Archive for December, 2009
The Senate, but not the House, has a filibuster rule. If a minority of Senators do not like a bill they can deny the rest a vote. It takes 60 percent of Senators to close consideration and vote. This is true despite the fact that it only takes 51 votes to pass legislation. Why is this?
What are some of the effects of Senate special rules? First since it takes a “super majority” to vote to allow a bill to be debated and voted upon, legislation that the majority of Senators (or the majority of Americans) want may never even get a vote.
I have carefully researched the Constitution and discovered that nothing in that document requires that the Senate have a “super majority” for anything other than overriding vetoes, amending the Constitution or Impeaching Federal officials.
How has the Senate become a barrier to legislation? Seems that the problem is their own rules – rules it invented itself. So, think about it Why would any Senator want to deny action on major legislation?
These actions give each individual senator a lot of power. This is power never intended in the constitution. This is power that attracts big money from special interest groups. This is the power that provides many thousands of dollars of “donations” to Senators who will agree to use the power to support the interests of big business, big banks, or big healthcare companies.
These special rules explain why our Congress accomplishes so little. Do most senators serve the people that elected them? I think not. I think that most senators serve the people who pay them – big businesses, big labor, big healthcare companies, and big banks, and they hide behind their own rules to keep this power. The “rules” have become more important than the people’s business.
I am embarrassesd for our nation that the Senate of the United States has reached such a low point in morality.