Senator Al Franken and the Scary Supermajority

Does anyone else find it a wee bit disturbing how many of our elected officials end up in office because a court somewhere says that they won? Clearly, as we all discovered in the post 2000 election madness where finally the Supreme Court intervened to declare a winner, not every vote really does get counted. If your chad is hanging the wrong way or has a bad attitude, he definitely won’t be included in the final tally.

In another show of not every vote was counted so let’s take it to the courts, the Minnesota Supreme Court decided yesterday (6/30/09) that Democrat Al Franken won the Senate Election in Minnesota which actually took place eight months ago. Not exactly a quick turn-around in terms of election results. Not to mention that the Senate convened the 2009 session on January 6, meaning that Senator Franken has now missed out on six months of fun with the Senate.

So what’s with all the hubbub? Why do all the other 49 states give a hoot about what’s happening in Minnesota? Now, with the election of Franken, the Democrats have a supermajority in the Senate! (Does that mean all the Senate Democrats have to wear capes now?) The so-called “supermajority” gives the Democrats the power (60 votes) to block a filibuster as Senate rules call for 60 votes to end debate and move for a vote (otherwise known as cloture). (http://www.stltoday.com/stltoday/news/stories.nsf/nation/story/924E6F5D066C9BBE862575E600114957?OpenDocument)

On paper, yes, that sounds very scary. Should any party really have that much power? Until you consider the fact that there’s not really 60 Democrats in the Senate. Only 58 Senators are actually members of the Democratic Party. The other two, Sen. Barry Sanders (Ind-VT) and Sen. Joe Lieberman, (Ind-CT) are both independents who caucus (“meeting of members of a political party or subgroup to coordinate members’ actions, choose group policy, or nominate candidates for various offices.” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caucus.) with the Democrats. Of course, we also can’t forget Sen. Robert Byrd (D-WV) and Sen. Ed Kennedy (D-MA) who have both been in and out of the hospital and generally haven’t been able to spend much time in the Senate. Getting the 60 votes, or just getting all 60 Senators to be present could still be quite the challenge.

On the other hand, are filibusters even really that useful? A filibuster allows a senator to speak for however long he or she wants (or can in some cases if you don’t have a friend to hand off your filibuster to) on whatever topic he or she chooses. It’s not like it has to be related to the topic at hand. (If you haven’t seen “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington” I recommend you drop whatever you’re doing right now and watch it.)

Filibusters have always been part of the process and through the 1960s every Senate term averaged less than seven, the most famous filibuster of the 1960s was when the Southern Democrats filibustered for 75 hours to block the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Since then, you could say that the Senate has become filibuster-happy, with the record for most votes to end a filibuster hitting 112 votes by the 110th congress at the end of 2008. Call me crazy, but 112 filibusters seems like overkill, and like maybe the Senate could do something more productive with its time. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Filibuster_(legislative_tactic))