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Since When Does The Minority Rule?

Thanks to the Senate rule requiring a 60-vote super-majority to get any bill to a vote, this country has become virtually ungovernable. Is it time ...

By Staff Writer | Updated on February 08, 2010
DonkeySmallThanks to the Senate rule requiring a 60-vote super-majority to get any bill to a vote, this country has become virtually ungovernable. Is it time to do away with, or at least modify the fillibuster rules that has brought the federal government to a political standstill?

Political satirist Jon Stewart joked on a recent “Daily Show” broadcast about how Scott Brown, the 41st member of the minority party in the U.S. Senate, had become the most powerful person in Washington when he was elected to take the seat long held by the liberal icon and health care reform champion, Ted Kennedy.

It’s actually no joke. Without that tenuous 60-vote super-majority, the Democrats are powerless to get any legislation passed–at least as long as the Republicans’ only policy is to “Just Say No” and refuse to go along with any Democratic initiative.

I know democracy does not necessarily mean majority rule–the fact that the U.S. Constitution gave equal votes to small states and large in the Senate is testimony to that.

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