Senate Procedural Redux

An interesting matter here that comes from The Hill, stating that some of the liberal Democrats are getting antsy about the current situation in the Senate. I quote below:

In an apparent warning to Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus
(D-Mont.), some liberal Democrats have suggested a secret-ballot vote every two
years on whether or not to strip committee chairmen of their gavels.

Baucus, who is more conservative than most of the Democratic
Conference, has frustrated many of his liberal colleagues by negotiating for
weeks with Republicans over healthcare reform without producing a bill or even
much detail about the policies he is considering.
“Every two years the caucus
could have a secret ballot on whether a chairman should continue, yes or no,”
said Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa), the chairman of the Senate Agriculture Committee.
“If the ‘no’s win, [the chairman’s] out.

“I’ve heard it talked about before,” he added.

This procedural reform actually does not seem so radical. In fact, the House has this, and ocassionally exercises that even within the Democratic Caucus. This is how Rep. Henry Waxamn (D-CA-30) became Chair of the all powerful Committee of Energy and Commerce. I personally wanted old chair John Dingell to win (D-MI-15), but Waxman's performanc has more than pleased me.

Furthermore, at least on the House side, for now, the Democrats have kept in place the term limits on Committee Chairs which the Republicans instituted in 1994. I think again that such a move works well.

The Senate of course is a much weirder beast, and part of it too may arise from the old story of it serving as a cooling saucer. First, the Senate represents not people but the states. Looking back on the history of the insitution itself, the idea was that it is anti-democratic. State Legislatures used to elect Senators. We run treaties I think through the Senate because: a) the framers did not want the people to deal with foreign policy and b) we wanted a consensus of these sovereign entities called states to assent to something. I do not think this is a good idea, but it really underlies why the Senate operates to this day as a peculiar institution.

However, the Senate should make such reforms because Senators just serve longer, because they live longer. Also, it starts to centralize an institution that works in a highly decentralized manner. As pointed out earlier, leadership in the Senate is much weaker than in the House. However, 100 people or even a 40 member caucus can act in highly disparate ways. You then have a total coordination problem, which is something I think we see, at least on the Democratic side. Giving leadership and the caucus some check on Chairmanships would defintiely help in this regard. One should note that Republicans have not shied away from doing this. The former Republican Senior Senator from Pennsylvania, Arlen Specter, almost lost his gavel on the Judiciary Committee, because of his views on abortion.

The larger looming issue that could make a major change is the weird cloture procedures. I have essentially outlined that in a previous post. Prior to Robert Byrd's majority leadership, the Senate acted even slower than now. It required a 2/3 vote for cloture. With the growing realignment of parties, that made things difficult. So cloture changed to 3/5. However, you still have some of these matters that complicate everything.

Of course, cloture seems anti-Democratic, becuase it is. However, I want to restructure some aspects of it since cloture does seem like a weird Kabuki dance. One of the ideas behind cloture is to give more time for debate. I think that perhaps clotures should revise itself as follows. Perhaps a full cloture should act like a previous question motion in the House. Full cloture could end debate right then and there after it ripens and goes for a vote. However, should that fail, but the Senate in a majority choose to end debate, you could let that drag on for some long period of time that is finite with underlying amendments all requiring germaneness. Finally, if cloture utterly fails (less than 50) then you have the old fashioned filibuster, but that means the bill would have failed.

Also, perhaps ideas for certain motions, like the motion to proceed to consideration should not be debatable, and amendments have a more specified amount of time, like the 5 minute rule in the House. It could act as a 3 legislative day rule in the Senate.

I do not know. However, I think these things are worth thinking about in both an abstract but perhaps workable manner.

And I leave with Floyd Riddick's statement again, "the rules of the Senate are perfect, and if they change every one of them, the rules of the Senate will be perfect."