The greatest deliberative body?

The Senate was established by the Founding Fathers as the chamber of Congress that would carefully deliberate on the business of the Republic, providing balance to the more brash "people's" House. In that vein, the Senate has prided itself on being "the greatest deliberative body in the world." The filibuster and, beginning in the twentieth century, the cloture vote have long been used in the Senate to ensure legislation was not ram-rodded through, to ensure everyone's voice was heard and considered.

Over the course of the twentieth century, however, these tools have been "reshaped" in the name of efficiency, civility, and streamlining debate that they remain in name only. Once upon a time, a senator or group of senators would have really had to talk continuously to stall a bill. The committed minority could prevent closure of debate so long as they kept talking, but once they stopped (whether they stopped due to compromise with the majority, or by sheer exhaustion), the business of the Senate could resume. Now all that is needed is the threat of a filibuster for a small minority to stall a bill they don't like. The so-called "gentleman's filibuster" seeks to retain the goal of the old-time filibuster while removing all the pain and unpleasantness. After all, why should anyone be inconvenienced by all-night sessions or risk their health by talking themselves to exhaustion?

In order to prevent the minority from completely abusing the filibuster, the Senate in the 1960's lowered the bar on the number of senators needed to cut off debate to three-fifths (sixty of one-hundred). But even this is too high of a requirement for ordinary business. The filibuster and cloture vote are now used by minority parties (rarely does the majority have 60 or more Senate seats) to kill legislation it doesn't like. The intent was to slow legislation, not allow the minority to thwart the will of the majority.

The majority party colludes with the minority by withdrawing legislation that fails the cloture vote. This is right in line with, and indeed governed by, our "fast-food" culture - if we can't get something right now, we don't think it's worth working towards. Senators worry that the public will see them as wasting time if they are camped on one issue for weeks on end, but sometimes this is exactly what is called for. For compromise to work, it needs time, discomfort and close proximity to form and solidify. If a committed minority wants to stall legislation, they should have every right in the Senate to do so for as long as they can. But this means they are actively working - by talking through continuous, all-day, all-night, and all-weekend sessions - until they are no longer willing or able to do so. Then the Senate holds an up-or-down vote on the question at hand.

I was sympathetic to the Republicans' frustration over the Democrats' use of filibusters to stall the consideration of President Bush's judicial nominees back in 2005. But if the nuclear option was good then, why not now that the Democrats are the majority? But cloture votes and nuclear options would not be necessary if the Senate would simply make a filibuster a filibuster. If debate was allowed to take as long as it needed to play itself out, the Senate would once again be the world's greatest deliberative body.