In 1961, author Joseph Heller introduced “Catch-22″ into the American lexicon. That term referred to a fictional rule requiring repetitive behavior that leads to nowhere. In 2022, we are enduring the same absurdist nightmare visited upon the country by Senate Rule 22, which has single-handedly paralyzed our nation by grinding the U.S. Congress to a halt. Unlike Catch-22, Senate Rule 22 is not fictional, and the resulting dysfunction has become a reality.
How is it, in the past 16 months, the House of Representatives has passed more than 400 bills, 70% of which have been bipartisan-sponsored, and the Senate has yet to vote on any of them?
Democrats control the House, Senate and the presidency, yet bills to protect voting rights, enact gun safety, and safeguard women’s reproductive rights have passed the House of Representatives but never received a vote in the Senate chamber.
Once revered as the world’s greatest deliberative body, the Senate is now the most debilitating threat to our Democratic Republic. How so? Forty-one senators determine what bills the Senate will take up through Rule 22, the cloture vote.
Cloture is a vote to end a filibuster, and under Senate rules, requires 60 votes. Any senator can ask for the cloture vote without even coming to the floor. You should not mistake this for “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington,” where Jimmy Stewart holds the floor and principally tries to persuade his colleagues. This has nothing to do with principle or policy and everything to do with power and politics.
Is that in the Constitution, you may ask? No. Nowhere in the Constitution does it say you need a super majority to take up House-passed bills. Beyond that, there is nothing in the Constitution that permits a filibuster to block majority rule. That, too, is a rule of the Senate that has become weaponized against democracy.
Opinion
Weekly
Perspective on the week’s biggest stories from the Courant’s Opinion page
To be fair, both parties, Republicans and Democrats, have utilized the cloture vote to control the floor and block legislation. It has been used not to improve, amend or pause legislation, but to kill the will of the American people.
Most recently, the negative effects of the filibuster have been compounded by devastating Supreme Court rulings. How is it that in the Senate it only takes 51 votes to confirm three conservative Supreme Court Justices, yet requires 60 votes to safeguard women’s reproductive rights, pass universal background checks on gun purchases and protect the right to vote for all Americans?
If you want to know why things are not getting done in Washington, you need look no further than this unconstitutional rule allowing a minority of senators to block the people’s will. At John Lewis’ funeral, former President Barack Obama lamented that the filibuster needs to go.
With all the threats that we are facing: a global pandemic, Russia, China and foreign and domestic terrorists attacking the very fabric of our democracy, it may shock people to know that over 400 bills representing ideas put forward by the people’s representatives have neither been heard nor voted on in the U.S. Senate.
The Founding Fathers were aware of the threat posed by consolidated power. They meticulously countered it by devising a system of checks and balances whose premise was to govern by majority rule. When asked what kind of government they had created, Benjamin Franklin responded with this warning: “a republic, if you can keep it.”
These are consequential…
Read More: Senate Rule 22 is the ‘Catch-22′ paralyzing our republic – Hartford Courant