Editor's Note: The following article contains materials gathered over a period of time and therefore, represents a diary of the events as well as an analysis of the filibuster.

Child's' Play in the Senate

Tit for Tat

President Clinton's Economic Stimulus Package is in trouble in the Senate. All 43 Republican Senators have colluded to filibuster the bill and without the 60 votes necessary to stop the filibuster the 57 Democrats can not move the bill. The word filibuster in the sense of a Senate filibuster enters the language in 1883, (Oxford English Dictionary).

It seems that when the bill was being considered in the Senate Appropriations Committee, the Chairman Robert C. Byrd (D) West Virginia, invoked an obscure rule prohibiting any amendments to the bill. He in essence told the 43 Republicans in the Senate take it or leave it. Robert C. Byrd's hardball tactic, invoked a hard ball response from the Republicans. If they—the Republicans—can not offer amendments to the bill and have them considered fairly and honestly then no bill—filibuster. Robert C. Byrd invoked his rule because of the Republicans' supposed intention to "amend the bill to death."

The House of Representatives is the people's House. The representatives are elected to represent the people. The House is the only "democratic" (republican) institution of our Federal Government. The House has already passed the stimulus package.

The Senate represents the States—not We the People. The Senate was added to our Constitution to give the small States a voice equal to the large States in the Federal Government. There was a fear that if the legislature were established solely upon the basis of population that the States large in population, would dominate everything. Originally the Senators were elected by the State legislatures to represent the States. It was thought that the best minds in each of the States would be sent to Washington to represent the States and that the Senate would become an august debating body where the best minds debated the tough questions of the day. The Senate would be the sea anchor of the ship of state. The 17th Amendment to the Constitution, adopted in May 31, 1913, provides for the popular election of Senators. The Senators stand for election every six years, as opposed to every two years for the House and even then only 1/3 of the Senators stand for election at any one time whereas the entire House is elected every two years.

Why would the members of the most exclusive debating society on Earth want to rely on extreme dilatory parliamentary tactics to defeat a bill when debating the bill on its merits and voting up or down would seem to be the way of the world's greatest debating society? The filibuster is permitted by rule XXII of the Senate where even a wilful minority if one can not be thwarted by the majority. The Senate is also a place where very influential men, for the most part, can exercise legislative power to satisfy the needs of powerful interests that are not necessarily the people's interests. We have already said the Senate is not representative of the people but of the States.

The Senate itself was created to give the States, large and small, a forum in which they would have an equal voice and a concurring vote in the passage of legislation. It was not created to give the States veto power over the Federal government. The veto was given to the president in the Constitution. There his abundant evidence that the Senate has over the years represented special interests. The late Senator John Bricker Republican of Ohio used to say, "If I don't represent the railroads in the Senate who will?" And we see this over and over again, for instance in the use, of the public domain.

President Clinton wanted to apply fair market value to the utilization of resources of the public domain. Remember, now, the public domain represents the common wealth and each of us citizens sovereign has a right to an equal share of the common wealth. Democratic western Senators representing, not necessarily, the urban people of their respective states but the ranching, mining, and logging interests of the States have backed President Clinton off his program. Their threat is that he will lose the Senate in 1996 if the apple cart is jostled. What they say may be true, there is no reason to believe it is a hollow threat. We are not talking about the people who live in the urban areas of those States or the people at large. We are talking about relatively few people, who contribute to political campaigns and who now enjoy the largess of the Federal government in subsidizing their industries.

The Western States' use of the public domain is an industrial welfare program wand it is a disgrace. It flies in the face of the fact that all the people have a right to an equal share of the resources of the public domain. Why did we do it in the first place? Well there was the vast under developed West and we the people through the Federal government, with taxes from all the people, built roads, dams, power lines, logging roads, irrigation works and water delivery systems, and even towns, to get the West going. We sell water so cheap it does not cover the cost of delivery and we sell lumber so cheap that the lumber cut does not sell for what it cost the Federal government to build the road to get the lumber out. We give away Federal land for $2.50 an acre when a miner perfects a claim and in many cases the land on the open market would be more valuable than the mineral discovered. We collect no royalties on valuable hard rock minerals, like gold, removed from the public domain.

President Clinton was trying to say, enough is enough, but the United States Senate is too potent a force not to reckon with. These Western States have the most fiercely independent welfare dependent people on Earth, living on welfare from the public domain—the common wealth.

When a female opossum gives birth, the young, as with all marsupials, are very small. They are so small and weak that they can not fend for themselves even to find a nipple to suckle. The mother possum places the young one each on her teat's which then swells in the youngster's mouth, swelling to the extent that the young can not let loose even if it wanted to. The young stays thusly attached until it can fend for itself. In the marsupial economy of the West, the western Senators are not ready for their clients to let loose the Federal largess, even if the States as a whole have been ready for decades, especially since the States collect near market value for resources taken from State land and private owners get even more.

The members of the United States Senate are elected by the voters of their respective States and in several instances the State has more Senators than it has Representatives. Alaska, Delaware, Montana, N. Dakota, S. Dakota, Vermont, and Wyoming have more Senators than Representatives. Hawaii, Idaho, Maine, Nevada, and Rhode Island have equal numbers of Senators and Representatives: Seven western States with 14 Senators (out of 100) have enough clout because of their Senate membership to dominate western natural resource issues at the Federal level. The nine Representatives of those seven States must vie for position with 426 other Representatives. The family of Senator Max Baucus, (D, MT), holds leases for 80,000 acres of Federal grazing land. For people who can not handle large numbers, the 80,000 acres translates into 125 square miles. The spread is run by his brother. Senator Baucus talked President Clinton out of his budget proposal to raise the fees for grazing on the public lands to market value. Senator Baucus' actions taken as a U. S. Senator, which directly benefit his family, should be unethical and a violation of Federal law.

Another antidemocratic abuse of the Senate is the use of Senatorial courtesy, to defer non-Constitutional powers on Senators over Federal property matters in the Senators' State. The Senate, as a whole, defers to the Senators of specific States when a Federal matter arises in the Senator's State. A flagrant abuse of Senatorial courtesy occurred when the Senate as a whole deferred to Senator Ted Stevens on the matter of national (Federal) interest lands in Alaska. Because of Senatorial courtesy, Senator Stevens was able to put a hold on all Senate action affecting the Federal estate in Alaska. Now Senator Stevens was elected to represent the State of Alaskan in the Senate. He was elected to represent the Federal interest in Alaska only as one member of the 100 member Senate and the 435 member House of Representatives, because the Constitution says under the property clause that the Congress shall determine the use and status of Federal lands. Senatorial courtesy, in the case of Senator Stevens, was in the class of a filibuster, but, without parliamentary process. Senatorial courtesy, in the case of Senator Stevens, abrogated the Constitution on the matter of the public domain and President Carter had to resort to his authority to create national monuments, to get action on the Federal land in Alaska. It is not right for a senator to be granted the veto authority over decisions affecting the public domain in his State when it is a matter for the Congress as a whole. Senatorial courtesy, in this case, abrogated the rights of the citizens sovereign to the unalienable right of an equal share of the common wealth. The citizens sovereign should arouse themselves and speak out loudly, and as often as required, to express their contempt for such behavior against them.

The filibuster is an obstructionist abuse of the legislative process. It delayed civil rights legislation for decades. The filibuster is used to promote narrow, regional, partisan, sectarian issues. I know of no basic rights that have been saved by filibuster. I know of many basic rights that were won after a filibuster was defeated.

President Clinton's stimulus package is not going to make or break his basic economic program. His stimulus package is a short term solution for a short term problem—get the economy going faster than its now going. The change of administrations has already done more for the economy than his short term, stimulus program will. A loss for the President is a loss, however, and any compromise he has to make to maintain his effectiveness he has to make.

The criticism that the stimulus package contains money for swimming pools and other recreational activities is completely spurious and not just because the Senators have a luxurious swimming pool. Bill Clinton's swimming pools would come out of Community Block Grants, a program initiated by Richard Nixon. But the Federal government also has a fund called the Land and Water Conservation Fund, that comprises income from the public domain, mostly in the form of royalties from off shore oil production. That money is not tax money. It is income from the public domain which is the common wealth. The Land and Water Conservation Fund is supposed to provide money for public recreation, buying new Federal parks and forests, and State parks and forest. Secretary of the Interior Rogers C.B. Morton said the fund was changing non-renewable resources (oil) renewable resources (park lands) and was a proper use of the money. Congress has to appropriate Land and Water Conservation funds. The Reagan and Bush administrations put the money against the unneeded public debt, an utter disgrace. That money represents capital assets of the United States and to squander it like tax money is criminal. The income from the public domain should be dedicated to the common benefit of the people of the United States. Ideally it should be placed in trust funds, like the American Heritage Trust that had the support of half the House but was never passed. The income from these trusts should be appropriated for recreation purposes. I can't think of a better way to do that than to provide recreational facilities for the people of the United States, most of whom live in cities. The money should be used to buy land for parks, State and Federal and should be used for capital improvement of recreational facilities where ever they are found. Recreation for a strife torn, poverty stricken urban population that has suffered 12 years of deprivation from its Federal government is not a frill. Its a survival strategy for the nation.

The Senate has not lived up to its billing as a responsible legislative organ that can bring cool dispassionate debate to bear on important national issues. That is now happening in the House, the legislative branch, that was thought to be hot with passion because of its closeness to the people. It seems being close to people is a better recipe for responsibility than to be aloof in the worlds most exclusive debating society where passionate hot heads in the past caned each other, and where the hot heads today resort to the filibuster.

Both sides of the Senate have change. Both sides have to become more responsible. Was Senator Byrd justified in foreclosing amendments if he thought the bill would be amended to death? Did the Republicans really intend to amend the bill to death? Was it a matter of principle? The United States Senate has to abandon its antidemocratic, dilatory practices and start acting like it is part of a republic.

How much of gridlock and bickering can we as a nation tolerate before the country is irrevocably lost to debt and poverty. Reaganomics was not a trickle down theory of economics where according to the Lafer curve more taxes would be generated with tax cuts. Reaganomics was not supply side economics. Reaganomics was a hidden-agenda-economic-neutron bomb, it didn't harm the built environment, it devastated only the people. It transferred 7.3 trillion dollars from the upper, middle, and lower classes to the very, very, super-rich. It left the upper class with little or no gain during the 80s, wreaked havoc with the middle class and spread poverty, and homelessness throughout the land. (Estimated homeless on any given night: 500,000 to 600,000, homeless families 125,000 to 150,000.) It left unemployment and shattered businesses (consumer electronics, automotive, machine tool, et al) behind it. It left a national debt and structural unemployment that will be the controlling influence in any discussion of Federal policy for decades to come. It is depleting the Social Security Trust Fund to operate the government, an other hidden agenda time bomb Reagan et al have left for the baby boomers and in which Clinton is following suit. Was this an accident? I think not. House Speaker Tom Foley in a recent TV broadcast related that President Reagan met with the House leadership early in his presidency and told them candidly that he did not come to Washington to control or reduce Federal spending, as a matter of fact he said that in each year of his presidency he would bring a Federal budget bigger than the last one and that is what he did. Do we want a return to Reaganomics? I hope not.

Are the Senate Republicans and conservative Democrats now going to preach fiscal responsibility after their party (with the help of Democrats like Dan Rostenkowski) added some 4.4 trillion dollars to the national debt? President Clinton's plan is not the best one. It may not even be a good one. Even Clinton's budgets will add about a trillion dollars to the debt in his four year term, however, it's the only game in town with the arrow pointing out of the financial morass we're in. Gridlock is hardly a responsible adult behavior.

President Clinton has enough support in the Senate that, should he choose to push the issue, he with the help of 50 Democratic Senators and the Vice President, acting as the President of the Senate, could relegate the filibuster to the history books. In an article in the Washington Post for April 19, 1993, Lloyd Cutler former counselor to President Jimmy Carter outlines a simple process for eliminating the filibuster. His claim is that the filibuster is unconstitutional. His reason: The Constitution spells out all the instances where a super majority vote is needed to carry a motion, (advice and consent on a treaty, guilty verdict on impeachment, expelling a member, overriding a presidential veto, proposing a constitutional amendment). The filibuster is not one of them. It is obvious that the filibuster is a gimmick, a device to thwart the will of the majority that has no basis in the Constitution or constitutional law. Cutler's recommendation: Move to abolish the filibuster. (Abolish Senate Rule XXII and substitute a call for the previous motion.), When the motion to abolish the filibuster is filibustered, 50 Senators, plus the President of the Senate to make fifty one, vote to carry the motion. The Vice President as President of the Senate declares the motion carried. Why include the President of the Senate? Because the filibuster prevents him from voting (to break a tie) by requiring a super majority vote. The matter would be taken to the Supreme Court where Cutler thinks, the Court would either declare the filibuster-unconstitutional or determine that the question is "political," and best handled by the legislative branch. End the filibuster once and for all and restore the Senate to some semblance of democratic principles. It is bad enough for a small group of Senators to have extraordinary power in the world's greatest debating society, it is another thing for them have a prior restraint veto power that the Constitution does not give them. Senate courtly manners and mores notwithstanding, the filibuster is not good, just, or right in a republic with democratic principles. The Senate Republicans should take their case to the people, rather than use a parliamentary gimmick to run the ship of state aground.

We the People have been lied to for so long that it would be a refreshing change if the two political parties started telling the American people the truth. "Is it," as Senator Phil Gramm (R) Texas, said a few years ago, "not a fight over the budget, but over two very different kinds of government, one with more spending, the other with more opportunity?" (Tax and spend Federalism v borrow and spend State's Rightism—Anti-federalism.) Are we still fighting over State's Rights vs Federalism? Are the Republicans the Antifederalists and the Democrats the Federalists? If so it is a role reversal as I pointed out in The Federalists and the Anti-federalists, We the People, Vol 5 No. 3, 1991. Let's air out the hidden agendas and not play charades in the Senate. Tit for tat is child's play. The American people, the citizens sovereign deserve more than that from the world's most elite debating society.

...Ted Sudia...

Editor's note: The senate Democrats could not muster 60 votes to invoke cloture and the President's package lost. The Republicans are promising more of the Same.

© Copyright 1993
Institute for domestic Tranquility