now the minority, filibustered frequently, under a tacit agreement with Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid that they would never actually be required to go through exertions of Mr. Smith's Senator Jefferson Smith. No thermos of hot coffee and wax-paper-wrapped sandwiches for them, Republican leaders merely needed to utter the word "filibuster" and Reid would quickly drop any proposed legislation that didn't have a guarantee of 60 votes. This exercise became so routine that newspapers began to omit mention of the filibuster entirely, simply reporting that a piece of legislation failed because it didn't have the "60 votes needed for passage." An inattentive reader might be forgiven for thinking the Constitution had been quietly amended to require a three-fifths majority for passage of legislation in the Senate.

Why do the two parties have such differing levels of commitment to the filibuster? Republicans, when in the majority, are willing to discard it entirely, and agree to keep it only on the condition that it never be used, while Democrats cling stubbornly to the filibuster, even when it appears to ensure the defeat of their legislative program. Why?

Although Senate Democrats would claim that this difference merely reflects a greater commitment on their part to the principle of minority rights, it's important to understand that Senate Democrats gain significant benefits from the filibuster that have nothing to do with elevated principles.

Since 2006, the fundamental problem faced by House and Senate Democrats has been one of rising expectations, as the base of their party - which helped ensure their regaining control of both houses of Congress - came to make greater and greater demands of them. An end to the war in Iraq, universal health care, more money for schools, greater protections for the environment and quicker action to combat climate change were all grassroots demands that Congressional Democrats had to contend with. If the House and Senate Democratic leadership actually shared these goals, they would welcome this grassroots pressure as a means of strengthening their hand against other, more conservative Democrats and Republicans. But the leadership of the Democratic Party is actually quite far to the right of the mass of voters who put Democrats in power. How then can elected Democrats hold on to power, while also dampening the expectations of their party's base?

One answer is the filibuster. It places Senate Democrats in the enviable position of enjoying all the perks of being the majority party - like committee chairmanships and an increased ability to bring home the bacon - with none of the responsibilities that would normally accompany majority party status. "Want more money for Head Start? Sorry, we'd just love to do that, but those nasty Republicans won't let us - the filibuster, you know," is the standard Democratic refrain.

The filibuster also provides a useful tool to the Democratic Senate Campaign Committee, which must periodically go to those same Democratic voters in search of (admittedly small) campaign contributions. "Sure, we've got 58 Democrats in the Senate now, but if we could only get 60... why, then you'd really see something!" Until the next election, that is, when Democrats once again fall just short of the desired 60. "Darn! Well, there's always next time..."

If the filibuster such a useful tool for disciplining your party's base, why didn't the Republicans have the same attachment to it when they were in power? The answer is that the Republicans simply don't have the same yawning chasm between the views of their party's leadership and the views of the people who put them in power. Look through the Republican agenda of more tax cuts, more war, less environmental regulation and social-welfare spending and more repressive measures against women in need of an abortion: can you find a single point where the average Republican elected official is in strong disagreement with the average Republican voter? And so, when Republicans take power, they simply drive straight ahead for their maximum program, with no need to hide behind the minority party as an excuse for inaction.

What's a progressive voter to do? The first step, I think, is to correctly understand the problem, which is that Harry Reid's goals are not your goals. He's not trying to win the things you want, only to be thwarted by an antiquated and unnecessary rule. He's not "spineless", and "afraid to stand up to the Republicans." He's not lacking in the smarts needed to out-maneuver the Republicans. Any man who is capable of maneuvering his way to being one of the three most powerful people in Washington is plenty smart.

The second step should be to start asking questions, like: "Why was Harry Reid, conservative Democrat, chosen to replace Tom Daschle, conservative Democrat, as Senate Democratic leader?" And, "Why, if it were necessary to replace Reid, would his replacement be much more likely to be Evan Bayh or Ben Nelson than Russ Feingold?"

Now that Democrats hold power in Washington (no matter how much they disclaim that power) it's more important than ever that progressives have a clear understanding of the Democratic Party, what it really stands for, what it can be made to do, and what it cannot be made to do. Not falling for Harry Reid's "But we've got to get to 60 votes!" theatrics would be a good first step in that direction.