In further discussion of our broken Senate, David Frum dissents, arguing that the 111th Congress has passed quite a bit of legislation, and that it’s not "'obstructionism' for the Senate to decline to act like the British House of Commons, enacting whatever it pleases the chief executive to propose." But that elides the point: It's not the Senate that's declining to enact legislation. On many issues, a clear majority of senators displayed support for legislation that wasn't passed because a minority of senators prevented a vote from occurring. To put the point more finely, there is a difference between a recalcitrant Senate majority disagreeing with the president and a minority using procedural high jinks to gum up the process.
That's not even to mention the hundreds of stalled executive-branch and judicial nominations, the failure of Congress to pass a proper budget resolution this year, and the fact that many appropriations bills needed to run the government won't be passed until the fall. Even more than that, this is about bang for your tax-payer buck: Even if you don't agree with the agenda before Congress, you should expect your legislators to do their jobs, and there are plenty of pressing issues for them to work on. One large reason they haven't resolved many of them is the incredible time-wasting we've seen this year from constant filibustering, which often happens more than once per item of legislation.
Even more curious is Frum's argument that the Senate should slavishly follow public opinion. As James Madison wrote, "The use of the Senate is to consist in proceeding with more coolness, with more system, and with more wisdom, than the popular branch." With its six-year terms, the Senate is designed to be further removed from the politicized firestorms of the moment. But it seems clear the procedural rules have allowed petty politics to triumph over policy-making.
-- Tim Fernholz
